Page 8 - Green Builder March-April 2021 Issue

Green Building NEWS

The Latest on Sustainability and Renewable Energy

Talk of Climate Crisis Resonates, as Old Descriptors Fade

There’s still an environmental crisis on hand, but it now goes by newer, darker names.

EOPLE AREN’T TALKING about “global warming”
anymore, and they’re on the verge of abandon-
ing the term “climate change.” But that shift,
P according to researchers at BayWa r.e., a Ger-
man renewable energy company, is a very good thing.
A research of 1.3 trillion tweets, Reddit posts, news
articles and other publicly available sources, along with
Google search data, revealed that searches for “global
warming”—once the most popular term for describing
Earth’s rising temperatures—have dropped 73 percent
since 2010. It’s a case of the phrase going out of style,
according to Mark Cooper, BayWa r.e.’s director of global
communications. It’s also an indicator that the public is
beginning to grasp just how serious the problem is.
According to a report by Grist, detractors have long
complained that “global warming” sounds too warm and
friendly. “Climate change” captures the full range of
effects that people are experiencing, but can still sound Words matter. Instead of “global warming,” terms such as “climate disruption” and “global
too neutral, as “change” can often be a positive action. heating” elicit a more active response. CREDIT: PETMAL/ISTOCK
Enter “climate crisis,” which saw a 17 percent increase in searches in 2020, “Climate change,” meanwhile, dropped 41 percent from 2019. The change
and “climate action,” which rose 47 percent. “Climate emergency,” “climate in terms, BayWa r.e. notes, “shows a world that’s increasingly thinking with
breakdown,” “climate disruption,” and “global heating” also picked up steam. proactivity and specific causes in mind.”

FedEx to Convert to All Electric Fleet by 2040

The company has doubled down on EV technology,
with planned phase out of combustion engines.

N COMING YEARS, when that FedEx package comes to your door, it will have
arrived in an electric truck. The nation’s second-largest parcel delivery service
reports that it is spending $2 billion to electrify its entire fleet of vehicles
I by 2040. The action is also part of the company’s plan to go carbon neutral
globally by that date.
FedEx Corp. CEO and Chairperson Frederick W. Smith says the switch will be
accomplished in phases, with 50 percent of all new vehicle purchases being zero-
emission electric by 2025, and 100 percent by 2030. Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal
Service (USPS), the nation’s largest delivery service, has unveiled a plan to replace
one-quarter to one-third of its already outdated internal combustion engine (ICE)
fleet with electric vehicles (EVs) by 2031.
In January, President Joe Biden announced that the government’s entire fleet
of 645,000 vehicles, including 225,000 USPS trucks, would eventually be EVs, at Express delivery. FedEx plans to overhaul its entire fleet of delivery
a cost of about $20 billion. No timeline was set, but Biden said the effort will “be vehicles, going from gasoline powered to electric-driven, in less than
made right here in America by American workers.” 20 years. CREDIT: ERIC LEENARS/FLICKR

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