Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information or to customize your cookie preferences.

Accept Deny

GoGreenNation news

Holiday Shopping Is Incredibly Wasteful. Here’s How to Make It Greener.

News Feed
Friday, December 20, 2024

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As the holidays quickly approach, the last-minute scramble to get presents for everyone on your list can be a bit of a guessing game. Will your mom like the blue or green mug? Does your brother wear a large or extra-large shirt? Will your partner actually use the coffee maker you’re thinking about ordering them?  The widespread ease and availability of online shopping presents a rather simple solution to these internal debates: Just buy every option and return the rejects later. In the United States, roughly 15 percent of purchases made during the holiday season are returned.  However, free returns can come at a high environmental cost. Research shows the transportation and processing associated with sending a product back to the supplier jacks up its carbon footprint, and a slew of returns end up in landfills rather than back on the market.  In the face of this online shopping frenzy, experts have called on companies in recent years to modify both their online shopping experiences and “reverse supply chains” to reduce emissions—and they’re urging consumers to rethink gift-giving.  Return shipments in the US last year generated the equivalent carbon emissions of almost 3.5 million gas-powered cars. A few psychological factors fuel the online shopping craze during the holiday season. Research shows that social media and extravagant advertisements, like those shown around Christmas, can trigger feelings of social comparison that may lead “people towards excessive consumption in an attempt to compensate for emotional dissatisfaction,” Byungdoo Kim, a research associate at the Centre for Sustainable Business at King’s College London, wrote in a recent post.  Also adding to the shopping drive: Limited-time deals and seasonal sales tap into individuals’ fear of missing out (otherwise known as FOMO) and push them to make purchases they believe involve rare savings—a feeling that marketing campaigns are intentionally targeting, according to a 2016 study.  In many cases—most often when buying clothes—people will get multiple sizes or colors of an item to try them on and return the ones they do not like. Even “green consumers” who are aware of the environmental costs of online shopping increase consumption during the holiday season. This behavior is part of the reason that researchers estimate returns from online purchases are double to quadruple those in a physical store. A new report from the National Retail Federation projects that consumers will return around $890 billion worth of products in 2024.  While companies are increasingly streamlining their production lines to reduce carbon emissions before a product reaches the consumer, the carbon footprint of the “reverse supply chain” that occurs after a person returns an item is a bit of a black box, according to a 2021 comment published in the journal Nature Climate Change.  “Information for product returns related to online shopping supply chains, transport, routes and quantities is insufficient, making it difficult to monitor the carbon emissions of this process,” the paper’s authors wrote. “The true value of the environmental burden is thus unknown.”  Some studies suggest that inefficiencies and volume of returns can add up to over 30 percent of the carbon emissions of the initial deliveries. A 2023 report found that transporting returns generated more than 15 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually from the US alone. That’s equivalent to the carbon produced by almost 3.5 million gas-powered cars in a full year.  Often it is cheaper for companies to throw away a product than try to resell it, so much of this inventory is donated or ends up in landfills around the world. People in the US generate more waste in December than in any other month, CBS News reports.  Sales during Cyber Week—the deal-heavy shopping stint starting on Thanksgiving—reached record highs this November. An Adobe Analytics analysis of e-commerce throughout the five-day period revealed consumers spent a total of $13.3 billion on “Cyber Monday,” and online sales are expected to continue surging through the rest of the holiday season.  But returns are rarely as well-tracked, the 2021 comment finds. Businesses must improve product return data collection to get a better sense of the true emission burden associated with them, the authors write. They add that companies can reduce returns by improving a shopper’s experience with more detailed and specific descriptions of the product. “Companies should be transparent and realistic about qualities such as the aesthetics and performance of products to avoid false expectation,” the authors write.  Individuals can also help stem the flood of returns following the holiday season. According to sustainability experts, one of the simplest solutions is to make sure people actually want the gift you are planning to buy them through detailed wish lists.  “I’ve found that older family members are particularly resistant to this because it goes against their ideas about gift-giving,” Laura Wittig, co-founder of the conscious consumerism brand Brightly, told Fast Company in 2021. “But over time people get used to it and appreciate it.” Alternatively, people can eliminate the waste-filled return risk altogether by gifting experiences rather than products.  “Christmas doesn’t need to be defined by consumption to feel special,” Kim writes. “By making a few mindful and sustainable choices, we can fill our holidays with more meaning, joy, and connection.” 

