It’s time for a North Carolina Clean Power Plan (NC CPP) tied to TrillionthTonne.org metrics. While policies like a national fee and dividend carbon tax will have great benefits for cities like Asheville, the 2015 encyclical of Pope Francis gives a powerful rebuke to elected officials who don’t understand sustainability.
When we hear the term ‘global warming’, I want to emphasize the critical issue of avoiding a 3.6 F increase in average global temperature is about avoiding key risks like abrupt climate change factors and negative feedback loops within our essential climate variables. While the recent EPA risk analysis Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action seems modest in terms of total climate change threats, folks should know about it. Southeast cities like Asheville are now and will continue to be affected by the multitude risks of human-caused climate change… unless we all take decisive action.
We are making progress in developing solutions that cut our local carbon emissions and we have assets like the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) located in Asheville. We can and should develop our sustainability capabilities to a far greater degree. I look forward to sharing my NC CPP solution that takes the Asheville Community Energy Plan further.