You probably know orchids as the big, colorful flowers found in grocery stores and given as housewarming gifts. But those tropical beauties represent only a fraction of the estimated 25,000 orchid species worldwide. While their showy relatives fly off the shelves, North America’s more understated native orchids are disappearing in the wild. Scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center are working to protect these orchids and their habitats, but first they need solve a surprisingly difficult problem: how to grow one.

The Biden administration has recently passed more climate policy than many thought possible. A combination of rebates and incentives are aimed at helping Americans get off fossil fuels, whether it's switching to an electric stove, swapping out that HVAC system for a heat pump that runs on electricity instead of natural gas, or getting an electric vehicle.

The policies span agriculture, new technology, research and development, biofuels, transportation and more. Woven through those areas is a commitment to environmental and social justice. 

“We have a relentless focus on getting greenhouse gas emissions down, but we have such a bigger opportunity right now, and that opportunity is to restore that American dream,” says White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi. “Folks … feel impatient about flipping the switch going to clean, but we gotta bring everybody along if we believe the values that we espouse.”

Biden’s policy wins have secured vast amounts of funding, and that money is just beginning to flow, with new programs becoming available to everyday Americans. With hundreds of billions tagged for chip and battery plants, climate smart agriculture, rail, modernizing the electric grid, and tax incentives for citizens to run their homes and cars on electricity, ensuring these dollars and programs have real impact is now the name of the game. But it’s not a straight line.

As a candidate for president, Biden promised no more drilling on federal lands, yet he recently approved the Willow Project, an $8 billion plan to pump an estimated 600 million barrels of oil from federal lands on the north slope of Alaska. The International Energy Agency states that developing such new oil and gas fields will push global heating to dangerous levels and jeopardize net zero goals. 

Zaidi says the project is an example of the administration needing to work through inherited decisions, and he understands the ire from many environmentalists and climate activists.

“I don't want to gloss over how folks feel about the decision. I don't want to pretend like … this is part of a straight path trajectory to where we hope to go. But you know, this is part of the complexity of where we find ourselves.”

Zaidi says the Biden administration is also engaging with oil and gas companies as well as leaders of hard-to-decarbonize industries like steel, cement and aluminum, having what he described as “the hard conversation,” telling them that they need to be part of the solution.

Throughout all of this, Zaidi says the administration remains focused on economic and environmental justice, repairing the harms of the past and not recreating them. Part of that involves focusing on the labor needed in this transition, keeping workers  employed and supporting those in the trade industries as we move away from fossil fuels.

“So, the pipefitters and plumbers that have been building these pipes for decades, well, they're actually front of the line pushing for stronger methane standards because they get to patch those pipes, right? We've got the electrical workers who've been keeping the lights on across the country for as long as we can remember. Those folks are front of the line on electric vehicle chargers because they're the ones that are getting to put the wiring in to make that possible,” Zaidi says. “So we gotta go sector by sector. We gotta look at the literal work that we need to do. And it's gonna turn out that a lot of these workers with amazing skills who've been holding up and expanding middle-class communities across the country, we need them in the clean energy economy.”

Related Links:

CleanEnergy.gov

Lower Energy Costs Act

Climate Smart Agriculture with Secretary Tom Vilsack

What We’re Watching in Climate Now

How do we change the story of corrosive racial inequity? First, we have to understand the stories we tell ourselves. In this program, racial justice innovators john a. powell and Heather McGhee show how empathy, honesty and the recognition of our common humanity can change the story to bridge the racial divides tearing humanity and the Earth apart.

The IPCC says their latest report is their final warning on the climate crisis—yet, still offers hope. 

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