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As the holidays quickly approach, the last-minute scramble to get presents for everyone on your list can be a bit of a guessing game. Will your mom like the blue or green mug? Does your brother wear a large […]

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

As the holidays quickly approach, the last-minute scramble to get presents for everyone on your list can be a bit of a guessing game. Will your mom like the blue or green mug? Does your brother wear a large or extra-large shirt? Will your partner actually use the coffee maker you’re thinking about ordering them? 

The widespread ease and availability of online shopping presents a rather simple solution to these internal debates: Just buy every option and return the rejects later. In the United States, roughly 15 percent of purchases made during the holiday season are returned. 

However, free returns can come at a high environmental cost. Research shows the transportation and processing associated with sending a product back to the supplier jacks up its carbon footprint, and a slew of returns end up in landfills rather than back on the market. 

In the face of this online shopping frenzy, experts have called on companies in recent years to modify both their online shopping experiences and “reverse supply chains” to reduce emissions—and they’re urging consumers to rethink gift-giving. 

Return shipments in the US last year generated the equivalent carbon emissions of almost 3.5 million gas-powered cars.

A few psychological factors fuel the online shopping craze during the holiday season. Research shows that social media and extravagant advertisements, like those shown around Christmas, can trigger feelings of social comparison that may lead “people towards excessive consumption in an attempt to compensate for emotional dissatisfaction,” Byungdoo Kim, a research associate at the Centre for Sustainable Business at King’s College London, wrote in a recent post. 

Also adding to the shopping drive: Limited-time deals and seasonal sales tap into individuals’ fear of missing out (otherwise known as FOMO) and push them to make purchases they believe involve rare savings—a feeling that marketing campaigns are intentionally targeting, according to a 2016 study. 

In many cases—most often when buying clothes—people will get multiple sizes or colors of an item to try them on and return the ones they do not like. Even “green consumers” who are aware of the environmental costs of online shopping increase consumption during the holiday season. This behavior is part of the reason that researchers estimate returns from online purchases are double to quadruple those in a physical store. A new report from the National Retail Federation projects that consumers will return around $890 billion worth of products in 2024. 

While companies are increasingly streamlining their production lines to reduce carbon emissions before a product reaches the consumer, the carbon footprint of the “reverse supply chain” that occurs after a person returns an item is a bit of a black box, according to a 2021 comment published in the journal Nature Climate Change. 

“Information for product returns related to online shopping supply chains, transport, routes and quantities is insufficient, making it difficult to monitor the carbon emissions of this process,” the paper’s authors wrote. “The true value of the environmental burden is thus unknown.” 

Some studies suggest that inefficiencies and volume of returns can add up to over 30 percent of the carbon emissions of the initial deliveries. A 2023 report found that transporting returns generated more than 15 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually from the US alone. That’s equivalent to the carbon produced by almost 3.5 million gas-powered cars in a full year. 

Often it is cheaper for companies to throw away a product than try to resell it, so much of this inventory is donated or ends up in landfills around the world. People in the US generate more waste in December than in any other month, CBS News reports. 

Sales during Cyber Week—the deal-heavy shopping stint starting on Thanksgiving—reached record highs this November. An Adobe Analytics analysis of e-commerce throughout the five-day period revealed consumers spent a total of $13.3 billion on “Cyber Monday,” and online sales are expected to continue surging through the rest of the holiday season. 

