Introduction
As a young child I developed an aspiration to protect the environment, sparked in no small part by my older brother's own ambitions. I fondly remember depositing spare change in the save-the-rainforest parking meter at the Nature Company, reporting on Rachel Carson's influence on the modern environmental movement, and cleaning up local parks with my high school's Environmental Club. My childhood aspiration blossomed into a lifelong commitment to environmental sustainability. My passions now span the gamut of environmental sustainability: ameliorating all forms of pollution, conserving and restoring natural habitat and wildlife, developing sustainably and efficiently, reducing consumption and diverting waste, and, of course, mitigating and adapting to climate change. The last passion has become my most urgent priority; fortunately, climate action possesses the capacity to address all of my other passions.
My family and I moved to Louisville, Colorado shortly before the coronavirus pandemic. Besides its proximity to my wife's new job and its appealing small-town character, Louisville attracted us as a community in which we could maintain our commitment to environmental sustainability. While researching communities in the region, we noted Louisville's walkable downtown, bikeable streets and paths, open spaces and parks, seasonal farmers' market, soon-to-be railroad quiet zones, and curbside composting (a must!). On our first day in Louisville, we stopped at Sweet Cow, where I took the availability of vegan ice cream served in compostable cups as a sign that we had made the right choice.
I soon discovered that Louisville's commitment to environmental sustainability runs considerably deeper than I had initially surmised. For instance, City Council maintains a longstanding Sustainability Advisory Board, City Council adopted goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions, the City developed a Sustainability Action Plan, the City runs a Green Business Program, residents voted to impose a City-wide single-use bag tax, the City was the first Colorado municipality to adopt the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code, City staff are actively working towards municipal decarbonization, and a handful of citizen groups actively advocate for and educate about environmental sustainability. Still, there remains much more that our community could and must do to advance environmental sustainability, most especially to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Before relocating to Louisville, my commitment to environmental sustainability primarily took the form of making personal choices intended to protect the environment and supporting organizations devoted to safeguarding our planet. I have subsequently become a much more active champion of environmental sustainability. Three reasons principally motivated this change. First, with my family and I making Louisville our permanent home, I finally feel fully invested in the community in which I live. Second, as the father of two young girls, I am personally responsible for ensuring that my daughters have a healthy, safe environment in which to not only live, but also thrive. Third, decades of insufficient action to tackle global warming have left us in the midst of a climate crisis.
After living in Louisville for one year, I became a member of the Sustainability Advisory Board. When I applied for this position, I identified my first priority as enshrining consideration of environmental sustainability in all City decision making. I did not expect to realize this priority in the short term, and, indeed, I cannot claim to have made much progress towards this goal. Fortunately, City Council broadly recognizes the importance of environmental sustainability. Still, I continue to strive for this goal, in part, by injecting considerations of environmental sustainability into as many of the City's discussions as possible through my frequent comments at City Council, board, and commission meetings. This blog represents another means to inject considerations of environmental sustainability into our community's discussions.
My blog entries will be largely premised on the established scientific consensus that humanity must act immediately and significantly to prevent the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change. This consensus, forged through decades of scientific research, is presented in many places, most notably, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment. I highly recommend reading at least the press releases for the Sixth Assessment's three parts (part 1, part 2, part 3). For the most part I will not directly engage with the scientific evidence for this consensus, but, as far as possible, I will base my blogs on the scientific evidence motivating environmentally sustainable actions. This consensus forms the foundation for humanity's moral and ethical mandate to act. As residents of a relatively wealthy city in the nation responsible for the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, we possess an outsized responsibility to act.
I intend for this blog not to be political. For instance, I will not endorse political parties or candidates, but I will almost certainly engage with the positions of political parties or candidates. I do not consider environmental sustainability to be a political topic; quite the contrary, environmental sustainability is fundamentally concerned with ensuring a livable future for all of Earth's inhabitants. I will almost certainly consider issues other than environmental sustainability. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own; they do not necessarily represent those of the City of Louisville or its Sustainability Advisory Board.
