Derek Caelin

Don’t forget: small towns can play an outsized role in tackling the climate crisis

Public attention focuses on nations and treaties for action on climate change, or private-sector innovation. Action in these sectors is critical, but small towns are frequently overlooked as a places where meaningful change can happen. The author spent a year serving as chair of a Connecticut town’s sustainability task force and reflects on the options for action available to people who want to make a difference.

The Climate Crisis is often described as a “wicked” problem; the result of a thorny tangle of self-reinforcing policy, technological, social, and economic forces. The system is complex, but one thing is clear: to avoid runaway ecosystem collapse, we need to curtail and reverse greenhouse gas emissions to keep the world below 1.5 degrees of warming from pre-industrial levels. As I write this, we learn that 2023 was the warmest year on record. The time to change our processes is now.

In this effort, much of the global attention goes to big movers and shakers: states, and multinational companies. We examine the agreements from the latest COP, champion the passage of critical climate legislation, and pour over the claims of companies who claim to have solved the challenge of renewable energy storage or carbon capture.

I say “global attention”, but global crises impact individuals as well as groups. Like others, I have grown more and more concerned about the warming of the planet. A glance at headlines shows stories of mass migration, of water scarcity, of topsoils eroding. Even in relatively sheltered New England, my town saw the damage of more intense rainfall which wiped out riverside crops. I often feel like an animal trapped in a pot slowly coming to a boil. I've looked at headlines and asked myself, should I become a lobbyist advocating Congress? Should I work at a climate tech company?

Actions at these levels are valuable, necessary, and ultimately, not sufficient.

The movement to resolve the climate crisis can't be confined to state and national legislatures, or to design rooms with people inventing new technologies. And, to be clear, action can't just happen at the individual level. While “going solar”, installing heat pumps, and reducing one's meat consumption are critical, no set of individual actions can resolve a systemic crisis. Individual actions need to be combined at scale to shift the needle. To make a meaningful difference people need to work at a group level, large enough to collect impacts into a sizeable force.

I found one such group in what was, for me, an unexpected quarter – my own town.

Town governments are the largest “small” thing. In the scale of impact, they sit between individual and mass action; they are small enough that individuals and coordinated groups can have an impact, and large enough to make decisions that impact tens of thousands of people. Towns can pass policies, they can educate residents, and they can implement national or state climate programs.

My town of Rocky Hill is a town in Connecticut halfway between Hartford and New Haven. Historically a small farming community, today RH has a population of around 21,000 dedicated to various service sectors.

As chair for Rocky Hill's sustainability task force in 2023, I had a front-row seat to seeing residents, elected officials, and staff tackle issues relevant to the climate crisis. During that time, I saw our task force, town staff, and elected officials take action that directly benefited residents while also measurably impacting emissions.

I want to share my experience as a volunteer seeking climate impact, with a few examples of where I think our town government and residents made a difference. My term lasted a year. That time convinced me municipal action can be a viable channel for climate impact, as long as certain rules are met.

Emissions as a co-benefit to good policy

Perhaps the most important condition to bringing towns to bear on the climate crisis might be counterintuitive given all I've said so far. The rule of thumb is this: no action taken at the municipal level can be taken solely for climate reasons.

The government and staff of a town serve for a single reason – to benefit the residents of the town. This means that no action can be justified if it doesn't translate to a direct public benefit, even if it has a benefit to the global environment. Towns can't simply build solar arrays because they will reduce emissions; energy plans usually justify the expense in terms of long-term cost savings for running municipal buildings, which benefits the town budget. Individuals in town government, of course, can value action on climate change, but if they are doing their jobs, people in government must consider policies and programs based on how they benefit members of the community.

Fortunately, climate actions frequently do provide a direct benefit to the public. Clean technologies and insulated houses reduce energy bills; electric vehicles (both personal and public) improve air quality; local regenerative agricultural practices provide residents with fresher, more nutritious produce.