But returns are rarely as well-tracked, the 2021 comment finds. Businesses must improve product return data collection to get a better sense of the true emission burden associated with them, the authors write. They add that companies can reduce returns by improving a shopper’s experience with more detailed and specific descriptions of the product.

“Companies should be transparent and realistic about qualities such as the aesthetics and performance of products to avoid false expectation,” the authors write. 

Individuals can also help stem the flood of returns following the holiday season. According to sustainability experts, one of the simplest solutions is to make sure people actually want the gift you are planning to buy them through detailed wish lists. 

“I’ve found that older family members are particularly resistant to this because it goes against their ideas about gift-giving,” Laura Wittig, co-founder of the conscious consumerism brand Brightly, told Fast Company in 2021. “But over time people get used to it and appreciate it.”

Alternatively, people can eliminate the waste-filled return risk altogether by gifting experiences rather than products. 

“Christmas doesn’t need to be defined by consumption to feel special,” Kim writes. “By making a few mindful and sustainable choices, we can fill our holidays with more meaning, joy, and connection.” 

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

Amazon rainforest faced ‘ominous’ drought, fires, deforestation in 2024, but also saw positive signs

A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005.

2024 was a brutal year for the Amazon rainforest, with rampant wildfires and extreme drought ravaging large parts of a biome that’s a critical counterweight to climate change.A warming climate fed drought that in turn fed the worst year for fires since 2005. And those fires contributed to deforestation, with authorities suspecting some fires were set to more easily clear land to run cattle.The Amazon is twice the size of India and sprawls across eight countries and one territory, storing vast amounts of carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. It has about 20% of the world’s fresh water and astounding biodiversity, including 16,000 known tree species. But governments have historically viewed it as an area to be exploited, with little regard for sustainability or the rights of its Indigenous peoples, and experts say exploitation by individuals and organized crime is rising at alarming rates.“The fires and drought experienced in 2024 across the Amazon rainforest could be ominous indicators that we are reaching the long-feared ecological tipping point,” said Andrew Miller, advocacy director at Amazon Watch, an organization that works to protect the rainforest. “Humanity’s window of opportunity to reverse this trend is shrinking, but still open.”There were some bright spots. The level of Amazonian forest loss fell in both Brazil and Colombia. And nations gathered for the annual United Nations conference on biodiversity agreed to give Indigenous peoples more say in nature conservation decisions.“If the Amazon rainforest is to avoid the tipping point, Indigenous people will have been a determinant factor,” Miller said.Forest loss in Brazil’s Amazon — home to the largest swath of this rainforest — dropped 30.6% compared to the previous year, the lowest level of destruction in nine years. The improvement under leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva contrasted with deforestation that hit a 15-year high under Lula’s predecessor, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who prioritized agribusiness expansion over forest protection and weakened environmental agencies.In July, Colombia reported historic lows in deforestation in 2023, driven by a drop in environmental destruction. The country’s environment minister Susana Muhamad warned that 2024’s figures may not be as promising as a significant rise in deforestation had already been recorded by July due to dry weather caused by El Nino, a weather phenomenon that warms the central Pacific. Illegal economies continue to drive deforestation in the Andean nation.“It’s impossible to overlook the threat posed by organized crime and the economies they control to Amazon conservation,” said Bram Ebus, a consultant for Crisis Group in Latin America. “Illegal gold mining is expanding rapidly, driven by soaring global prices, and the revenues of illicit economies often surpass state budgets allocated to combat them.”In Brazil, large swaths of the rainforest were draped in smoke in August from fires raging across the Amazon, Cerrado savannah, Pantanal wetland and the state of Sao Paulo. Fires are traditionally used for deforestation and for managing pastures, and those man-made blazes were largely responsible for igniting the wildfires.For a second year, the Amazon River fell to desperate lows, leading some countries to declare a state of emergency and distribute food and water to struggling residents. The situation was most critical in Brazil, where one of the Amazon River’s main tributaries dropped to its lowest level ever recorded.Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who lives in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, said he believes people are becoming increasingly aware of the Amazon’s fundamental role “for the survival of society as a whole.” But, like Miller, he worries about a “point of no return of Amazon destruction.”It was the worst year for Amazon fires since 2005, according to nonprofit Rainforest Foundation US. Between January and October, an area larger than the state of Iowa — 37.42 million acres, or about 15.1 million hectares of Brazil’s Amazon — burned. Bolivia had a record number of fires in the first ten months of the year.“Forest fires have become a constant, especially in the summer months and require particular attention from the authorities who don’t how to deal with or respond to them,” Ipenza said.Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Guyana also saw a surge in fires this year.The United Nations conference on biodiversity — this year known as COP16 — was hosted by Colombia. The meetings put the Amazon in the spotlight and a historic agreement was made to give Indigenous groups more of a voice on nature conservation decisions, a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize Indigenous people’s role in protecting land and combating climate change.Both Ebus and Miller saw promise in the appointment of Martin von Hildebrand as the new secretary general for the Amazon Treaty Cooperation Organization, announced during COP16.“As an expert on Amazon communities, he will need to align governments for joint conservation efforts. If the political will is there, international backers will step forward to finance new strategies to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest,” Ebus said.Ebus said Amazon countries need to cooperate more, whether in law enforcement, deploying joint emergency teams to combat forest fires, or providing health care in remote Amazon borderlands. But they need help from the wider world, he said.“The well-being of the Amazon is a shared global responsibility, as consumer demand worldwide fuels the trade in commodities that finance violence and environmental destruction,” he said.Next year marks a critical moment for the Amazon, as Belém do Pará in northern Brazil hosts the first United Nations COP in the region that will focus on climate.“Leaders from Amazon countries have a chance to showcase strategies and demand tangible support,” Ebus said.-- The Associated Press

