Accommodating an expanding urban population in the Research Triangle has led to the loss of more than 100,000 acres of land every year, according to the North Carolina Forest Service. In this metropolitan area, which includes Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, demand for housing and commercial buildings poses a threat to North Carolina’s forests. 

Since 1977 The Nature Conservancy in North Carolina has been fighting for protected areas and promoting sustainable forest management in the state. In December 2017, the Conservancy joined Twitter, which has over 38 million users in the United States, according to a Business of Apps article. On Twitter the Conservancy is trying to raise awareness of deforestation while promoting involvement in their programs.

The Nature Conservancy in North Carolina posts links to a variety of media for  its more than 800 followers. The posts feature stunning photographs and videos of forests and landscapes, in addition to links to articles about how to get involved in conservation. The account caters to both users who can scroll quickly through the feed and to newcomers who can check out the account for the first time.

The average attention span for social media users is quite short. According to a Career Arc article, social media posts have about two seconds to grab the attention of the audience. This means that the message of the post needs to grab the viewer’s attention quickly and also portray information in a way that is easy to digest.

Conserving Carolina uses similar tactics on their Twitter account. While the video clip on climate above focuses on negative effects of deforestation, both The Nature Conservancy in North Carolina and Conserving Carolina regularly post about successes in their organizations.

In a research article published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, researchers found that people react more to negative news, but that the power of positive news is often underestimated. Only posting about negative effects of deforestation might desensitize the audience to these impacts, similar to the way that Americans have been desensitized to recurring news stories regarding school shootings (Salon article). To avoid desensitizing their audience, these two North Carolina conservation organizations devote a hefty portion of Twitter posts to photos of what is being protected, rather than destroyed.

Photo featured on Conserving Carolina’s Twitter. DuPont State Forest added a new section of protected land, which connects it to a 100,000+ acre conservation corridor.

Social media producers are finding ways to make media accessible to more people. Linking visitors directly to an outlet where they can volunteer, donate or sign policy proposals leaves less time for the user to become disinterested in the content.

Both The Nature Conservancy of North Carolina and Conserving Carolina’s Twitter accounts consistently post links that provide opportunities for the public to  engage in environmental conservation and learn about specific pro-environment efforts.

This strategy shortens the process to becoming involved. Users don’t have to search for themselves. Instead, they follow a link that is already in their feed. When opportunities for activism are more accessible, the chances of a viewer interacting with the post are higher.

While these online efforts aim to gain support for a greener state, much of North Carolina’s Research Triangle has replaced its natural land cover with dense concentrations of pavement, buildings and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat. A document published by the North Carolina Forest Service shows how these “urban islands” create pockets of intense heat within heavily populated communities thereby increasing energy consumption and perpetuating global warming trends.

Construction clearing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A parking deck was torn down to make room for another, larger parking deck with over 1,000 spaces (Photo credits: Lauren Ketwitz)

Second angle of parking deck construction, which shows expanse of cleared plot along a road. A separate construction site is seen in the background. (Photo credits: Lauren Ketwitz)

North Carolina has a population of about 10.5 million people, more than 2 million of whom live in the Research Triangle as of 2015, according to a Lawn Starter article. If population growth matches the trend estimated by the North Carolina Forest Service for the next 10 years, the state is set to have 12.4 million residents.

Massive power plant located outside of Cary, North Carolina. This plot of land was cleared and covered in a layer of cement foundation to support the increase of residential power supply needs in the triangle area. (Photo credits: Lauren Ketwitz)

All these people will need places to live and work. As a result, city boundaries will expand and creep closer to one another. Eventually, the term “urban island” could become obsolete. As natural forest cover shrinks and the influence of social media grows, organizations like The Nature Conservancy in North Carolina and Conserving Carolina will have to adapt their methods of informing and educating the public to ensure their messages don’t fall on deaf ears.

Scientific models predict that in the absence of substantial reductions in the burning of fossil fuels the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will double during this century. This is why many countries and localities around the world, including North Carolina, are increasing communication about the dangers posed by greenhouse gas emissions.

Of the 50 U.S. states, North Carolina ranks as the 36th highest producer of carbon dioxide emissions, producing more than 12-and-a-half metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita, according to a World Atlas article.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is ramping up communication about greenhouse gases. The NCDEQ’s primary focus is on carbon dioxide, which accounts for 82 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, carbon dioxide makes up 81 percent of all greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.