Even if we confine the list of benefits to emissions reductions, the list of potential benefits to residents is extensive. Take, for example, Greenhouse gas emissions stem from the transportation sector, residential building, energy consumption, and, to a smaller extent, the commercial, industrial, agricultural, and waste sectors. Actions in each of these categories can be taken that improve the lives of residents and reduce emissions. This is why the leaders of many towns, including Rocky Hill, adopt a climate or sustainability framework; first and foremost, because their residents benefit from policies and programs that reduce the negative impact of humans on the planet.

In a Clean Energy Forum the task force organized in November 2023, one of our Council members, Jeff Levine, said:

“It used to be maybe five to seven years ago, solar and similar projects were solely done for the goal of sustainability. The paradigm has shifted such that solar energy solutions can actually be cheaper and better than historical mainstream alternatives. There are now more reasons than just environmental for doing such projects. Cost savings is now a pertinent metric as well as a lesser reliance on foreign energy sources.”

Over the past year, Rocky Hill considered or took action on a variety of issues, from resolutions on pollinators to Complete Streets policies. Sustainability is a long-term challenge and nobody would claim that the town is “finished” in its sustainability effort, but the town has taken actions that will improve the lives of residents and, possibly, reduce emissions.

Transportation

Rocky Hill's public infrastructure has had to serve a changing community. For much of its history, the town's population hovered around 5,000 residents. In the past several decades that number has quadrupled, and the needs of residents to travel and get around has also evolved.

In June of 2023, Rocky Hill passed a resolution to adopt the Complete Streets framework. “Complete Streets” recognizes that “roads are for all users”, regardless of whether they drive a car, are a pedestrian, a person with a disability, a cyclist, or using public transit. Complete Streets comes with a commitment to engage with the public on new plans and designs, and, necessarily, to build infrastructure with the recognition that many users of the roads won't be driving cars.

Rocky Hill has released plans to extend sidewalk and biking infrastructure, including requiring new construction facilities to provide bike racks. Rocky Hill residents have also worked to promote a culture of biking, by educating community members on the benefits of biking and routes around the town.

Residents benefit directly from having Complete Streets. Complete Streets are safer; residents who have a sidewalk or a physically separated bike lane run less of a risk of being hit by a vehicle. Residents benefit from accessibility, too. After all, not everyone owns (or can afford) a car, and many cannot drive because of because of age or disability. Complete streets contribute to healthier communities. The fewer combustion vehicles on the road, the more air quality improves, which reduces the risk of asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Streets where people walk and bike are more economically productive..

All these benefits are reason enough to adopt Complete Streets and to encourage multiple forms of transportation within town. And, yes, having Complete Streets helps the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A typical car produces 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, and while only a portion of those miles are the result of local travel, every mile not driven helps.

Other transportation opportunities unrelated to Complete Streets abound, including updating municipal vehicle fleets with electric alternatives and making easier and quicker access to public transportation. To the extent towns are in a position to upgrade and transition, those changes come with emissions benefits.

Food Scraps

While landfills make up a relatively small portion of greenhouse gas emissions, every percentage point is critical to getting to net zero. And while waste management isn't as flashy as an electric vehicle or solar power, the way we deal with our leftover foods can produce the most tangible benefits for town residents!

By some estimates, 30-40% of food in the U.S. ends up in our garbage system, where it is either destined for a landfill or an incinerator. Burning it produces emissions, but putting it into the ground with other garbage is hardly better; hauling wet and heavy food to an out-of-state landfill produces emissions in the transportation and methane at the destination. Considering the missed opportunity to generate compost and revitalize gardens and lawns, Rocky Hill saw several benefits to toward programs to reduce food waste in our waste streams.

Rocky Hill has taken several steps to reduce food in the waste stream. We have a food pantry for accepting food donations and surplus foods. The food pantry also hosts a compost bin and community garden, the products support the growing of fresh food for the community. The garden has been the site of Pumpkin Smash events where residents come with old jack-o-lanterns, smash them with mallets, and learn about a multi-bin composting system. If residents have the space to do it in their homes, composting onsite removes the burdens from towns entirely, and gives residents direct access to the material that will enrich the soil of their gardens and lawns.

