PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- Welcome to the second year of COVID-19. For many of us, it continues the daily commute from the bedroom to the computer in the den (or wherever the ongoing WFH office has been set up.)
While air quality is still better and our collective carbon footprints remain smaller because of this new normal, the upward trajectory of the world’s temperatures hasn’t slowed. Neither have efforts to flatten that curve. But you can help in easy-yet-significant ways.
Wanna tell Philly leaders how you feel about the city's approach to climate change? You have until midnight Friday to fill out the 10-minute Climate Action Playbook Survey.
The week before President Joe Biden made good on his campaign vow to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration announced its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050 with the release of a Climate Action Playbook. It highlights areas the city will focus on in addressing its carbon emissions, specifically in transportation, industry and large commercial buildings.
Weigh in on it and check back. The Office of Sustainability says they will update the playbook as they gather information and input.
Ordering food from a struggling local restaurant is important to the local economy as well as a break from all that home meal prep we’ve taken on over the last year. But it’s definitely contributing to carbon emissions, and not just from the delivery vehicle. Researchers in Australia find lockdowns related to COVID-19 have led to a 20% increase in household solid waste, much of it blamed on single-use packaging in increased food deliveries.
Online ordering doesn’t always allow you to refuse excess packaging, so phoning it in could let you opt out of plastic utensils and napkins, and request that similar dishes be packed together. For example, burgers might need to be separately wrapped, but everybody’s fries can go into one container.
And if you’ve just been asked to hop on a last-minute Zoom call and haven’t had time to clear the food wrappers or dishes or laundry or the rest of your real life out of your home office work background scene: turning off your camera is good for the planet! Ditto for turning off the high-definition on Netflix or Hulu.
Researchers from Yale and Purdue Universities have found that just one hour of videoconferencing or streaming emits 150g to 1,000g of carbon dioxide, requires 2L to 12L of water and a land area about the size of an iPad Mini.
Their analysis finds leaving your camera off on a web call can reduce these footprints by 96%. They also estimate that streaming content in standard definition instead of high definition could shrink it by 86%.
You don’t have to tell online co-workers you’re having a bad hair day. You’re helping Philly get to that carbon-neutral goal!