As Trump denies climate change, The Collider, area leaders search for solutions

ASHEVILLE — In a tumultuous time for the debate on climate change, Drew Jones doesn't give it a second thought. On this issue, he is certain, the debate now is only about the effectiveness of solutions and not at all waffling on the facts.

Jones has spent a lifetime analyzing climate data, in recent years from a desk at The Collider, high above Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville. Models developed by his company, Climate Interactive, informed world leaders at the United Nations Copenhagen summit in 2009 and were widely used by former Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

But his work seemingly unraveled last year after President Donald Trump, then five months into his presidency, announced the U.S. would pull out of the agreement.

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His immediate reaction? "Sad and mad," he said recently, between bites of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."You spend eight years building something, building a nice tower out of blocks and some bully comes in and kicks it all down."

Out of that withdrawal, however, Jones and other tenants of The Collider — a nonprofit workspace focused on climate solutions — as well as state and local leaders have affirmed commitments made under the Paris Agreement. It was a discussion point at last month's ClimateCon 2018, which drew some of the subject's brightest minds to Asheville, and it partially has been a factor in shaping municipal policy in recent years.

Can Asheville be 'Climate City'?

As much as beer or tourism, Asheville's future identity may be tied directly to climate science, some leaders say.

"I would say Asheville has been on this train for a while now," Bridget Herring, the city's energy program coordinator, said during the We Are Still In regional panel last month at ClimateCon. "Climate change, as we’ve seen, is quite a large issue, and the way you eat an elephant is one bite at time."

Asheville recorded its two hottest years on record in 2016 and 2017, more than 2 degrees above what is normal, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. Experts attribute warmer than average temperatures — recorded last year in 48 states and in Alaska — to the effects of climate change.

Herring said the city has been aggressive combating root causes of climate change. It has instituted a goal of 80 percent carbon reduction by 2050, including a 4 percent annual carbon footprint reduction.

Additionally, Mayor Esther Manheimer was one of 274 mayors to sign a letter of support last year to uphold the commitments of the Paris Agreement. It involves efforts to hold the increase of global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius and to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Buncombe County also has gotten on board with commissioners voting in December to move away from using fossil fuels for electricity and its vehicle fleet. Within that vote, the Board of Commissioners said the county will use only clean and renewable energy for its operations by 2030 and for all county homes and businesses by 2042.

"The county has always been cognizant of the fact that we operate a large building and fleet portfolio," said Jeremiah LeRoy, Buncombe County sustainability officer. "As such, it is critical that we strive to operate as efficiently as possible, both from an energy and cost perspective."

The issue has been a focus at the state level as well, according to Jeremy Tarr, a policy adviser to Gov. Roy Cooper.

"On important issues like climate, it's even more important for states to take the reins and not slow down, but to accelerate," Tarr said, adding North Carolina's climate commitment "sets sort of a message for the state and all of us in our respective jobs."

Trump has not shared those views as president or in his previous life as a real estate developer and TV personality. He repeatedly has called climate change a "hoax" and said the concept of global warming "was created by and for the Chinese" to make U.S. manufacturing "non-competitive."

He also has installed at high levels of the government officials such as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has played down the effects of global warming as not necessarily "a bad thing." The agency under Pruitt has scrubbed links and materials from the EPA website meant to help officials combat the effects of rising temperatures and more severe storms, according to the New York Times.

The withdrawal from the Paris agreement could happen as soon as November 2020.

But there's a far different perspective at the National Centers for Environmental Information and The Collider, both based in Asheville.

"It’s not even a discussion for us because we operate from the principle and the fact that the climate is changing," Megan Robinson, The Collider's chief operating officer, said. "We’re not saying X, Y and Z are the causes — someone else might be saying that.

"But we’re saying it’s changing and we’re fostering this innovative and creative space for solutions that are ultimately going to impact the life, safety and prosperity of society everywhere."

Where worlds collide

The federal government's attitude on climate science under Trump has little impact on The Collider, as it's funded entirely through a mix of private donations and membership fees. After years of planning and investments, construction on its facility inside the Wells Fargo Building began in 2015 due, in large part, to funding it received from local philanthropist Mack Pearsall, who is considered its founder.

Pearsall said in 2016 The Collider is "first to market in the emerging commercialization of climate data." He sits on the organization's board and usually is a fixture at its community events, like its weekly PercCollider coffee networking hour, held on Fridays.

Its tenants include NASA alums, number crunchers, entrepreneurs and writers.

There are people such as Tom Barr, CEO of Infrastructure Services Group LLC , which focuses on inspecting and repairing underground water and wastewater pipelines; L. DeWayne Cecil, a scientist and engineer who serves as chief climatologist and program manager of Global Science and Technology Inc.; and Doug Bruggeman of Ecological Services and Markets Inc., which uses data to inform sustainable development projects.

Working at the intersection of regulation and land use, Bruggeman said he realized he could design climate adaptation methods by becoming a real estate agent. He also has designed a climate change class for real estate agents, largely to help others utilize data in their work, noting "the timing is right."

Bruggeman said he highlights that flood risk, for example, is a risk in buying a home, but the FEMA floodplain maps don't incorporate climate change effects.

"Just being aware of that is important," he said. "A 500-year floodplain is no longer a 500-year floodplain. Also, looking at wildfire risk is critical — and there are data sources out there to look at these things."

Then there's Eric Klos, founder and CEO of HEALTHeWeather, a software company tasked with tracking how the environment impacts people's health. Klos has a particular focus on studying air quality and pollen to determine to what extent individuals are impacted by the environmental conditions in their communities.

"The medical community hasn’t paid attention to environmental factors," he said. "Part of the reason they haven’t is because patients feel they are at the mercy of the weather."

He said physicians have never had the tools to help them understand how the environment impacts patients or what they can do to help them avoid negative health outcomes. Apps he's created like DailyBreath, which helps allergic asthma sufferers assess the risks of the environment and pollen, could go a long way toward bettering that understanding.

"We are slowly learning more and more about these issues and, because of that, I think doctors are going to have to be knowledgeable about these topics," he said.

Robinson said work like Klos' and Bruggeman's is part of The Collider's ecosystem in "trying to create ways to communicate, ways to solve and ways to address" the changing climate. She acknowledges the discussion around the subject often carries a partisan slant, but she said it's mostly because information on it can be difficult to grasp.

"The biggest thing is that it’s hard to understand, it’s scary, it’s life-changing, and it requires people to act differently," she said. "It seems that’s a barrier that’s hard for people to overcome, that the way they’ve been used to living and feeding their families and making a living and being successful is being threatened by something they have no control over and that’s scary for people."

The current moment comes with frustration for Jones. He's aggravated that there's a climate debate at all in the U.S., especially as similar debates aren't being had to the same extent in comparable nations.

Maybe the sentiment will die off at some point, he wonders, but we haven't reached that point yet. Even so, his work has continued largely undeterred from a co-work space in downtown Asheville.

He's searching for ways to prevent problems — such as pushing municipalities and companies to meet emissions goals — and encouraging design for resilience and adaptation using the best available science.

"I find the things that give me hope and a sense of possibility," Jones said. "Right now, you've got hundreds of cities like Asheville, North Carolina, saying we're going (to reduce our emissions), and about 900 others are as well.

"I look to the good news and I look to the possibilities for success, and I build upon that."