Climate
Forests
CO2

Humanity is failing to meet its climate change goals. Here's what experts say we can still do

There's still time to act to limit the worst effects of climate change, but we need political willpower

Last month the Copernicus Climate Change Service, an organization run by the European Union to monitor global heating, revealed that Earth was on track to surpass the 1.5º C threshold. This manifested throughout 2024 in so-called “weird weather,” from unusually extreme hurricanes and floods to intense heat waves, parching droughts and unprecedented wildfires. It’s little wonder this year was the hottest in recorded history, breaking the record shattered in 2023.  A recent study even found that 2024 experienced 41 days of extra dangerous heat because of human-caused climate change. To make matters worse, recent data suggests that climate change is accelerating even faster than scientists predicted, meaning we’re rapidly entering uncharted territory. International conferences to address environmental issues like climate change (such as COP29) consistently ended in disappointment. Why are continuing to go backward on this issue? It’s certainly not from a lack of awareness or passion for the environment. Many people understand the stakes: climate change threatens to kill billions of humans and wipe out millions of species, pushing the definition of “habitability” to the brink. Top climate scientists say there’s still reason to hope and time to act, explaining why humanity has failed to meet its climate goals — and what we can do from here. “The obstacle isn’t technology,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann told Salon. “We have the technological knowhow and infrastructure to decarbonize our economy on the needed timescale. What we’re currently lacking — globally, and certainly now in the U.S. under the control of Trump and Republicans — is the political will.” "What we’re currently lacking — globally, and certainly now in the U.S. under the control of Trump and Republicans — is the political will." Mann said humanity needs to rapidly decarbonize our economy. The overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrates humanity’s overuse of fossil fuels is the primary cause of climate change, as doing so releases greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. “We need governmental incentives that will massively incentivize renewable energy and phase out fossil fuel energy as soon as possible,” Mann said. “It won’t happen, however, if young people in particular don’t turn out to vote for climate-forward policymakers.” He added that many did not turn out in sufficiently large numbers during the 2024 election, “and too many fell victims to dishonest tactics of the Republicans and even voted for them out of ignorance of their true agenda. As a result, we elected the most pro-fossil fuel, climate-adverse government in modern history.” Going forward, Mann hopes people who prioritize climate change turn out to vote in larger numbers. Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, explicitly argued for three specific policy measures: “Cut emissions and use of fossil fuels; promote renewables; prepare for the consequences,” Trenberth said. He also noted that growing trees, carbon capture and storage and direct air capture of carbon dioxide emissions tend not to work. Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. In general, it appears like humanity has failed to make limiting greenhouse gas emissions a priority, according to Tom Knutson, a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, said that it appears humanity as a species has not “decided that strongly limiting future emissions of greenhouse gases is a top priority goal that should be pursued and treated as a critical ‘pass or fail goal.’” Knutson, who has contributed to the scientific efforts behind reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or the U.S. Fifth National Climate Assessment, views his job as providing relevant