Copy

The Climate Activist is brought to you by the Climate Emergency Mobilization Team. For more information about the team, please click here.


This newsletter supports local climate activists in their efforts to reduce climate warming emissions and increase carbon sequestration. It also features actions taken by climate activists across the country who are making the transformational changes needed to restore a safe and stable climate.

Register now for virtual event


Frustrated by the rate of progress in addressing climate change? Looking for additional avenues to explore? Join us as the Climate Emergency Mobilization Team hosts the virtual presentation: The Role and Opportunities of Faith-based Approaches to the Environment and Climate Change.


Guest speakers Dr. Erin Lothes and Dr. Pankaj Jain, representing Catholicism and Jainism, respectively, will discuss how believers from different faith traditions share  responsibility for caring for the Earth. Speakers representing additional faiths will be featured in future webinars.


Please join us on Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 1:00pm PT/4:00pm ET. Sign up by completing this Registration Form.


Banks continue financing fossil-fuel companies


Even as global warming strikes harder through extreme weather and higher temperatures – with 2023 likely to go down as the hottest recorded year yet – U.S. banks and the U.S. government continue to support the growth of the fossil-fuel industry, both domestically and worldwide. The unwillingness of corporate and government leaders to recognize the importance of rising temperatures is breathtaking. To not take to heart the words of climate scientist Friederike Otto is remarkable: “This is not a fancy weather statistic. It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. It destroys assets, infrastructure, harvest.”


The Sierra Club published a report in August 2023 analyzing the financing of companies responsible for generating the highest amounts of soot pollution from their coal-fired power plants in the United States. In addition to causing thousands of deaths yearly, the soot contributes to global warming. None of these plants are slated currently to close this decade. The top 10 receive most of their funding from just six banks: Barclays, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo and Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFG). Collectively, these six banks have injected $83.8 billion into these companies since the Paris Agreement. The recipients and the magnitude of the financing is illustrated in this graph:

The situation is just as discouraging when looking globally at the funding made available to fossil-fuel companies from major banks. In 2023, the Sierra Club jointly issued with other organizations a report focused on the lending and underwriting activities of the top 60 banks worldwide. This report is available as a document together with an interactive version. It found that these banks have provided $5.5 trillion to fossil fuel companies since 2016. And once again, among the top banks are JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citi, as seen in the graph below. They have made funds available to such companies as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and the Saudi Arabian Oil Company.

Despite pledges taken by many of these institutions to decarbonize their financing, it is difficult to see progress in light of the billions of dollars going to the operation and expansion of fossil fuel firms, year after year. It is also hard to see when meaningful funding will be made available to renewable energy when only an estimated 7% of all energy financing is so directed.


Doing business with any of these banks? Perhaps it’s time to consider changing. This tool will help you find a bank that’s fossil free. Additional information for individuals looking to switch banks and for organizations considering the withdrawal of their investments from the fossil fuel industry is available in our Local Climate Actions Toolbox.

Reducing the “heat island” effect in cities

As global temperature increases, so does the “heat island” effect caused by paved surfaces in cities, making them hotter and less livable. On a sunny day, roofs and pavements can become up to 90°F hotter than the ambient air as they absorb energy from sunlight. The surfaces store this energy and then radiate it as heat — especially in the evening — increasing air temperatures from 2°-22°F in paved urban areas.


High air temperatures are uncomfortable, but also have known negative effects on health and air quality. Inside buildings, energy demand goes up as more air conditioning is used.


What local actions can be taken to cool cities?


Reducing heat absorption of surfaces

Light-colored surfaces are more reflective than dark surfaces so they absorb less energy and emit less heat. Some cities are experimenting with lighter-colored paving in order to directly reduce heat absorption and radiation. For an example, see the Reduce Heat Island Effect action in our Toolbox. This action reports on Los Angeles' Cool Streets program, where street surfaces painted with light gray paint were found to be 11-13°F cooler.


White or light-colored roofs reduce the energy needed to cool the building they cover, but modeling suggests they don't do much to cool the surrounding city air. Light-colored roofs are also not suitable for all climates since they reflect solar energy in the winter when it would help to warm the building. Green roofs (roofs covered with plants) work well to cool and insulate a building, but are expensive and need water and maintenance.


Planting vegetation — the best option!

Trees and other plants do not absorb and re-emit heat like man-made surfaces. Leaves actively use evapotranspiration to keep their temperature low and even cool the surrounding air. Plants are versatile in the ways they can be used to control temperature. Trees and vines can be located to shade surfaces like pavement and building walls so that they don't absorb as much sunlight. Deciduous trees let sunlight through in the winter so solar energy can warm buildings.


Thermal maps of Manhattan show what New York City residents already know — that Central Park and other vegetated areas are significantly cooler than other neighborhoods. Trees bring many other benefits to a city. They reduce energy demand, improve air quality, soak up CO2, shelter wildlife and enhance the quality of life for residents.


Heat island policies for cities

The Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has collected helpful information on urban heat islands and heat reduction strategies.  Policies, strategies and resolutions tried by a number of local and state governments are discussed in the EPA's Heat Island Compendium, Chapter 6. Here's another Toolbox action describing the Chicago Region Trees Initiative master plan.

Best practices for agrivoltaics land-use planning and regulations


With the growing acceptance and use of agrivoltaics — the co-location of solar energy installations and agriculture beneath or between rows of photovoltaic (PV) panels — careful planning is essential to successfully adopt and implement zoning regulations that reflect a community’s vision for its agricultural lands.