Not everyone can compost at home – in Rocky Hill, a significant portion of our residents live in condominium complexes, or composting is a physical challenge. The town crowdfunded a composting pilot with Blue Earth Composting, raising money from residents and a matching grant from SustainableCT. 53 homes will have a composting service for six months, over which time we predict we will divert 12,000 pounds of waste. That's a fraction of the overall waste the town hauls, but Rocky Hill is also pursuing a much larger pilot that could cover the entire municipality.

The goal of all this is to build up a culture of composting. No food product should end up in an incinerator or landfill – towns can promote healthy soils and reduce costs by encouraging residents to compost, either on their own, with a neighborhood bin, or through a service.

Residents benefit from composting by having material to amend their soil, and towns benefit if done correctly, by paying less to haul food to incinerators and landfills. But everyone benefits from the reduction of emissions. We estimate our tiny pilot project will prevent the equivalent of 25,000 pounds of carbon. If we scaled that up to the roughly 5,000 homes in Rocky Hill, those are some serious emissions avoided. Towns can prevent emissions in myriad ways:

Towns can prevent emissions in myriad ways:

Residences

By overhauling buildings and improving their insulation and weatherization, towns can help residents prevent heat loss and the costs associated with regulating temperature. Educating residents about heat pumps and connecting residents to low-interest loans to switch from oil-based heat systems. By improving the insulation of residents, we can reduce emissions while lowering the cost of living.

One note on affordable housing: if the town builds affordable housing, it can adopt the highest standards of energy efficiency and energy generation.

Energy

In Connecticut, methane makes up 55% of our source of energy. By promoting programs for adopting clean energy with residents, and adopting renewable infrastructure on municipal buildings, PACE expects Rocky Hill could save 26% on overall energy costs.

As I write this article, my town agreed to pursue an energy conservation project, replacing town lights with LED equipment and upgrading old mechanicals to include heat pumps and electric boilers. Our old equipment was constantly showing up in our budget anyway – with this investment, the town will be saving money and reducing expenditures on energy. It's estimated that the project will divert the consumption of 137,000 kilowatts – equivalent to burning 257,000 pounds of coal!

The list goes on.

In my time as chair of the sustainability task force, I came away with a few lessons learned. As the above article demonstrates, advocating for programs based on savings to the town and other externalities usually held the most sway for staff and elected officials – the benefits to the climate and our emissions rarely came up as a reason we should adopt a specific policy (perhaps that will change as the climate crisis deepens). It was also tremendously useful to present to staff case studies from other towns who have done the work and have reflections and tips for success. I constantly heard people in town government referencing the successes (or failures) of nearby or similar towns when justifying or planning a project.

My advice to people wanting to impact the climate crisis: don’t stop contacting your representatives in the legislature or starting that climate company, but consider volunteering in sustainability initiatives for your town.

Prologue – the Strider Ship

Note: I find myself writing a series of first chapters, looking for something that will hook me into writing a full outline. All of them, so far, have had something to do with a journey, all have involved some sort of self-sufficient community wrestling vestiges of an ancient, malformed world. If this is what's consuming by brain, I figure I just need to start writing and eventually I'll build the momentum for it to come out.

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The mech vomited fire and smoke as it barreled, servos screaming, over the last dune. For months, the inhabitants of the sand strider had been aware of the machine's pursuit; the advancing black plume of its smoke trail had affirmed their worst fears. They had not been forgotten or forgiven. The men who tended the crumbling ruins of Kharst had, amidst all the decay and destruction, found the spite to assemble the ruins of an ancient war machine and fling it out into the desert after them. Now it had caught them up, and, fires burning within its stony chassis, it screamed toward them like a maddened engine of the apocalypse, driven to crush and tear before collapsing itself into wreckage.

