The goal is simple: to save the world. In the clear blue sky Jackson is trying to save the world by removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, fossil fuels from cars, and everyday pollutants from homes. Last summer, the Northern Hemisphere was devastated. Canadian wildfires painted the sky in the northeastern United States a burnt orange, temperatures continued to rise, and hurricanes caused more and more damage. How do we save the world when the present and future seem bleak? Jackson has not lost hope for a green and sustainable future. He has traveled the world, meeting CEOs, researchers, and field scientists who are trying to save the world and the future by removing pollutants and building with greener and better materials, inspiring us all to never lose hope.
Scientific American We spoke to Jackson about his new book and his outlook for the future of the environment.
(An edited transcript of the interview follows:.
Supporting science journalism
If you enjoyed this article, please support our award-winning journalism. Subscribe. By purchasing a subscription, you help ensure a future of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping the world today.
The book starts with the small but surprising influence that the atmosphere has on our life on Earth. An interesting example I wanted to ask about is the story of salt forming on frescoes in Italy. Can you tell me about that?
It seems like a strange place to start a book about climate, but I was interested in how we think about preserving things over the centuries. The Vatican has an office of people who think about maintaining and restoring things over decades and centuries. Over the centuries, people lit the chapel with candles, and the wax and soot were released into the air and gradually built up on the frescoes. On top of that, you start to see a kind of mildew on the frescoes. It’s literally carbon dioxide from people’s breath, almost the same way that stalagmites form in caves. There was just too much carbon dioxide in the air. The thing that surprised me most about looking at the chapel are these little blocks. It translates to “testimonies” in Italian. People leave these rectangles of dirt on the frescoes to remind people what it was like back then. I thought it was a really beautiful and moving example of how far fresco restoration has come.
In addition to carbon dioxide, you also mentioned the greenhouse gas methane. What are your concerns about it? methane especially?
I’ve spent a lot of time studying methane because it is 90 times more potent at warming the planet than carbon dioxide, and one-third as potent as carbon dioxide.2 Methane concentrations have increased significantly in recent decades. But methane is also a mystery. We’re still trying to understand why it’s increasing. Maybe the tropical wetlands in the Amazon where I study are emitting more methane as they warm, or maybe we’re getting more methane from cows, oil and gas wells, and other activities that we do. The biggest reason I emphasize methane so much is that it has a short lifetime in the atmosphere. It only lasts about 10 years. This means that if we could eliminate all methane emissions from human activities, it would take just 10 years to return methane concentrations to pre-industrial levels.
Speaking of the Amazon, you’ve spoken about your research in the region and the concept of “climate colonialism.” What do you mean by this term, and how can we avoid perpetuating it?
I don’t use that word Colonialism Don’t take it lightly. I think of climate colonialism as industrialized countries living at the expense of other countries’ environments. I think it’s appropriate because poor countries, and to some extent poor people in rich countries, are bearing the brunt of this extra pollution and paying the price. Pakistan, whose emissions are less than one-tenth the per capita level of the United States, experienced record floods that submerged one-third of the country. Statistically, climate change is at least partially responsible for the extreme weather. The same can be said about Pacific island nations. They didn’t cause climate change, but because of our actions, these countries are literally submerged.
Is there anything you try to do or not do in your own research to avoid perpetuating these forms of climate colonialism?
There’s an undercurrent to the book on environmental justice. I started out researching, looking at inequities in resource use, consumption, and energy use. One of the ways I approach it is I believe that the solution to climate change starts with reducing consumption in rich countries. If the solution to climate change is a three-legged stool, the first leg is reducing consumption. The second leg is decarbonizing all of the remaining products that we have to manufacture. And the third leg, to a lesser extent, is hacking the atmosphere to remove some of the greenhouse gases. So you can’t talk about solutions to climate change without acknowledging that resource consumption is very inequitable in the United States and around the world.
I was intrigued by the breadth of industries covered in the book and the way you spoke to people on the ground – research sites, manufacturers, scientists, etc. Whose work do you still think about?
I really enjoyed seeing a steel mill in Sweden making the world’s first fossil-free steel. It was a very moving and powerful experience for me. They’re doing it because there’s a carbon price. To avoid the carbon pollution fee, they developed a whole new way to make steel that doesn’t use any coal and uses clean hydrogen. That visit was inspiring. I loved that the CEO there was talking about his daughters, how before they thought this was just a crappy company, but now they understand that they’re trying to do something good for the world. I really enjoyed the people I met there.
