Activists demonstrating against climate change
by Doug Clopp

Climate change is having a profound impact on our nation and the world. 2020 was the second hottest year on our planet ever recorded.  According to the National Centers for Environmental Information Global Climate Report released in May, it’s very likely that 2021 will rank among the ten hottest years on record. Global warming is dangerously close to spiraling out of control, a U.N. climate panel said in a landmark report this month warning the world is already certain to face further climate disruptions for decades, if not centuries, to come.

This month the United Nations released a report from the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its findings are dire. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres described the report as a “code red for humanity”. “The alarm bells are deafening. This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet,” he stated.

The report says fossil fuel emissions have already pushed the average global temperature up 1.1°C from its pre-industrial average—and would have raised it 0.5°C further without the tempering effect of pollution in the atmosphere. It also states that humans are “unequivocally” to blame.

The global impact is evident with massive flooding in Europe, Africa, and India. Wildfires are raging across the world. In Siberia, where they were virtually unheard of, wildfires have scorched tens of thousands of acres threatening the release of massive amounts of carbon dioxide that has been sequestered for millions of years. A fast moving fire wiped out an entire town in British Columbia, Canada.

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions and an increase in the number, duration and intensity of tropical storms. Credit: Left – Mellimage/Shutterstock.com, center – Montree Hanlue/Shutterstock.com.

In June, Portland, Oregon hit 116 degrees. Yes, you read that right, 116 degrees in Portland, Oregon. In California, wildfires are raging again, as the drought in the West shows no signs of abating. At the same time on the East coast, 44 million Americans were under heat alerts that stretched from Delaware to Maine. Boston had its hottest June on record. On June 29, Boston hit 100 degrees. Between 1895 and 2011, the average temperature in the Northeast increased 2 degrees Fahrenheit, making it one of the fastest warming regions in the nation. In the last decade, Maine’s Casco Bay, part of the Gulf of Maine, a body of water that extends from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, has warmed faster than 99% of the global ocean. 

We know what causes climate change—we do. According to NASA, carbon dioxide levels have increased by over 50 percent since the Industrial Revolution began 250 years ago, while the level of methane has more than doubled. This has warmed the Earth by about 1 degree Celsius since this period. 

Co-ops Can Make a Difference

So what are cooperatives and their members doing to address this problem? The answer is, a lot, because we can. Cooperatives have a global presence and with that, a global reach. There are three million cooperatives in the world with a combined membership of one billion people—that’s 12% of humanity.

Because we are member-owned and democratically governed, sharing a principled concern for the well-being of people and the world in which we live, the global cooperative movement can have a tremendous impact in addressing climate change by demanding that our co-ops adopt clean energy solutions for the energy we consume. 

Recognizing the crisis we are in, the International Cooperative Alliance made the theme of the 2020 International Day of Cooperatives – Cooperatives for Climate Action and pushed cooperatives and their members world-wide to actively engage in addressing climate change. 

“Our common home is in danger. There are methods of production and consumption that are constantly attacking the environment. We don’t have much time to reverse this situation. We must act now, with our values and principles, to demonstrate on a global scale that it is possible to develop an economy with social inclusion and protection of natural resources,” said Ariel Guarco, President of the International Cooperative Alliance.

In a cooperative, members matter, and so does the size of our movement in all sectors of our economy. Did you know that 30% of Americans get their power from rural electric co-ops, and many of their members are doing their part to push their co-ops to cleaner portfolios? The Kit Carson Electric Co-op is a great example of how rural electric co-ops are doing their part to combat climate change and to push for clean energy alternatives. The Co-op, with 23,000 electric members, is committed to achieving 100% daytime solar power for its members. See Kit Carson Electric Co-op’s commitment to cooperative solar.

In North Carolina, Roanoke Electric Co-op is committed to working with co-ops across the state to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, with a set benchmark of achieving a 50% reduction by 2030. They are offering innovative programs such as the use of web-based  “smart technology” to help members manage their electricity use, especially during peak hours. Roanoke is also offering a pilot program that offers member-owners a discounted rate for charging their electric vehicles and will assist with installing a home charging station. Member-owners pay a flat fee of $50 per month for up to 450 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per month and a new home charging station, valued at $1,700. The North Arkansas Electric Co-op, utilizing funding from the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program, is offering its members a loan program that will provide low-cost financing to its members to access energy efficiency upgrades including new insulation, new windows, and energy efficient heat pumps. 

Food co-ops are also responding to climate change in a manner that their members expect. City Market/Onion River Co-op  in Burlington, Vermont has aggressively reduced the impact of refrigerants in their stores with state of the art refrigeration units that utilize carbon dioxide as a refrigerant—thousands of times less environmentally destructive than other refrigerants. The Community Food Co-op in Bellingham, Washington uses a combination of solar panels and renewable energy credits (RECs) to supply 100% of their energy, with a 2% surplus that goes back “into the grid” for their community to use. 

Learn more and take action

Cooperatives and their members are actively engaged in the fight against climate change. As members we have a say in the choices our co-op makes, and our movement is far bigger than we realize. If you are a member, please engage your cooperative to combat climate change by choosing clean energy options, installing solar panels on the roof of your food co-op, installing heat pumps, purchasing electric vehicles, and adopting internal policies that set real goals to lower your use of energy overall. If humans are unequivocally responsible for causing climate change, then we are unequivocally responsible for addressing it. Together we can make a difference. Our friends at TESA have just released a great resource that helps to understand what’s behind climate change and offers a tangible roadmap for what we can do to reduce, and possibly eliminate climate change drivers before the situation is truly irreversible. To access the report and the activities we can all take, click here: We Can’t Look Away: A Guide to Understanding Climate Change.

It’s Getting Hot in Here – How Co-ops are addressing Climate Change
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