It’s not exciting, but about 750,000 tons of plain old cardboard boxes still get landfilled in Georgia every year (last we knew-the state of Georgia stopped funding this sort of research). Of course, remember that recycling comes after reduce and reuse. And if greening your footprint isn’t a good enough reason, try greening Georgia’s economic impact- most of your recyclables stay in Georgia. After you send your stuff to the mixed recycling collection (curbside, dumpster or drop-off), CHaRM (Center for Hard to Recycle Materials), composting and Teacher Reuse Store or area thrift stores, there’s just not much left.
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Residents and businesses can divert more than 90% of their “waste” if they take full advantage of local landfill diversion programs. Joe Dunlop, ACC waste reduction administrator: Athens-Clarke County has the best waste diversion programming in Georgia. What are some things I can recycle that I might not know about, and what are some things people try to recycle that end up contaminating the stream? It is not about some polar bear or the year 2080. Third, the connections must be made between kitchen table issues and climate change, not abstract concepts. Grass grows naturally, too, but fertilize the soil, and it grows differently. Too many people think a cold day refutes global warming or utter the clich é statement, “The climate changes naturally.” Well, duh. Second, we have to increase climate literacy. Three things must happen to move people forward on climate change understanding: First, they have to move beyond confirmation bias (consuming information consistent with what they believe). We are living through the results of climate change now, and the impacts will accelerate. It is not about “left” or “right.” It is about our food, water, health, national security, energy and infrastructure. Marshall Shepherd, director of the UGA Atmospheric Sciences program: The climate crisis is the challenge of our generation, yet the narrative has been polluted with special interests and political maneuvering. I know climate change is real, but some of my friends and relatives don’t believe it.
How high the temperatures rise in the future depends on how we change our emissions of greenhouse gases, something that is much harder to predict than weather or climate. With the projected continued increases in temperature and more variable precipitation, the future Athens is likely to see more heat waves and warmer winters, and more variable weather in general, including more floods and more droughts. As temperatures get warmer, droughts are also becoming more frequent due to increases in evaporation from lakes and streams and evapotranspiration from plants. That means more water stress on plants and crops and more demand for water during those dry spells. We are also experiencing longer dry spells between rain events. More frequent heavy rains mean that floods become more likely.
The heaviest rain events, which we define as at least 2 inches in a 24-hour period, have increased nearly 30%. What has changed is how the rain is falling. If we don’t get that relief, health suffers, and death rates of vulnerable populations go up.Īnnual precipitation in Athens has really not changed over the last 100 years, although there is a lot of year-to-year variability due to El Niño and La Niña, as well as tropical activity. Hot nights are a big problem for us in Athens, because humans (and our pets and livestock) need cooler temperatures at night to recover from the daytime heat stress in summer. Scientists think that is due to a combination of increased urbanization (more concrete and pavement) and higher humidity, which make it hard to cool off once the sun goes down. Nighttime temperatures are rising faster than temperatures during the day. Since about 1970, temperatures in Georgia have increased by more than 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Pam Knox, UGA agricultural climatologist: Climate change is already affecting Athens’ weather and climate-it’s not something that will just happen in the future. How will climate change specifically affect Athens? So, from biking to recycling, Flagpole asked local experts to weigh in on how we can all live more sustainably, and what the local government and the University of Georgia are doing to help, too. The problems can seem overwhelming, but they’re not-yet. With our carbon emissions creating a climate catastrophe and our plastics piling up in landfills and in the oceans, life on Earth is in trouble.