Electricity, a major source of greenhouse gases

In a study of North Carolina’s greenhouse gas emissions between 2005 and 2017, the NCDEQ found that electricity accounted for the highest portion of greenhouse gas emissions at 35 percent. To increase awareness of North Carolina’s greenhouse gas emissions, NCDEQ made the results of this study public in 2019.

Paula Hemmer, a senior engineer for NCDEQ, said that analysts used data from this study to develop a goal of a 70 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in the electricity sector by 2030.

“That was published in NCDEQ’s Clean Energy Plan,” Hemmer said. In October of 2021, the Clean Energy Plan (HB 951) was signed into law by Governor Roy Cooper.

The plan has multiple goals. In addition to a 70 percent reduction of carbon dioxide, the Clean Energy Plan calls for carbon neutrality by 2050, meaning that no additional carbon dioxide in the state will be released into the atmosphere. Long-term energy affordability and the acceleration of clean energy development and deployment are other key goals.

NCDEQ is communicating to the public the threats posed by additional greenhouse gas emissions. “When we published the greenhouse gas inventory in 2019, we issued a press release, we had a public comment period, and we presented the inventory at various state government meetings,” Hemmer said.

Live links on NCDEQ website

To communicate with the public, NCDEQ maintains a news section on their website where the department posts news articles and offers live links to meetings held by the department and other governmental entities. Notes posted on the NCDEQ website detail the agendas discussed during those meetings.

NCDEQ also offers signups for department press releases. Visitors can choose to receive press releases from all divisions within the department or just specific divisions.

NCDEQ is also active on social media. On their official Twitter account, NCDEQ tweets or retweets information at least once per day and often multiple times per day to their 9,000 followers. NCDEQ also has a Facebook page followed by more than 8,400 people. Posts appear nearly every day and often multiple times per day.
In addition to the creation of the Clean Energy Plan, the department has recently started other initiatives details of which officials will release in early 2022.

Hemmer said that even though state actions can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in North Carolina, the public can play a role as well. “Communicating to increase public awareness and having personal commitment to reducing your own carbon footprint is equally important to state actions,” Hemmer said.

Climate change is one of the main contributors to rising global temperatures. Use of fossil fuels contributes to increased carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere. These gases fuel the greenhouse effect that the National Resources Defense Council describes as “the natural warming of the earth that results when gases in the atmosphere trap heat from the sun that would otherwise escape into space.”

With colder temperatures in winter in the Northern Hemisphere, the body’s immune system has a harder time fighting off viral infections like colds and influenza.

Rising temperatures make humans more susceptible to heat-related illnesses, such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Extended exposure to heat can lead to dehydration that inhibits the body’s ability to maintain its normal temperature through perspiration. Heat stroke occurs when the body overheats and is unable to cool down. The inability to regulate the body’s internal temperature damages the organ systems and can lead to death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States averages around 702 heat-related deaths per year. The CDC considers these deaths to be generally “preventable.” Since 1980 global heat-related deaths have increased 74 percent. That increase is associated with global warming trends.

High temperatures can also pose health threats through excessive rainfall. Rising air temperatures lead to warming of oceans and other bodies of water. Warmer oceans increase the amount of water that evaporates leading to more frequent and more intense periods of precipitation, through either rain or snow.

 

Rising temperatures lead to floods

 

In North Carolina excessive rain from tropical storms has its greatest impacts on the eastern coast and in towns around the state’s coastal wetlands. Flooding poses threats to the state’s agricultural sector with flooding destroying crops and, in some cases, washing out local farmland. Floodwater also can contain a slew of trash and pollutants that can threaten human and animal health.

Excessive rain can overwhelm drainage and sewer systems leading treatment plants to discharge untreated waste. Additionally, power outages caused by flooding can disable wastewater treatment facilities

More rain and warmer temperatures foster higher humidity, resulting in worsening of allergies and respiratory issues like asthma. “Higher temperatures and humidity can exacerbate poor indoor air quality and result in excess moisture, dampness and mold in a home. These conditions can trigger respiratory illnesses, like asthma and increase susceptibility to heat-related illnesses,” according to the North Carolina Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan.

Intense heat brought on by global warming fosters brush fires, larger wildfires, and increased exposure to pollutants. When fires occur, they release large amounts of smoke and other pollutants into the air. Small particles called particulate matter can enter people’s lungs worsening breathing problems, and in some cases, causing irreversible damage to the lungs.

