Today is the last day of 2021. Happy New Year 2022 and cheers to a new beginning! As John Dewey puts it, “We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” Today, we have one last chance to reflect on 2021 in order to make better decisions moving forward. Let’s review some of the highlights of this year from an environmental perspective!
The United States Climate Change Conference (COP26) took place in Glasgow earlier last month. While some countries failed to recognize the devastating impact of climate change, most participants agreed on major decisions to slow it down. Some of the top decisions include a pact to protect the world’s forests, a massive cut of fossil fuel car sales by 2035, and a pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030. Whether all the parties honor these pledges remain to be seen, but we can collectively encourage them to follow through with social media and letters to local authorities.
In late October, Youtubers Mark Rober and MrBeast launched #TeamSeas, a campaign to raise 30 million dollars to remove 30 million pounds of trash from rivers and the oceans. Similarly to 2019 #TeamTrees campaign, #TeamSeas is promoted by several creators on YouTube and raises tremendous awareness about marine pollution. The #TeamSeas campaign partners with the Ocean Cleanup and Ocean Conservancy, two non-profit organizations with the mission to clean our oceans. Moving forward, we need to continue supporting and promoting such initiatives.
The transportation industry is one of the major sources of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Electric vehicles, a much better alternative to petrol cars, are becoming more prevalent and accessible to the general public. This is reflected by the 5.6 million EVs sold globally in 2021, an 80% increase from 2020. Today, there is a variety of electric vehicles available, from a luxurious Lucid Air sedan to an adventurous Rivian pickup truck. Witnessing the rapid adoption of EVs is a reassuring sign that, soon, the roads will be free of fossil fuel cars.
In 2020, New York was the latest state to ban single-use plastic bags provided by grocery stores. Since then, I have been grocery shopping more religiously with my reusable bag and realized how unnecessary the plastic bags were. I personally expected more states to jump on the bandwagon this year; unfortunately, that was not the case. As shown in the chart below, most states have yet to ban single-use plastic bags. Moving into 2022, we need to encourage state authorities to enact a plastic bag legislation.
Written by Kelly Jean, Class of 2022
Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash