It is beyond mind boggling and painful to see what the Trump administration wants the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy to do —
Nations of the world have been meeting every year for 30 years to address global warming. In 2015, the Paris Agreement was a major milestone by almost all countries to slow down the warming.
Institutions and governments at all levels have made a difference by investing in renewable energy to replace polluting fossil fuels, but it is not enough.
Each year since 2015 has been hotter than the year of the Paris Agreement; and since then, the U.S. has been hit by 193 disasters that cost at least $1billion for a total cost of $1.5 trillion. Adding human suffering to that, the impact is immeasurable.
Innovative research is happening everywhere to lower global warming pollutants and reduce loss of lives and livelihoods.
What we need is a political will to stay on the path and not dismantle what was started. Our leaders need to listen to us.
Kalpana Sutaria,
Austin chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby
We can’t air-condition our way out of the warming that has already happened and the warming that is coming!
Buildings are places for comfort and joy. Buildings account for more than 40 percent of all emissions and have a huge impact on our environment. Professionals in the building industry are implementing sustainable building practices to create green buildings and infrastructure to lower emissions. But for cooling our environment, we need to learn about the root causes of global warming.
All our activities continue to warm the planet. Extreme weather events are on the rise and heat related deaths and illnesses are going up. We witness such weather routinely. What shall we do? Personal actions are not enough but they are motivators for bigger actions. For that, we must reach out to our lawmakers for policies that would help us transition towards clean energy research, development and deployment. Let us focus on thoughtful policies to create a livable world for all.
Kalpana Sutaria is an architect and a project manager working for the City of Austin. She has worked on climate responsive buildings and has promoted sustainable guidelines in City’s buildings throughout her career. She has been a volunteer at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which is working to create a political will to transition away from polluting fuels. She believes that green buildings are crucial but to cool our environment, we need policies to lower carbon from all sectors of our economy. She has a master’s in architecture from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a licensed architect (AIA) in the State of Texas, LEED Accredited Professional
(BD+C) and a Project Management Professional (PMP).