In a power outage, what happens? Lights go dark, and electronic devices go quiet. The realization of the outage comes when you flip a light switch or plug in a phone to an outlet and nothing happens. But for Warren Kibbe of Chapel Hill, the lights remain on, the refrigerator stays cold, and the WiFi doesn’t go out.

“When we lose power, the batteries take over,” said Kibbe, chief for Translational Biomedical Informatics at the Duke Cancer Institute. “I don’t even notice when it takes over in some rooms.” That’s because Kibbe has 56 solar panels on his house and a lithium-ion battery that can store power the panels produce.

Lithium-ion batteries are one of the most common types of energy storage and can either be used in conjunction with an alternative energy source, like Kibbe’s home solar panels, or by themselves, fed by energy from the power grid.

Kibbe’s two Tesla Powerwall batteries — each of which stand about 3 feet tall, 2 feet wide and 1 foot deep — standy by ready if and when his local utility, Duke Energy, suffers an extended power cut. At that time Kibbe can flip a switch and send electrical energy from his batteries to power his kitchen, a heat pump and lights throughout his house. The batteries usually don’t recharge the Tesla car although they could in the event of an extended power cut.

“The batteries can store about half of what the solar panels can produce on a really bright day — about 45 kilowatt hours,” he said. (For reference, a kilowatt hour is the amount of energy equal to sustaining a thousand watts of power for an hour.)

High cost of lithium-ion home batteries

Although North Carolina is a leader in solar power, solar panels and batteries like Kibbe’s are far from commonplace. Starting prices for leading battery models like the Tesla Powerwall or the Generac PWRcell are several thousands of dollars, and that’s not including the battery installation or the cost of solar panels.

But according to Rui Shan, a graduate research assistant in environmental sciences and engineering at UNC Chapel Hill, several factors will make batteries more popular including falling prices, increasing climate awareness and increasing familiarity with energy storage technology.

“Costs are always declining,” Shan said. “We can foresee a future with everyone with a battery in their households.”

James Robinson, senior project development manager at Strata Solar, said although Strata works with the utilities side of energy storage, he knows the market for residential lithium-ion batteries is growing.

“The products sold on the market are very well-developed and fully commercialized,” Robinson said. “The market itself is still developing but close to mature.”

Robinson said right now, buying a home battery is usually less of an economic decision and done more for resiliency, which is the ability for the power grid to withstand disturbances or failures.

Kibbe said although his main motivation for getting solar panels was to be environmentally friendly, the main draw toward the batteries is their resiliency, such as providing power during outages, and doing so smoothly.

Shan said these batteries can provide power for four to six hours following an outage. Despite this benefit, the costs associated with batteries will not yet save consumers money.

Incentives for battery storage

To help with the financial costs of buying a battery, some government and utilities companies offer rates that incentivize battery storage, Robinson from Strata Solar said. But these mainly exist in metropolitan areas in New York and California, and they’re rare.

In Vermont, Robinson said Green Mountain Power is incentivizing home batteries to improve the grid for everyone. “They’re subsidizing energy storage in exchange for control of how it is used,” he said. “If you can get everyone in a city to discharge their battery during a heat wave, it would provide value in the aggregate.”

The thriving solar industry in North Carolina has led lawmakers to offer tax credits, rebates and other incentives  to consumers over the years, but the same cannot be said for battery storage.

Other types of storage, such as iron-sulfur and hydrogen batteries, are less developed and much more expensive, Shan said. Costs of batteries do go down over time. For example, the price of lithium-ion batteries has gone down by 97 percent since their introduction 30 years ago, according to OurWorldinData.org.

Lithium-ion home batteries may take several years to become more popular in North Carolina. But Shan said with time, as awareness of this technology grows among consumers and prices fall, North Carolina residents may find home energy storage an affordable option.

Matt Abele, director of marketing and communications at the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, said one of the main reasons for the growth of solar in the 2010s was the compounded benefits of both state and federal tax credits.

A 35 percent state tax credit was passed in 1999, and the federal tax credit was expanded to 30 percent in 2005. As of 2021, the federal tax credit was 25 percent, and will be gradually reduced in the coming years. The North Carolina tax credit expired in 2017, but between 2005 and 2017, North Carolina residents were eligible for a 65 percent return on the costs of solar panel installation, making solar energy more accessible and popular throughout the state.

Policy Overview

Another influential policy was the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Standards (REPS), passed in North Carolina Senate Bill 3 in 2007. REPS created a renewable energy requirement for utilities and municipalities that further promoted the use of solar in North Carolina.