scientific information rather than offering policy prescriptions. Regardless of the specific measures that people choose to democratically decarbonize our society, it will be essential that they establish realistic goals and reliably follow through in implementing them. “Broadly speaking, humanity can decide, based on the above scenario information (with uncertainties) provided by IPCC and other scientific sources, what future emission pathway to set as a goal,” Knutson said. “Then society and policymakers can enact policies in an effort to reach the emission goal that is set. If they decide collectively that scenario X is the goal, and they fail to enact or implement the policies to achieve scenario X, or the policies are not followed as desired by the policymakers, then that would constitute a failure in my view.” It appears humanity as a species has not "decided that strongly limiting future emissions of greenhouse gases is a top priority goal." As humanity swims against the tide of rising temperatures, they will also need to solve lingering mysteries regarding these scientific facts. At the time of this writing, Knutson and his colleagues are researching issues such as why current climate models are not able to reproduce the observed pattern of sea surface temperature trends (1980 to 2022) in the tropical Pacific and southern Pacific Ocean. Other scientists are examining why climate change has been accelerating even faster than previous models anticipated. Because climate science includes many variables that humans do not know, experts cannot precisely anticipate or explain every phenomenon that ensues as people continue global heating through greenhouse gas emissions. Yet Knutson does have his own hypothesis about why climate change seems to be getting worse at an ever more rapid rate. “I would speculate that natural variability may be creating temporary trends (either ‘hiatus’ periods of little warming or temporary ‘spurts’ of accelerated warming) lasting up to a few decades,” Knutson said. “Maybe that is part of the explanation for the recent changes.” Citing his 2016 paper for Nature Communications on possible future trajectories for global mean temperature, Knutson said that this “suggests to perhaps just be patient for now to see if the recent acceleration we have seen is just a temporary effect of internal variability or temporary forcing change, or if it really does represent an accelerated long-term warming rate, relative to the trend we've been on since about 1970.” He added that these are his personal views and do not necessarily represent those of NOAA or the U.S. government. Mann emphasized that the most recent peer-reviewed scientific research does not find any acceleration of warming itself. “Some impacts of climate change are proceeding faster than expected,” Mann said. “Examples are ice sheet melt and sea level rise, and the rise in extreme weather events. The longer-term warming itself is steady and is proceeding as predicted by the models.” Perhaps the bottom line in all of this is that human beings must stop relying on fossil fuels. Dr. Friederike Otto, the lead of World Weather Attribution and an Imperial College climate scientist, put it bluntly when announcing the extra 41-days of extreme heat that occurred in 2024. "Climate change did play a role, and often a major role in most of the events we studied, making heat, droughts, tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall more likely and more intense across the world, destroying lives and livelihoods of millions and often uncounted numbers of people," Otto said during a media briefing. "As long as the world keeps burning fossil fuels, this will only get worse." Read more about this topic

Climate
CO2
Government

Jimmy Carter's environmental legacy set the foundation for today's climate action

Former President Jimmy Carter's work on energy efficiency and renewable energy were criticized, but it laid the groundwork for the country to address climate change now.