Chapter on Miners Gas leak Pollution in the home, especially from gas stoves, was a real eye-opener for me. What changes have you made in your own life to avoid this indoor pollution?
We replaced all of our gas appliances, we were studying methane leaks in homes in the lab and we basically developed all of these methods at home, we started measuring nitrogen oxides and benzene pollution and we were shocked to see the levels of NOx (nitrogen oxides) that were coming out of our kitchen.
Another interesting thing about working on gas stoves for me was the intersection of climate solutions and health, which has become a recurring theme in my research. Even though our air and water are cleaner now than when I was a child, coal and car pollution still kills 100,000 Americans a year; 10 million worldwide, and one in five people worldwide die from inhaling pollutants. One of the biggest sources of carcinogenic benzene and asthma-causing NOx gases in many people’s lives is the pollution created by burning gas indoors. We would never stand in front of a car exhaust pipe and inhale the exhaust fumes. But we willingly stand in front of a gas stove and inhale the same pollutants for hours, every meal, and year after year.
It’s even worse when you consider that gas leaks happen near schools, highways, and private homes, and are not considered big enough for the companies that own them to fix right away. I wanted to ask you about your experience chasing a gas leak, because in the book it sounds like a very meaningful experience.
I was fortunate to work with my friend and colleague, Nathan Phillips, who I interviewed for the book. Especially in cities like Boston, Washington, DC, Manhattan, the pipelines are over a century old, some going back to the Civil War. Within a mile of driving, there are two or three gas leaks that no one has fixed. It’s really eye-opening to see how many of these leaks there are, and it’s equally eye-opening to see how many are still there when you come back, not a year later, but maybe a decade later.
The Supreme Court recently ruled in a so-called Chevron’s RespectThis increases the likelihood that statutes will be interpreted by courts rather than professional bodies.What do you think the implications of this decision are for your own research and the research of others you interviewed for this book?
It’s one thing to talk about how to make the permitting process more efficient so that it takes less time and money for companies to go through the system. But it’s quite another to throw away the whole concept of oversight and permitting. We need some safeguards. I am deeply troubled and concerned by recent Supreme Court decisions on environmental issues. There have been decisions in the last few years that have rolled back the EPA’s authority to regulate pollution from coal-fired power plants. There is also the idea that we don’t have, or have no legal basis to worry about interstate pollution. It doesn’t make sense when everyone across the country wants clean air and clean water for their children.
If, as a climate expert, you were free to enact national or international climate policy, what would you do?
I would put a price on pollution. I would like to have polluters pay a fee, so that companies have a direct incentive to reduce pollution and use cleaner technologies. The US has no such system nationwide, very different from Europe, which has had carbon markets for a long time. The problem with free pollution is that any climate solution will always be more expensive than free.
teeth Polluter Pays Policy What gives you the most hope for a cleaner future?
Well, there are many ways to get to a winning future, but there is one cost. Regulation is one of them. It’s a word that’s not very popular in many circles. When I talk to my students, I tell them to practice optimism and look back to see what has been improved. The first assignment I give them in every class is to find something, an environmental issue, that is better now than it was 50 years ago or a century ago. The list is long. Water and air quality, life expectancy and infant mortality. And when you look at the results of specific environmental regulations in the past, we’ve done amazingly well. Since the phase-out of leaded gasoline, blood lead levels in children have dropped by 95 percent in this country. This was a regulatory mandate. The Montreal Protocol saved billions of skin cancers and millions of cataracts. The Clean Air Act in the United States, which I like, has a 30-fold return on investment and continues to save hundreds of thousands of lives in the United States every year. There are cases where regulation is justified, and it saves money as a result.
So the last question I want to ask you is, what are we going to do? How are we going to clean up the environment? How are we going to keep the environment clean?
Let’s start at home. Never buy a gasoline car or gas appliances again. Use less gasoline and use cleaner electric cars and appliances. And vote for politicians who believe in clean energy and climate action to help decarbonize industries that require furnaces at thousands of degrees, like steel, cement, and aluminum manufacturing. Vote for politicians who will put a price on pollution, saving lives and saving money at the same time. I believe a combination of individual and society-wide action is necessary.
A little optimism never hurts.
Yes, I learned a lot and met a lot of inspiring people. I want to inspire people myself. I’ve been tracking greenhouse gas emissions for decades, and after watching years of inaction on climate change pass by like a float in a parade, I began to look for hope and solutions. I found that hope in the people I met and the technologies I learned. There’s a lot of good out there. I want people to have hope that we can beat climate change.