“I would say really the biggest and probably most instrumental piece of legislation here in North Carolina was Senate Bill 3,” said Abele. “It required investors in utility, like Duke Energy, and electric municipalities throughout the state to utilize a certain percentage of renewable energy within their generation mix.”

By 2017, North Carolina was the second state in the nation for solar advancement. But according to data collected by the Solar Energy Industries Association, the rate of solar installation in North Carolina peaked in 2017, and the state has since dropped to fourth in the nation.

Passed in 2017, North Carolina House Bill 589 (HB 589) included a wide range of programs intended to fuel the growth of the solar industry — some of these programs have been more successful than others.

Beginning in 2017, the rate of utility-scale solar installations in North Carolina decreased. However, the rate of residential solar installations increased steadily through 2020, the last complete year for which data was available, in large part because of the Solar Rebate Program established by HB 589.

According to the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, the amount of residential solar within Duke’s North Carolina territories more than tripled between 2017 and 2020.

Solar Certification

 As demand for solar panels in North Carolina has grown, more cities and municipalities are updating their zoning and development regulations to encourage installation of solar panels.

SolSmart is a national organization funded by the U.S. Department of Energy that certifies cities, communities and organizations for implementing optimal zoning, permitting, construction and development regulations. This certification aims to eliminate solar soft costs, which include costs created by complex permitting requirements. The updated zoning standards required by the designation process can streamline the process and signal to developers that the city is solar-friendly.

SolSmart partners with local organizations that act as advisors, providing guidance to cities as they update their policies and apply for SolSmart certification. The North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center is currently a SolSmart Advisor. David Sarkisian, senior policy analyst at the Center, said that cities are not required to partner with an advisor, but doing so can help streamline the application process.

“We’re doing baseline assessments for cities to figure out where they are on SolSmart requirements before they go into changing anything,” Sarkisian said. “We give them advice on possible changes to their zoning codes, and we can also hold trainings for city staff.”

At least 10 counties and cities in North Carolina have received SolSmart designations, according to the organization’s website.

Looking Forward

The most recent piece of energy-related legislation in North Carolina is House Bill 951, which was passed in October 2021 and was expected to have major implications for the renewable energy landscape in North Carolina.

Marshall Conrad, director of government relations at Strata Clean Energy, formerly known as Strata Solar, said that it’s too early to tell what the exact effects of the bill will be, but that it has the potential to increase the rates of utility solar installations in the state.

“The bill is wide open and leaves so much discretion to the [North Carolina] Utilities Commission to decide how we move forward,” Conrad said. “I think that’s both a positive and a negative to some extent.”

As of June 2021, the Bill had received criticism from several environmental groups, including the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Environmental Defense Fund. One of the primary concerns, according to an October 2021 article by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, is that although the bill sets important goals of carbon reduction and minimizing consumer costs, the language may not be specific enough to be enforceable.

“A lot of the onus was put on the Utilities Commission to determine next steps for implementation,” Abele said “It’s still to be determined how it’s going to affect the industry.”

Step into a store like H&M and you’ll be greeted by a seemingly endless amount of clothing. It’s enough to make anyone wonder how it could all be purchased and used, and the short answer is that a lot isn’t.

Add that to the amount of clothing people throw away each year, and you end up with heaps of unwanted garments sitting in landfills. The EPA estimated that 11.3 million tons of municipal solid waste textiles, the main source of which is discarded clothing, ended up in landfills in 2018.

Additionally, the fashion industry accounts for 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and is on track to reach 25 percent by 2050. But several emerging technologies and models could help make clothing production more sustainable.

The challenge in predicting consumer demands

A majority of apparel companies follow a push supply chain model, meaning that they produce goods based on anticipated consumer demand. In a push supply system, companies predict what consumers will want well while accounting for differing sizes, weather forecasts and more.

“There’s no way we can anticipate who will buy what in what color, what design, what size,” Byoungho Ellie Jin said. “There’s no way to identify the demand accurately.”

Jin is the Albert Myers Distinguished Professor of Textile Economics and Management at North Carolina State University. She studies innovation within the textile and apparel industry. Jin said compared to other industries, it’s a challenge to forecast fashion demands.

“Think about other products, like an automobile or computer; the size doesn’t matter and there’s not much color variation, not much fabric variation,” Jin said. “But in apparel — fabric, design and color — those should be all different.”

The fickle nature of clothing demands has led to fast fashion practices in which manufacturers produce a surplus of lower quality clothing. Not only do many items go unsold, but those that actually make it into consumers’ hands aren’t made to last.