The inhabitants of the strider – “crew” was the wrong word for a people who expected to reside within it for the remainder of their days – met the onslaught with determination. Their escape from Kharst had been furtive: in secret, and over many months, they had conducted repairs on the strider, pulling into it components from many machines from the scrapyard of giants that ringed the city. They had stolen, welded, oiled and murdered to bring the machine – dignified in its ruin, even after centuries – back to a state of working order. Then two hundreds had boarded, families from the forgotten outer ring of Kharst, and, one night when the revelries of the city center had risen to a frenzied pitch, and the glow of bonfires had lit the as-yet-still-pristine towers, they had stolen forth, through the corpse ring of war machines and out into the silent desert.

They had hoped that they would be forgotten; one less wreck, one more empty neighborhood in Kharst's decrepitude. They turned their eyes to the horizon, where, legends said, lay other lands, vibrant and fertile, where perhaps their grandchildren's progeny could dwell. They settled within the comfortable chassis of the strider – as large within as a middling tower of Kharst – and established all the comforts of home. Gardens and cisterns covered every unused inch of the deck. Rooms once dedicated to the housing of troops and munitions now held families, store rooms, a school. There was even, fantastically, a library, gathered at the insistence of a small band who refused to let all knowledge and all stories wither in the dust of Kharst. All this was tucked up in the belly of the strider, whose ancient core hummed and drove its limbs to advance steadily north. A year had passed, and the exiles had begun to think that the city had let them go, and that this tiny world of theirs would be left undisturbed.

When the plume of smoke had first appeared southward, a thin trail that at first had wavered and disappeared in the wind, some had hoped it was nothing; a desert phenomenon caused by the passage of the strider. As the plume grew, its dark cloud following resolutely in their trail, these voices had silenced, and preparations began. The strider was home to their community, but it had once been a weapon of war, intended at its conception for the siege and destruction of Kharst. Balistae, long maintained, hoped never to be used, were unfurled from the deck. Watches were set, and families planned their retreat into the heart of the machine if a time of violence came.

Now the smoke-stained colossus was driving towards them, in the last stage of its relentless pursuit. It evoked the twisted skeleton of a man; bone white, the grinding gears and cables powering its motion exposed to the desert. Its chassis was segmented, and sheets of plate metal – clearly the work of the modern men of Kharst and not of its first creators – covered places where it had riven asunder in some long ago battle. Smoke poured from a dozen holes in its chest. Its head was a skull of white stone; where jaws may once have hung was now grafted a canon glowing with heat. From the nozzle spouted tongues of flame as it faced the down the strider. It was, in fact, a shambling wreck, its once titanic destructive power spent by centuries in ruin and a year driven, unmanned and unmaintained, across a desert. Sand ground in its innards. There had been no thought of its returning to Kharst – it had been sent to rend and crush, and then to detonate.

As the mech came into range, the strider stood at the base of a now dead river. The balistae lifted massive boulders. The first volley slammed into the mech's head and body, knocking away plates but leaving the innards undamaged. The mech roared like a blast furnace, and as the balistas readied another volley it slammed in to the strider.

By mass, the strider was the larger machine, its long metalic body held up by a series of limbs which braced and steadied against the blow. Nevertheless the mech struck it with concussive force, denting the outer hull, the heat of its frame igniting what plants and wooden equipment had been left on deck. One of the bastilaes fired again, its arm flinging harmlessly against the mech's frame, the boulder passing wildly overhead and landing with a thud beyond. One skeletal arm swept across the surface of the strider and grabbed a tower at its mid point. There was a scream and a thud of twisting metal, and the building collapsed inward, crushing those within. With its other limb the skeleton began to slam its fist upon the deck, each blow like that of a towering, malignant blacksmith seeking to puncture it and grab at the organs and people within.

