A Cardinal Plan for Climate Action
If you are reading this, you most likely live in an expanding city, inhaled an unhealthy amount of wildfire smoke this summer, and just experienced the hottest six months on record. Climate change, population growth, and ecological disaster have become familiar themes in the lives of those born in the 21st century. Leading science indicates that we are 10-15 years away from crossing climatic tipping points, which makes maintaining a livable world unlikely (Carrington 2022, UNFCCC 2022).
According to the United Nations, even if all 193 Paris Agreement signatories follow through on their commitments, the world will be “on track for around 2.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century”, triggering ecological tipping points and causing irreversible damage to both natural and human systems (UNFCCC 2002).
The good news is that Wesleyan provides a fertile ground for undergraduates to embark on original climate solution projects. While there are myriad opportunities to contribute to pre-existing projects upon graduation, I would like to make a case for working on original ideas:
Working on someone else’s project produces value proportional to how much better you are at the job than the next best candidate would have been. Conversely, creating an original solution adds value that never would have existed without you. If your goal is to work on climate most effectively, I believe this is how we go about it.
Over the past 18 months, I've utilized many of the opportunities available on campus. Based on what I’ve learned, I’ve written a step-by-step guide to how one might get started on original climate work:
Step One: Identify a source of emissions that is not receiving attention proportional to its size.
For me, this took the form of agriculture.
I did my own research and found that agriculture constitutes 15% of global emissions, but mitigation efforts receive less than 2% of climate-related funding (Buchner 2021). This rabbit hole led me to the fact that cows are responsible for 16% of agricultural emissions, or 2.4% of global emissions (Doerr 2021) and that new research indicated the use of asparagopsis seaweed in cow feed could solve up to 80% of cow-related emissions (Nelson 2021). After carefully checking to see if I had any better ideas—I did not—I decided that the commercialization of this special seaweed was what I wanted to work on. The data below is the tip of the iceberg for identifying overlooked emissions sectors but should allow you to draw some conclusions about what is overhyped and where there might be low-hanging fruit, ready to be picked off.
[The “attention” different emissions sources are receiving in terms of funding, (Buchner 2021)]
If you choose carefully, you can leverage the skills and expertise you are gaining through your Wesleyan coursework. Economics students may take well to supply chain decarbonization or setting up reward systems for capturing fugitive emissions. Chemistry students may find they have an innate understanding of the challenges involved with energy storage or building materials. Biology students may take more naturally to regenerative agriculture. The list goes on and on, with climate solutions relevant to every major and every skill set produced at Wesleyan. Those matchups are yours to find.
Step Two: Dig deeper. Apply for a summer grant! Become an expert. That’s what I did.
The $4,500 College of the Environment (COE) grant allows you to design your own project that deepens your understanding of your chosen solution (COE 2023). The only requirement is to take an ambitious idea seriously and have something to show for your efforts. It is offered during the summer–which will give you the most time and freedom–as well as the fall and spring. To apply, you need a faculty advisor who understands why you need to pursue this line of inquiry and will sponsor your application.
I received one of the COE’s summer grants and lived with seaweed farmers in Tanzania, where I learned that their ranks double every few years (Harris 2020). Equally as exciting, I learned that asparagopsis, the methane-busting seaweed,grows in the wild but is not yet farmed. I am going to do my best to help change that, and I now expect that this past summer will shape the next decade of my life.
Step Three: Decide whether you need to do more research or whether you are ready to start a business.
If you think you might be ready to go into business, the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship exists solely for this purpose. They offer grants between $200 and $10,000, mentoring, and classes like Startup Incubator, which connect you with experts in your space and will help you design the first version of your product or service (Grants: Patricelli Center 2023, Startup Incubator 2023). For solutions involving campus or Middletown, the Wesleyan Green Fund provides grants between $500 and $20,000 to help implement solutions (Wesleyan Green Fund 2023).
If your chosen path is continued research, you can work with the faculty member who advised your COE grant to continue learning in an independent study format. You can get course credit for this. If what you are involved in requires additional research in the physical sciences, chances are a lab exists on campus that would allow you to learn the skills required to conduct graduate-level research on your solution of choice.
I am currently involved in both pursuits. In Startup Incubator, I am building a small business that acts as a middleman between existing asparagopsis growers and climate-conscious farms on the East Coast and help those farmers measure their methane emission reductions. As I write this, I have just found my first clients in upstate NY. I am also working with academic contacts at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to put together a study that would explore the feasibility of growing asparagopsis on their coast. Neither of these pursuits would have been remotely possible without a thorough stab at step two beforehand.
Step Four: Scale.
Step four takes your idea beyond Wesleyan. What this looks like depends on the path you have taken thus far. Should you be continuing scientific research, your independent work as an undergraduate will make you a top candidate for master's and Ph.D. programs that will allow you to work with others at the cutting edge of your field and create new knowledge. This is not speculation but rather a testament to the strength of undergraduate research at Wesleyan. If you have taken the founder’s route, it is time to raise money. Through your work with the Patricelli Center and in Startup Incubator, you will know which grants, accelerators, angel investors, and venture capital firms are right for you, and you will have the connections to help apply to them all.
Like step three, this does not have to be a binary choice. I am currently applying to master's programs that will allow me to research the feasibility of growing asparagopsis seaweed in Tanzania. Simultaneously, I am hoping to take my Startup Incubator project to market and reduce emissions on climate-conscious farms. Read out of context, these last steps sound daunting. However, taken individually, these four steps are feasible. We simply have to get started.
Kiran Kling ‘24
Citations:
Buchner, Barbara, et al. 2021. "Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2021." Climate Policy Initiative, December 14, 2021. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/global-landscape-of-climate-finance-2021/
Carrington, Damian. 2022. "World on Brink: Five Climate Tipping Points, Study Finds." The Guardian, September 8, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/08/world-on-brink-five-climate-tipping-points-study-finds.
"Climate Plans Remain Insufficient: More Ambitious Action Needed Now." UNFCCC, October 26, 2022. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://unfccc.int/news/climate-plans-remain-insufficient-more-ambitious-action-needed-now
"COE - Research Fellowships." Wesleyan University. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.wesleyan.edu/coe/2018%20Internships/index.html
Doerr, John. 2021. Speed and Scale. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN: 9780593420478.
"Grants: Patricelli Center." Wesleyan University. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.wesleyan.edu/patricelli/grants/index.html
Harris, Lauren. 2020. "Tanzania’s Seaweed Economy: Listen to Women, Save the World." Planet of Plenty, July 7, 2020. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://www.alltech.com/planet-of-plenty/stories/blog/tanzanias-seaweed-economy-listen-women-save-world
Nelson, Diane. 2021. "Feeding Cattle Seaweed Reduces Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions 82 Percent." College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, March 17, 2021. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces-their-greenhouse-gas-emissions-82-percent
Ritchie, Hannah, Pablo Rosado, and Max Roser. 2020. "Emissions by Sector." Our World in Data. Published June 10, 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
"Startup Incubator: The Art and Science of Launching Your Idea." Wesleyan University, Fall 2023. Accessed October 31, 2023. https://owaprod-pub.wesleyan.edu/reg/!wesmaps_page.html?crse=015370&term=1219
"Wesleyan Green Fund." Accessed October 31, 2023. http://www.wesleyangreenfund.org/