Again With The Congress! Also: Harvard #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrikeOnline

So, I see on Congress.gov, Senator Mike Braun (R-IN — Go, Hoosiers!) has introduced a bill: S. 1251 or, as its friends call it, Growing Climate Solutions Act of 2021. It has 49 co-sponsors: 24 Democrats, 24 Republicans, and one Independent.

The summary says, in part:

This bill authorizes the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to establish a voluntary Greenhouse Gas Technical Assistance Provider and Third-Party Verifier Certification Program to help reduce entry barriers into voluntary environmental credit markets for farmers, ranchers, and private forest landowners. A voluntary environmental credit market is a market through which agriculture and forestry credits may be bought or sold.

The text of the bill itself explains, “The term ‘agriculture or forestry credit’ means a credit derived from the prevention, reduction, or mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions or carbon sequestration on agricultural land or private forest land that may be bought or sold on a voluntary environmental credit market.”

That’s something, but of course it isn’t enough. We’ve reached the crisis that has been predicted for — literally — DECADES, and it’s going to take many different solutions to many different contributing problems to claw us back from the brink.

According to The Harvard Crimson (yeah, I do get around), “Harvard’s annual Climate Change Solutions Fund awarded $1 million in funding last month to nine projects spanning the University’s 12 schools.”

“Pursuing a more sustainable future means advancing on several fronts to address the tremendous challenges posed by climate change,” University President Lawrence S. Bacow told the Harvard Gazette, a University publication. “The projects being funded this year draw on strengths from across the University and among a wide swath of researchers and scholars. I look forward to seeing where their efforts lead us in the years ahead.”

And, of course, I can’t mention Harvard without sharing Tom Lehrer’s Fight Fiercely, Harvard.

You’re welcome.

A WRITING PROMPT FROM ME TO YOU: Write about rivals cooperating.