2020 sucked…but there’s good news

A week ago, I sat down to write an end of year blog post. My colleague Joie had assigned me the task, “2020 sucked but here’s some good news.” It felt overwhelming and impossible. What good news could I possibly write about, during a raging pandemic, ongoing environmental gloom, protests against injustice all over the country, gridlock in Washington… You see my dilemma. My first thought was to give up, and email Joie to say that I just couldn’t do it.

But I hate letting Joie down. So I did what anybody would do in this situation, and googled it: “positive environmental news 2020.” Turns out that there are several sites out there that are devoted to posting positive environmental news stories – not in a Pollyanna-ish, stick-your-head-in-the sand kind of way, but more as a counter to the persistent doom-scrolling many of us have been engaging in lately.

I read about the founder of one of these sites, Grant B. from Happy Eco News . He writes, “I found that when I really started looking, I could see in between all the doomsday articles and posts, were a few that were actually very positive. And so I started saving them with the intention of sharing with friends to let them know that there is some good news.” One thing lead to another, he says, and now he posts on average five times a day, and rounds up the week’s news with the weekly Top 5. Clicking on random posts within the website, I realized that there is a lot of good news out there, but our minds get hijacked by the constant doom-mongering. Outrage gets more clicks than hope. News networks and social media algorithms know that, and they take advantage of it.

So here are a few positive developments from the past year that focus on the intersection between economics and the environment:

1. President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to return to the Paris climate accord, and has appointed John Kerry as “climate envoy” and Gina Mccarthy as climate czar (Kerry’s focus will be international, while Mccarthy’s focus will be domestic) Biden’s Twin Climate Chiefs, McCarthy and Kerry, Face a Monumental Task). While we try not to be too overtly political in this blog, the fact that the climate will be elevated to such a high level in the incoming administration gives me a little hope. Not too much- I’m not going to go crazy or anything – but some. Plus, as I’m always reminding my students, real climate action takes place at the state and local level, and there’s a lot going on in Maine (where we’re located) right now.

2. Renewable energy is gaining ground. Coal is finally on the decline. Britain is ending subsidies for fossil fuel industry. While I am mindful of the difficult transition those who work in the fossil fuel industry are facing, ultimately this is good news both for the climate and for air quality.

3. Past and current injustices are being uncovered. The shooting of Breanna Taylor in March and the horrific murder of George Floyd in May served as (yet another) wakeup call to the reality of structural racism in this country. While there’s a real temptation to think that things are getting worse, perhaps they are finally being uncovered, to paraphrase adrienne maree brown. We cannot create a more sustainable future without acknowledging and reckoning with our past. 

4. The Great American Outdoors Act. Not only is the Great American Outdoors Act one  of the biggest pieces of federal environmental legislation since the Clean Air Act, it is also one of the few examples of successful bipartisanship that we can point to. The legislation provides badly needed funding to restore crumbling infrastructure in our national park system, and guarantees a steady stream of funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

 5. Technology. Advances in lithium batteries could soon make the “million-mile” battery within reach. Advances in hydrogen fuel cell technology, as well, could help us in our quest to decouple the economy from fossil fuel use. 

6. Socially responsible investing hits the big time. 2020 actually began with a letter from Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, to his investors. In that letter, he called for a fundamental reshaping of finance, recognizing that climate risk is financial risk. BlackRock is now, in their own words, putting sustainability at the center of their investing. It remains to be seen whether this gesture marks a seachange. But when the world’s largest investment firm makes a commitment to sustainability, others will sit up and take notice.

So, yes. 2020 was a dumpster fire of a year, no question. And yet, there is some positive news on the environmental / economic front. We just need to remind ourselves to look.