Former President Jimmy Carter's work on energy efficiency and renewable energy were criticized, but it laid the groundwork for the country to address climate change now.

Climate
Energy

The Bold Environmental Vision of President Jimmy Carter

This story was originally published by Yale E360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The angry Alaskans gathered in Fairbanks to burn the president’s effigy. It was early December 1978 and President Jimmy Carter was that unpopular in Alaska. A few days earlier Carter had issued an unusual executive order, designating 56 million acres […]

This story was originally published by Yale E360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The angry Alaskans gathered in Fairbanks to burn the president’s effigy. It was early December 1978 and President Jimmy Carter was that unpopular in Alaska. A few days earlier Carter had issued an unusual executive order, designating 56 million acres of Alaskan wilderness as a national monument. He did so unilaterally, using a little known 1906 Antiquities Act that ostensibly gave the president the executive power to designate buildings or small plots of historical sites on federal land as national monuments. No previous president had ever used the obscure act to create a vast wilderness area. But Congress was refusing to pass the necessary legislation, so Carter, who passed away Sunday at the age of 100, decided to act alone. The Alaskan political establishment was flabbergasted. Despite the unpopularity of the unusual sequestration order, Carter announced that it would stand until Congress agreed to pass its own legislation. For the next two years Carter stubbornly held his ground, explaining that he wasn’t opposed to oil and gas development, but that he would not accept any bill that jeopardized the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—the calving grounds and migratory route for one of the world’s last great caribou herds. Finally, Alaska’s senior politician, Republican Senator Ted Stevens agreed in late 1980 to break the impasse. At one point in their wrangling over what became known as the Alaska Lands Act, Senator Stevens argued that one small region should be excluded from the proposed wilderness refuge. “Well, let’s check that,” Carter said. The president then rolled out an oversized map on the floor of the Oval Office. Stevens was astonished to see the president on his hands and knees, inspecting the area in question. “No, I don’t think you are right,” Carter observed. “You see, this little watershed here doesn’t actually go into that one. It comes over here.” The senator had to concede the point, and on the car ride back to Capitol Hill he turned to his aide and remarked, “He knows more about Alaska than I do.” Sen. Ted Stevens and President Carter discuss the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Anchorage Daily News/Tribune News Service/Getty That was vintage Carter, the president who always paid attention to details. But it also illustrates Carter’s legacy as a president devoted to protecting the environment. Carter was still negotiating with Senator Stevens weeks after his defeat in the November 1980 election. But on December 2, 1980, this now lame-duck president signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, creating more than 157 million acres of wilderness area, national wildlife refuges, and national parks—tripling the size of the nation’s Wilderness Preservation System and doubling the size of the National Park System. It was, and still is, the largest single expansion of protected lands in American history. More than four decades later, before he entered hospice care in his simple Plains, Georgia home in February, Carter signed an amicus brief, appealing to the courts and President Joe Biden, not to permit the building of a gravel road through one small portion of the designated wilderness area. It was his last act in the public arena. And it succeeded: On March 14, 2023, the Interior Department canceled a plan that would have allowed the road’s construction. Carter was always annoyed when pundits proclaimed him a “model” ex-president, but a failed president. And he was right to be annoyed because his was actually a quite consequential presidency, and no more so than on questions of conservation and the environment. Carter signs the Energy Bill on November 9, 1978. HUM Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Early in his presidency, in the spring of 1977, he famously vetoed a slew of water projects, mostly small dams and river diversion facilities, in dozens of congressional districts around the country. Federal funding of such projects was often a waste of taxpayer funds. And these boondoggles, always encouraged by the US Army Corps of Engineers, often harmed the rivers’ natural habitat. Carter knew he was doing the right thing—even though it eroded his support in a Democratic-controlled Congress. Carter’s instincts for conservation had been evident earlier when, as governor of Georgia, he had opposed unbridled commercial development, favored tough regulations to protect the state’s coastal wetlands, and endorsed the creation of two major seashores and river parks. But when Carter got to the White House, he shocked many observers by appointing James Gustave