The strider heaved forward, and with its greater mass it lifted the other war machine up and back, its screaming limbs dragging on the rocky surface of the river bed, its titanic arms still raining tectonic blows. The strider accelerated, then, where the old banks of the river bed rose up, tipped its nose down and slammed the mech against a wall of rock. There was a rending and a crushing sound, and one great shoulder buckled inwards, the arm in its socket falling lifeless. Bellows and screams still resounded from the mech's core, its body streaming smoke unabated even as the strider hauled itself backwards, leaving its enemy exposed upon the rock.

Up the mech lurched, its great arm hanging and all but one of its mighty appendages broken and shattered. Fires belched from its core. Sheet metal that had been welded clumsily to its frame now ran molten and dripped to the ground. Its eyes stared with autonomous madness at the strider, now out of reach and readying for another blow. From the cannon beneath its skull-like frame there came a noise the like the rending of iron, rising swiftly in pitch and volume until it became unbearable to those deep within the bowels of the strider, the light within the nozzle blinding all who still clung to their stations on deck. The mech leaned forward to unleash an attack that would destroy both its foe and itself.

At that moment, the remaining balista on the strider fired, hurling a massive boulder in a swift ark that struck the mech in the heart of its burning, exposed chest. It slammed through the innards of the machine, shattering the engine at its core before passing through its back in a gout of fire. A hulk of glowing, fiery metal sailed backwards and fell with a monstrous clang onto the stones of the riverbed. The eyes and the cannon of the mech went suddenly dark, and it pitched forward, lifeless, like a monster struck to the heart. No fires burned, but the black, billowing smoke seemed to increase, wrapping the great war machine in a veil of darkness to hide its ruin.

The alarms wailing within the strider were silenced. The fires that raged upon its deck were doused. The dead, who were miraculously few yet an unutterable loss for the colony, were found, buried, and mourned. The next morning, a party was sent out to the still smoldering wreck of the mech to see what could be salvaged. There was remarkably little. The old war machine had little to offer, save a few metalic cables and sheets of metal. Better, argued the exiles in their councils, to let the machine burn away as the last vestige of Kharst. Repairs were made to the strider, crops were re-sown.

And so, on the dawn of the second day after the battle, the strider heaved itself up and turned to the north. Behind it, in the base of the ancient river valley, lay the mech of old Kharst, the last trial put forth by the decaying city from which the exiles sprang. They looked again toward the horizon, and wondered, to themselves, where they would find a lasting home.

I've recently tried to correct two mistakes I made in college. The first was in assuming that the field of economics was a) esoteric and b) only for “money people” – business school types, in other words. The second was in failing to pay significant attention in a class I took on Buddhism (my teacher once called me out on the fact that my copy of our class' sole book had clearly never been opened). Clair Brown's “Buddhist Economics” approaches both of these reputedly ineffable subjects with simple, clear, and powerful language.

Simply put: the tenants of Buddhism – the acknowledgement that we are interdependent beings, that much of our suffering is derived from our desire to gain more wealth, more possessions, more status, more experiences – are shown to be relevent when making decisions at a personal and societal level to promote happy, full lives.

Meanwhile, the book stresses that economics is not, and should not be, the sole domain of wonks and businesspeople. Commerce, the flow of resources, our value for labor – all of these things matter to everyoneregardless of socioeconomic status. Our economic decisions directly impact the quality of our lives and the health of our planet, and it's reasonable for us all to be engaged in economic decisionmaking.

“Buddhist Economics”, then, applies Buddhist principles to economic policy and describes steps we can take to create a more pleasant and sustainable world. Brown discusses everything from indicies for measuring economic growth to tax structures, as well as steps we can personally take to realize this goal.

I'll also add that I appreciate the focus on climate and sustainability. I've spent the past few years obsessed with climate, sustainable development, regenerative agriculture, and any number of other “green” issues. The health of the environment is a major focus of the book, and is discussed both from a Buddhist perspective (the acknowledgement of the interconnectedness of all living things) and an economic perspective (descriptions of “natural capital”, for example.)

Good read. I recommend.