One Year Later

By Frank Landis, Conservation Chair

In a sense, this is a dual column, because in addition to conservation I will be talking about one of my other roles, which is as our chapter delegate to the CNPS Chapter Council (CC). But mostly it’s about one year into the pandemic and climate change.

As I write this, I’m getting deluged with media stories about how “life will be getting back to normal soon,” how dealing with the pandemic was “like everyone being in prison,” and so forth. And I get it. A lot of businesses will do better, and a lot of people will do better, if we get out more, drive more, and spend a lot more. And I have no intention of belittling the very real pain many people went through, especially those who are suffering lingering effects of COVID-19 or who lost loved ones to the virus.

But I have to be the person who points out that pre-pandemic “normal” wasn’t very good. As I sit here, looking at less than four inches of rain this year, I’m reminded, as hopefully we all are, that we’ve got maybe nine years to get our greenhouse gas emissions well down towards zero, or things start getting a lot worse than they are now.

In April 2020, when the pandemic started, global greenhouse gas emissions crashed. You may remember how quiet it was, how many birds there were, pictures of coyotes wandering through San Francisco? That’s all gone now, of course, but there was a brief time when we got a chance to see what a more carbon-neutral life was like. Some of it was pretty nice, midst the shortages and the fear. The good parts are what we really need to aim for going forward, hopefully with fewer of the bad parts.

Now there’s the drumbeat to buy more cars, get back on the roads, fly again, take cruises, and so forth. How many of you are going to give in to this pervasive peer pressure? I know I feel it, and I assume everyone else does, too.

Someone estimated, and I can’t find the article now, that we could hit our emissions reduction goals if we had a pandemic every other year. I think any sane person would hope that doesn’t happen. But I also hope every sane person realizes that changes that drastic need to happen, voluntarily or not. I also hope that every sane person looks at what we’re being urged to do now and realize that blowing huge amounts of greenhouse gas in an effort to get out and be “normal” has its own grim price, one we’ll pay for a lot longer than we’ll deal with the pandemic’s toll.

But it wasn’t just one month of lowered emissions and being stuck inside. There were some good changes in 2020 and 2021. CNPS actually changed quite a lot, and for the better. Many organizations did. And this gets to both the CC and what other organizations can do as we move toward opening up.

Chapter Council, like all CNPS meetings, went virtual. So instead of 18-25 people driving and flying in to some rural part of California, far more of us met online. Now, as the CC starts thinking about post-pandemic operations, the question seems to be whether to have one or two in-person meetings per year, and how many virtual meetings we want. Back in 2019, the people running the CC insisted that it was critically important that everyone get together, even though most times we barely made quorum. Now, with us getting more work done and more people participating in shorter meetings, it’s obvious that former assumption wasn’t true.

That’s the common theme of CNPS 2020. Instead of chapters hosting small general meetings for their local members, online CNPS virtual meetings are drawing hundreds of people, often from around the state. Chapter board and conservation committee meetings are going faster, if only because no one has to drive to and from them.

In a telling example, my old chapter, LA/Santa Monica Mountains Chapter in West LA, probably won’t go back to in-person meetings. The problem the chapter has is that it covers the western San Fernando Valley, Malibu, and West LA. Ever heard of traffic in the Sepulveda Pass? Most of the chapter board members live in the Valley, but some live in West LA.

Going to board meetings or chapter meetings in the Valley from West LA (or vice versa) took two hours of driving in gridlock at rush hour, even for a 20-mile drive. LA/SMM had adapted by alternating general meetings between the Valley and the West LA, but only a few dozen people attended the meetings, and getting speakers was hard. When they went virtual, meeting attendance soared, and they’re probably not going back to live meetings. I suspect they’re not the only chapter making this decision, either.

As Conservation Chair, I’ve been more active giving testimony this last year. Partly it’s because everyone’s trying to finally deal with climate change (in San Diego’s own, very special way). But pre-pandemic I’d pull on a suit and tie and blow two gallons of gas driving downtown to testify for a minute or three. Now I can sit at home and do the same testimony. And as with CNPS activities, my impression is that participation in City Council and Board of Supervisor meetings has soared. I hope they continue this.

Of course, there are downsides: few book sales, no garden tours, no hikes, few in person events. And those are important, too. But we hopefully won’t lose sight of the fact that in the CNPS activities that continued through 2020, participation grew without a growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s one thing we’re going to try to capture this year and hopefully in years to come. Last year CNPS as an organization pledged to try to go carbon neutral by 2030. The pandemic then gave us a chance to see what it was like to cut emissions by some huge fraction, and it turned out…well, that’s the question we now get to answer.

The CNPS financial year runs from April 1 to March 31, and each chapter files a report. This year, the Chapter Council directed staff to add questions about how the pandemic helped us to cut our greenhouse gas emissions. Probably that means we’ll be asked about miles driven on chapter activities, but they’re still working it out as I write this. The important part is that, due to the pandemic, we actually got an important chance to find out what we can and cannot do as an organization. While I’m quite sure that CNPS won’t continue in its pandemic shutdown mode, it’s important that we remember, celebrate, and continue our 2020 accomplishments.