Speth, age 35, to the President’s Council on Environmental Quality. Speth was regarded by the Washington establishment as a radical on environmental issues. A Yale-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, he had co-founded in 1970 the Natural Resources Defense Council, a tough advocacy group on environmental issues. Speth, who later served as dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, used his position in the administration to educate Carter about the dangers of acid rain, carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere, and the likely extinction of 100,000 species during the next quarter century. Just before leaving office, Carter released a prophetic report, largely written by Speth, that predicted “widespread and pervasive changes in global climatic, economic, social and agricultural patterns” if humanity continued to rely on fossil fuels. The Global 2000 Report to the President became an early clarion call for scientists studying climate change. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Danielle Brigida/US Fish and Wildlife Service History will judge Carter as a president ahead of his time. He set a goal of producing 20 percent of the nation’s energy from renewable sources by 2000. In an age of soaring energy prices and stagflation, he famously wore a cardigan on national television during a fireside chat in which he urged Americans to lower their thermostats and conserve energy. He put solar water heating panels on the roof of the White House, telling reporters, “A generation from now this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people.” Ironically, while Carter put federal money into solar energy research, a few years later his successor Ronald Reagan ripped the solar panels off the White House roof—and a few are still displayed in museums. Carter spent much of his time in office trying to deal with energy issues. He proposed a 283-page National Energy Act (NEA) that included a tax on oversized, gas-guzzling cars, tax credits for home insulation, and investments in solar and wind technologies. Carter insisted that his energy bill was the “moral equivalent of war.” In response, The Wall Street Journal labeled it with the sarcastic acronym MEOW. Republican Party chairman Bill Brock charged that the president was “driving people out of their family cars.” Michigan Democratic Congressman John Dingell told Carter aides that it was an “asinine bill.” The legislation nevertheless passed the House, but then encountered much more opposition in the Senate. Carter complained in a private White House diary, “The influence of the oil and gas industry is unbelievable, and it’s impossible to arouse the public to protect themselves.” Carter announces his solar energy policy in front of PV panels installed on the West Wing roof. Warren Leffler/Library of Congress The final bill, passed in October 1978, was a complicated compromise—but it did impose penalties on gas-guzzling cars, required higher efficiency standards for home appliances, and provided tax incentives to develop wind and solar technologies. But environmentalists would criticize it for also providing incentives to mine domestic coal and produce corn-based gasohol. Carter’s goal here was to lessen the country’s dependence on imported Arab oil—and in this he was marginally successful, leading to a decline in oil imports during his term in office. But in an unintended consequence, environmentalists would complain that a part of the bill required that any new power plants be fired with fuels other than oil or natural gas. In practice, that meant coal received a major boost. In retrospect, the most consequential part of the energy bill was the phased decontrol of natural gas prices. This deregulation eventually stimulated exploration for natural gas in the United States and created the market conditions decades later for the innovative fracking technology that would make the country a major supplier of liquefied natural gas. Politically speaking, Carter’s energy policies were criticized by both sides. He was faulted by liberals for enacting too much deregulation, while conservatives perceived him as an enemy of the oil and gas industry. Former President Carter with grandson Jason Carter during a ribbon cutting for a solar project on family farmland in Plains, Georgia. David Goldman/AP If environmentalists should remember one thing about the Carter presidency it should be his so-called “malaise speech” in July 1979. It was an extraordinary sermon about America’s limits—a most un-American idea for a people constantly fed on the manna of manifest destiny. “We’ve always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own,” he said. “Our people are losing that faith…In a nation that was once proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.” Taking a page straight from Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism (which Carter had recently read), Carter observed, “Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” This was the born-again Southern Baptist in Jimmy Carter speaking, the Southern populist, warning his people about the need to be aware of our environment’s fragility and limitations. It was not a message most Americans wanted to hear. But it remains a key part of his presidential legacy.