To guide policy and regulation development, numerous organizations have prepared guides that identify essential content, issues that should be addressed and model legislation.  For instance, the American Planning Association (APA) created its Solar@Scale guidebook to help local government planners, politicians and development professionals understand the land-use planning process for large-scale solar. The guidebook emphasizes the importance of engaging community stakeholders, as well as the importance of taking into account industry best practices. Simply installing PV on agricultural lands is not considered agrivoltaics. At a minimum, PV must be co-located with native vegetation or ground cover with a plan for continuous vegetation management.


Continue reading >>

Red state legislatures use preemption to stymie local climate change measures


Twenty states, almost all red, have barred local climate action measures by using the legal doctrine of preemption, which stipulates that a governing body may not enact a law conflicting with the law of a superior governing body.

This tool was successfully used by the cigarette industry, and the fossil fuel industry started using similar tactics when local laws aimed at decarbonization began cropping up in the 2010s. Today oil, gas and coal companies have spent billions on lobbying and campaign contributions. In the 2017-18 campaign cycle alone, the industry poured more than $350 million into lobbying and contributions. Much of this money is spent on state legislative candidates willing to vote for laws preempting local decarbonization measures.

Despite the fossil fuel industry’s advantage over the general public in campaign spending, the political landscape is not hopeless.  First, cities in states without climate preemption laws are free to continue exploring ways to decarbonize at the local level. And, individuals are free to make climate-friendly choices.


Continue reading >>

A nightmare on our streets — fighting the insidious gas powered leaf blower


Gas powered lawn care equipment (including leaf blowers and mowers) represents 29% of the nation’s carbon monoxide emissions, 12% of nitrogen oxide emissions, and 4% of carbon dioxide emissions. The extraordinarily high levels of greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change and are hazardous for the operator of the equipment and any passersby who breathe them in.

As of July, 2023, more than 200 towns and cities in the United States have enacted or plan to enact full or partial gas powered leaf blower bans, which will go into effect over the next few years.

Community members interested in leveraging this momentum by pursuing similar bans and restrictions in their communities should study the successes and failures that other groups have experienced. The surge in local advocacy groups has yielded an array of resources, as well as cautionary tales, for activists and policy makers who are interested in launching their own campaigns.


Continue reading >>

Rising temperatures and redlined neighborhoods


We know that urban areas are typically hotter than outlying areas because streets and rooftops absorb and emit more heat. And we understand that cooling can be achieved through expanded tree coverage and the addition of green spaces and water. But what do we know about why some neighborhoods have these amenities and others don’t? Is there a common factor behind the difference between a city’s coolest and warmest neighborhoods?


In 1933, the federal government responded to the Great Depression by creating many New Deal programs, including the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), to rescue home owners who were at risk of defaulting on their mortgages. As the HOLC decided whether to issue a new mortgage with a lower interest rate and longer repayment schedule, it hired local real estate agents to determine how risky the loan would be. One key consideration was the racial composition of the neighborhood. Color-coded maps were created for 239 cities, each reflecting four categories of risk: “A” for “Best;” “B” for “Still Desirable;” “C” for “Definitely Declining;” and “D” for “Hazardous.” The best neighborhoods were colored green. The most hazardous were colored red. A neighborhood was “redlined” if African Americans resided in it, effectively denying them access to sources of capital and credit. This policy of government sanctioned discrimination did not end until passage of the Fair Housing Act in 1968.  It resulted in continuing long-term economic inequality, with low-income minority populations living in redlined neighborhoods and high-income whites largely living in green neighborhoods.


A study published in 2020 examined whether the impact of this policy extended into differences in temperature for 108 of the HOLC mapped cities. It found that redlined neighborhoods showed a consistently higher temperature than non-redlined neighborhoods in 94% of these urban areas. An interactive map for all 108 cities was subsequently created.


One of these maps is for Wichita, Kansas, shown below in a screen capture. It shows the HOLC division of the land area (A, B, C, & D) overlaid by differences in temperature. The four boxes at the top of the map are updated with an area’s characteristics as different areas are selected. The map shows the selection of a neighborhood categorized as “D” – “Hazardous.” We can see that it is significantly warmer than the average for the city, +3.7 degrees C (5.5 F). And we can see the contributors: a built environment of hard surfaces comprising almost 65% of the land area; less than 10% tree cover; and a likely under-resourced minority population at close to 62%. In contrast, selecting an “A” neighborhood to the west (not shown) yields significantly different results:  a temperature 1.4 degrees C (3.2 F) below the city average; only 40.6% of the land consumed by hard surfaces; a quarter of the area shaded by trees; and about 80% of the population non-minority.


As cities look to address the impacts of a warming world, the tasks they face will be complicated by the legacy of segregated neighborhoods resulting not only from the policies of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation in 239 cities, but also by the discriminatory housing policies practiced in other cities. Infrastructure, buildings and spaces can’t be adapted to climate change without addressing past inequities or by favoring richer over poorer neighborhoods. To begin to address the many years of underinvestment in marginalized neighborhoods, the Federal government has created the Justice40 Initiative. This Initiative ensures that 40% of the benefits from investments available through both existing and new programs, including the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the American Rescue Plan, reach disadvantaged communities. The scope for investments includes climate change, energy efficiency and sustainable housing. The Initiative also includes the Department of Agriculture’s Urban and Community Forestry Program. This program provides grants to increase tree cover in urban areas and improve community access to nature.