How Green are We?

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Rhode Island recently became the last New England state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cooperative
effort to reduce greenhouse gases in the Northeast. The announcement was a crowd pleaser during Governor Carcieri’s most recent State of the State address. And with the governor asking that 20 percent of the state’s energy be derived from wind and water by 2011, it seems like Rhode Island is at least going in the right direction.

“We’re really at zero right now when it comes to renewable energy sources,” says Andy Dzykewicz, the chief energy adviser to the governor, a position Carcieri created. He says that of the 8,615 megawatt hours of electricity the state generated in 2006, only one megawatt came from hydroelectricity and twelve from landfill gas. “We have 650 dams we’re eyeing for hydroelectric power,” says Dzykewicz. “We have wind, we have water, let’s use them.”

The one thing the state has done best is preserve land, says Ward. “This is one of the few areas where you can’t slide back,” he says. Nearly 50 percent of the state is undeveloped, and a large percentage of that is protected. Statewide Planning, the Department of Environmental Management and local land trusts are all fighting to get to the rest before developers do.

And some Ocean State cities are making efforts at the microlocal level.Ward points to Warwick’s efficient recycling program as a bright spot in efforts to reduce waste. Providence mayor David Cicilline is one of 350 mayors who have signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. In signing, he has agreed to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in every level of city government by following the groundbreaking Kyoto Protocol, which the United States has yet to sign.

“It’s clear to me that if there’s going to be any real progress with the environment, it’s going to happen at our level,” says Cicilline. “This is really about education. In places like Seattle, the parents of the people running things instilled responsibility. We want to start that here.”

And of course, our state is only part of a much bigger issue: “Nobody in this country is sustainable,” says Harold Ward, “We’re consuming way too much. For the country to be sustainable, the population would have to be reduced to 10 percent.”

As far as rankings go, Ward says it’s too difficult to give a “green report card.” In 1989, an attempt was made to rank the greenest states by the Institute for Southern Studies and Renew America. Rhode Island placed fourth and thirteenth respectively. Today, there are no comprehensive state environmental rankings, but the EPA and Scorecard.org both compile state statistics that give a glimpse into how each state is doing.

Assessments of environmental health always have an element of subjectivity, says John Torgan of Save The Bay, author of the 2006 “State of the Bay” report. “Most assessments are based on facts, but at some point you make a value judgment if things are better or worse,” he says. Ultimately, numbers can be deceiving, hiding initiatives and laws that plan for future protection. In his report, for example, Torgan says he looked at more than just nitrogen levels or pollution. “We measure policy victories and give them a certain weight, too,” he says.

So, how green are we? Here we give you some tools to help you decide for yourself. In the following pages there are many numbers: charts and graphs and figures on factors that affect the health of our environment, ranging from transportation to energy. They’ll only show part of the whole picture. But together they are a telling snapshot of our state’s impact on the earth. Our hope is that they’ll give you an idea of where we stand. Perhaps they’ll even inspire you to ask some hard questions, start a conversation with a neighbor—or maybe, just turn your heat down a few degrees.