Melissa Capria: Our City, Our Climate

Did you know that the energy, fuel and other resources consumed by city dwellers around the world produce about 80 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change?

The answer isn't for all for us city folk to move to the country - unless the country happens to be Sweden, which plans to be oil-free by 2020.

The point is: Addressing climate change means improving the way we live in our cities. Think about aspects of city life that you do not like: pollution, traffic, lack of green space, and so on.

There are solutions to those issues that also address climate change, such as developing superb transit systems and actually using them, reducing our energy use and cleaning up dirty power production, planting trees, recycling, and buying local foods and products. These ideas are not new, but climate change has added a new urgency to addressing them.

We may have as little as 10 years to stave off irreparable harm resulting from climate change that humans have caused. Now is the time to make the changes that we want to happen.

As someone who has long worked to slow climate change, I have too many discussions with people who think that we can't change things. I don't buy it. Our modern lives are filled with significant changes, some good, some bad: computers, the fall of the Berlin Wall, space travel, ATM cards, 9/11. Things change all the time, and it is much better to decide what those changes are going to be rather than having them forced upon us.

There are going to be challenging aspects to making the adjustments we need to slow climate change, but we can start easy. Here are some simple habits you can adopt right now that will help:
• Turn off lights and electronic equipment, such as televisions and computers when not in use;
• Read food packaging to learn how far it traveled to get to you and buy more local products;
• Keep your vehicle well maintained so it will use less fuel;
• Drive one less day a week and when you do drive, do not unnecessarily idle your engine.

Climate change gives us a highly compelling reason to make big improvements that we may have been putting off. Let's all get to it and make the City a place that our kids and grandkids will be happy to inherit.

Melissa Capria is coordinating San Francisco's efforts to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels. Learn more about how SF Environment is protecting and preserving San Francisco's environmental well-being at www.sfenvironment.com, visit the EcoCenter at 11 Grove St., or call (415) 355-3700.