Climate
CO2
Culture

These Graphics Help Explain What Climate Change Looked Like in 2024

Telling the story of our lives—climate change—takes a lot of words. But sometimes, a graphic is what makes things click.  Whoever coined the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” was likely not referring to a chart, a locator map or an infographic, but in many cases that’s exactly their value to the reader. […]

Plus, a few more that tell environmental stories in a fraught year.By Paul HornTelling the story of our lives—climate change—takes a lot of words. But sometimes, a graphic is what makes things click. 

Climate

Suggested Viewing

Inside The Grand Canyon

This guerrilla style documentary film captures a Colorado River rafting expedition through the Grand Canyon. Exhilarating and sometimes dangerous expeditions like this are not often considered when discussing global climate change but could be helpful to enlighten more folks about the changes to our planet. This rafting trip will soon be a thing of the past with record draughts continuing due to ongoing global climate change caused largely by humans. This is just a tiny slice of natures many warning signs of things to come. We find ourselves in a world of ongoing disbelief and hesitation in lieu of planning for the clear and present dangers from climate change. The Colorado River has already reached devastating levels for communities that depend on the water and electrical power resource. Government study in 2022 showed that Lake Powell could reach ""dead pool"" by 2023. There is no plan to mitigate the catastrophe that will leave over a million and a half people with no electricity.

Water
Climate
Sustainable

The Invisible Mammal - The Bat Rescuer

Bats are struggling to survive, specifically in North America, where white nose syndrome is causing a sharp decline of certain species. Pertinent issues: climate change, habitat destruction, what can humans must do to prevent extinction.

Animals
Climate
Extinction

Ser Manguezal

Ser Manguezal, created by Eliseu Cavalcante, was inspired by Josué de Castro's book "Of Men and Crabs" from 1967. De Castro was a Brazilian geographer, physician, writer and activist against world hunger. In his book, Castro envisions men as crabs, learning to walk in the mangroves. This relationship between them seems to unify and blend all together making the human being part of that specific biome. This film is part of an ongoing project that examines those who depend on the mangrove ecosystem to survive, and the delicate relationship between humans and this particular ecosystem. It seeks to recognize the hard-working crab hunters of the mangroves and make their work more visible, and to bring awareness about the importance of mangroves to the environment. Worldwide, 3,400 square kilometers (1,300 square miles) of mangrove forests were lost between 2000 and 2016, or about 2% of the global mangrove area (NASA). About 62% of the losses were due to direct human causes such as agriculture and aquaculture. Mangrove degradation is greater than the average for tropical and subtropical forest loss.

Water
Conservation
Plants

A Low Carbon Future for China’s Furnace Cities

China’s economic development and rapid urbanization has led to a dramatic rise in energy consumption due to excessive heating and air-conditioning causing carbon emissions of immense proportions. China’s government has set the ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by 40–45% by 2020 against the 2005 baseline. A UK/China-funded team working on how to solve the problem in some of the most extreme climate regions in China. The team discovers groundbreaking solutions using computational-fluid-dynamics simulations.

CO2
Energy
Climate

Evangelicals for Climate Action

This film introduces Evangelical Christians working for action on climate change and the environment. They explain how they became passionate about the environment, their fears about the future of our planet, and how their passion is based on their deep faith and love for creation. They call on all other Evangelicals to join them.

Climate
Culture

Join us to forge
a sustainable future

Our team is always growing.
Become a partner, volunteer, sponsor, or intern today.
Let us know how you would like to get involved!

CONTACT US

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Subscribers receive a free day pass for streaming Cinema Verde.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.