Climate Change, Part 4: It’s All About the Straws, Isn’t It?

I have been writing off and on about Bill Gates’ October 2018 post regarding climate change. Initially, I was interested in what he had to say because I was surprised to find out how much of an impact manufacturing has on climate change. Previously, I didn’t draw a strong connection between sustainable building and climate change, but the more I researched what Gates wrote, the more I saw how much intersectionality there is within the world of sustainability. In fact, I was surprised to learn that what I thought I knew about climate change wasn’t necessarily the whole truth.

Previous blog posts in this series focused on the big three—manufacturing, agriculture, and electricity. Depending on what report you’re reading, these trade position and percentage of ownership in the climate change race, but they usually always hold the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd spots. What surprised me is that they beat out what I thought would be the front runner—transportation—which claimed spot 4 on Gates’ list. According to him, transportation only contributes 14% to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change; however, according to an article on the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, that number can hit as high as 27%. I thought with all the focus on CO2 emissions from cars and alternative transportation modes such as electric cars, bikes, mass transit, and carpooling, that transportation would take the top spot. Further, I thought the issue was basically cars, and I was wrong.

Read the entire post and join the discussion here: https://www.greence.com/Spec_Shaman/Climate-Change-Part-4