Tonko, millennials, look for solutions to climate change
A recent virtual forum on climate change and its solutions presented an expansive look at how the issue is seen at the federal level under a new administration and at the local level from a new generation of activists.
The March 31 event was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County in partnership with Sustainable Saratoga. It drew 65 residents to their home laptops and PCs.
The night’s main panelist was six term Congressman, Rep. Paul Tonko, D-Amsterdam. Tonko gave insight into the actions and goals of the Biden administration with regard to climate change and discussed his own committee work in support of those goals.
He was joined on the panel by three local students, two from Skidmore College and one from Saratoga Springs High School. All three have taken on initiatives directed at stopping or lessening climate change.
Reading from prepared notes Tonko gave an overview of Biden’s newly- released $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan as well as a number of the plan’s details, such as funding for electric vehicles, funding for domestic manufacturing, funds for water infrastructure, and funds for upgrades to the electric grid.
The Jobs Plan, Tonko said, is part of Biden’s Build Back Better commitment. He acknowledged the plan doesn’t go fast enough for him personally, but said he will work to see that it is as ambitions as politically possible and scientifically reinforced.
“It’s an opportunity that allows us to move forward by investing in programs that will put millions of Americans to work, work that will rebuild our roads and our bridges, water network, electric grid system, our broadband as a utility, and our buildings,” Tonko said.
From Biden’s plan Tonko moved on to his own role in Washington where is he is a member of three House Committees and chairman of the House Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change. As part of his remarks he gave an overview of the Clean Future Act which is coming out of his committee.
This act, he said, is the most comprehensive piece of climate legislation introduced in Congress in more than 10 years and maybe, in his view, ever.
“It includes many policies and programs such as the National Clean Electricity Plan which requires energy suppliers to supply 50 percent of clean energy to customers by 2023, investments in transportation electrification (EVs), and it provides rebates for the installation of electric vehicle infrastructure at work places, multifamily homes, and publicly accessible locations,” he said.
The bill also supports a Buy Clean program, invests in brown fields and superfund cleanups, establishes a national climate bank, and makes major investments in people and communities that have depended on fossil fuel.
Questions asked of Tonko once he concluded his remarks focused on the issues of a carbon fee law, burning plastics for energy, jobs for coal-dependent areas, and the inclusion of electric bikes and scooters in any rebate electric vehicle bill.
In summarizing the general feel in Washington, D.C. on climate change and its solutions he noted that the Biden administration is science and climate change-based; a position Tonko said he found “refreshing”. He added that private companies are also on board with finding solutions.
“As consumers are getting greener and greener by generations, companies are not dummies,” he said. “They know reducing the carbon footprint is the way to go.”
The panel’s three student activists picked up Tonko’s thread of the need for action on the issue and discussed what they, as the younger generation, have been doing in the way of advocacy, education, and research.
Saratoga Springs High School junior Lillian Olsen is the leader of the school’s climate action group and has helped organize events within the school as well as the community that are centered on the climate crisis.
Ruthann Richards is a Skidmore College Senior and environmental science major. She is the past president of Skidmore’s Environmental Action Club (EAC) and has interned with several organizations interested in urban planning including the Saratoga Springs City Planning Office.
Sylvana Szuhay is a Skidmore junior who interned last summer researching carbon soil storage for regenerative agriculture in Tennessee.
Olsen works with the group, Fridays for Future NY Capital Region, a youth-led grassroots movement in support of climate legislation and composed of chapter on all seven continents.
“In the past we have led strikes, been involved with New York youth climate leaders, participated in virtual lobbying events, held virtual educational events, mobilized workers strikes in the Capital Region, and participated on bills to end the investment of the New York’s pension fund in the fossil fuel industry,” she said.
Getting even more local, Olsen said the group is presently working with the administration of Saratoga Springs on a recycling initiative for the city’s downtown area.
Richards said the EAC was established on the Skidmore campus to engage the college community in sustainability issues. Members work from an ecological, social, and economic perspective on campus, and at local, regional, national and global levels.
To make an impact on the campus and in downtown Saratoga Springs the group holds an annual March for Science. The 2017 march on campus helped get the college administration to reduce a sprawling one story building to a two story building. The re-design saved a wooded commons area on campus. The EAC also holds the educational and entertaining event, Haunted Northwoods each Halloween.
Szuhay has been working on a project for the past year to as
sess soil carbon on agricultural lands to show that land can compete in carbon markets (credits for private companies) with trees and forests.
She interned in the summer and fall on the Caney Fork Farm in Tennessee working at developing low-cost soil carbon sampling tools, using them on the land, and sending the samples for testing in a lab to help determine ways of standardizing the soil’s organic carbon measurements.
The Caney Fork Farm is the family farm of former Vice President Al Gore and uses land management practices focused on restoring natural eco-systems, soil health, and increasing soil carbon.
“The goal is to determine if we can shift agriculture from being a climate problem to a climate solution,” Szuhay said.