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I have a confession. When working from home, I almost always have a Diet Dr. Pepper bottle close at hand. I know, caffeine, fake sugar, throwaway plastic – check, check, check. You might think it’s doubly worse given that I spend my days addressing climate change as the vice president of policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts. But I’ve decided to give myself (and my climate anxiety) some grace.
As I manage my household, I strive to align my individual choices with my values. I always have a reuseable bag or three in my car. My house runs on heat pumps and LED lightbulbs. My kids carry reuseable water bottles as we walk to the library, trying to pull off a no-buy summer. (Sidenote: did you know you can check out board games and hedge trimmers from the library? Amazing.)
These choices help me feel like I’m making a difference in the climate my children will inherit — and they do make a difference. After all, 60% of global emissions can be tied back to household goods, so buying less is crucial. But you can easily drive yourself crazy working to squeeze your carbon footprint as small as it can go. And, ultimately, as an individual, it’s nowhere near enough.
The whole concept of the personal carbon footprint was invented by oil company BP to shift the blame from their industry to our choices. They say, don’t worry about the corporate giants paying very little taxes, upping their extraction in increasingly sensitive areas and actively fighting climate legislation. Instead, worry about yourself and the straw in your coffee cup. Pay no mind that the oil, gas and coal industries are underreporting emissions of methane, the driver of 30% of the rise in global temperatures, by an estimated 70%, according to the International Energy Administration.
The whole concept of the personal carbon footprint was invented by oil company BP to shift the blame from their industry to our choices.
The climate crisis is ultimately a systemic problem, bolstered by our laws and economic forces. So, it demands systemic solutions. Rather than seeing the scale of the crisis as another source of anxiety, I choose to take comfort in the fact that my occasional plastic Diet Dr. Pepper bottles didn’t get us here — but all of us working together can get us out. It’s crucial that we take collective action at key moments — like right now, in fact.
Climate policy wonks, like me, and the government, know how to effectively slash our greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge is mustering the political will to get it done. Formal legislative sessions in Massachusetts run for 18 months every two years. But recently, climate legislation has only been finalized in the last few weeks of the session. That’s true this year as well: Two bills, the economic development bond bill — featuring $1B investment in climatetech — and the climate omnibus bill are working their ways through the House and Senate as I write this.
In Massachusetts, we are fortunate to have had game-changing state climate legislation passed in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2022. They set carbon emissions goals for our state to work toward net-zero emissions and catalyzed the growth of our clean energy sector.
We must keep that momentum going, and we have the chance with a climate omnibus bill that the Legislature is currently crafting. This legislation will include reforms to siting and permitting that strengthen community engagement and make it easier to build clean energy and grid infrastructure. It includes provisions that let gas companies provide customers with heating solutions like geothermal microdistricts, rather than expanding gas infrastructure and ratepayer costs by default. It will develop ways to ensure we hook up more clean energy onto our energy grid, including offshore wind, while keeping consumer costs affordable. It’ll even include an expansion to the state’s bottle deposit law, making it even easier for plastic bottles to find their way into recycling streams, rather than actual streams.
Well-crafted public policy can supercharge the impact of your own climate-conscious choices. Taking the MBTA commuter rail is an environmentally responsible action that will be made even cleaner (and possibly cheaper) when the trains are electric and powered by offshore wind.
Strong state incentives have pushed more individuals to transition to electric vehicles in Massachusetts, but EV use cannot fully take off until we have convenient and reliable charging networks where people live, work and travel.
Heat pump installations have jumped in the last two years with higher incentives from MassSave, but we need to pull additional policy levels to drive more workforce development and training to support the full scale of building electrification.
Individual consumers can only make choices as good as the frameworks available to them, which makes it even more important to raise our voices and make sure that good policy is in place.
The 2023-2024 legislative session ends on July 31, and we cannot let it end without passing robust climate legislation. Let your legislators know that their jobs aren’t done until they see the climate omnibus bill through the finish line. The next month is going to involve a lot of important sessions and late nights as the Environmental League of Massachusetts works to ensure these bills are the best they can be.
And, trust me, my Diet Dr. Pepper will keep me going through it.
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Amy Boyd Rabin Cognoscenti contributor
Amy Boyd Rabin is the vice president of policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts.
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