Improving the fashion forecast

To improve forecasting and decrease waste, researchers are exploring artificial intelligence that can recognize patterns in a large amount of data.

“With AI, we can develop more detailed, more accurate demand estimation that will result in huge impacts on the environment,” Jin said.

Companies can use AI to look at data, like buying trends or best-selling items, to give real-time estimations on demand. Companies can do AI in-house or outsource it to businesses like True Fit, whose clients include Levi’s, Macy’s and Ralph Lauren.

Retailers also can avoid overstocking items by using augmented reality. Through AR technology, users can try on clothing without actually putting anything on.

Virtual reality, too, can provide feedback to stores about consumers’ shopping experiences. Jin said this could be especially useful for smaller businesses because VR could allow potential customers visit a store without leaving home. If shoppers see a store virtually and find it pleasant, they might be more likely to visit the actual premises.

Changing the Way We Produce Textiles

Researchers are also reconsidering how different fabrics are made, both in the materials used and the resources that production require.

For instance, some scientists suggest making clothing from textiles such as regenerated protein fibers that can be made from food waste.

A non-profit company based in North Carolina, Cotton Incorporated focuses on the supply chain. The company promotes research for sustainable practices in cotton production and new technologies for textile manufacturing.

Another innovation, 3D printing, has the potential to enhance mass personalization. Companies could employ this technology to print pattern pieces as needed, instead of cutting from regular fabric pieces, which creates unused scrap fabric.

Though still in experimental stages, 3D printing could localize manufacturing, shifting production back to the U.S. from overseas. It could also limit excess inventory by responding to customer demand rather than anticipating it ahead of the selling season. 

The Business of Sharing

Another practice that has become popular in multiple industries, including fashion, is collaborative consumption. Rather than typical sharing among friends or family, this model involves the renting, swapping, trading and borrowing of goods between strangers.

Apparel businesses using this model take the form of online fashion rental services, like Rent the Runway, and peer-to-peer platforms, such as Poshmark.

The collaborative consumption model has seen a lot of success, and researchers project that the online fashion rental industry will grow annually at a rate of about 10 percent, making it worth $1.95 billion by 2026.

One study showed almost 44 percent of U.S. adults were familiar with the concept of collaborative consumption, and 72 percent were willing to try it.

But collaborative consumption has potential pitfalls. Researchers have speculated that increased transactions — and thus, increased need for transport or packaging —  could eventually outweigh the benefits of decreased production.

Changing Consumers Want Changing Brands

Jin pointed out that buyers, especially younger ones, are beginning to focus more on the sustainability of their wardrobes. That attitude is part of what has sparked growth in rental service models, buying second-hand clothing and looking for expensive yet durable garments.

“The incumbent traditional retailers or apparel manufacturers who relied on traditional push supply chains — they need to reconsider their business model,” Jin said, “because consumers are very into sustainability and very concerned about saving the planet.”

“Fast Fashion” describes the second most polluting industry on earth after oil. Online stores such as Misguided and SHEIN sell clothing items at affordable prices, but the environmental cost is damaging.

Investing in fast fashion also means investing in its consequences. “We love to change our fashion, but this idea of changing fashion and fast fashion has created a real issue for textile waste accumulation,” said Sonja Salmon, associate professor in the Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science at North Carolina State University.

According to Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, the fashion industry is the second largest consumer of the world’s water supply and produces 10 percent of all of human-caused carbon emissions. Rapid distribution of clothing also comes at the cost of underpaying workers who suffer from generally poor working conditions.

Facing the Consequences

“The fashion industry needs to fundamentally change in order to mitigate the environmental impact of fast fashion,” said Greg Gangi, associate director for clean technology and innovation and teaching professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He said the current industry model of purchasing and disposing of clothes adversely impacts the world’s resources.

Clothing manufacturing requires textile dyeing that utilizes toxic chemicals that often end up in oceans and lakes. “The toxic substances in the wastewater from these factories contaminate the fresh water that we drink and in which animals live,” said Fushcia-Ann Hoover, a social-eological systems scientist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The production of fabrics also releases microplastics into the water.

Clothing brands use fabrics such as polyester or nylon that take years to biodegrade. These fabrics then turn into microplastics — tiny pieces of non-biodegradable plastic. A 2017 report from the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated that laundering of synthetic textiles like polyester generate 35 percent of all microplastics in the oceans. As plastics degrade, they release chemicals such as bisphenol A or BPA. This chemical concentrates in fish tissues harming the food supply. “Plastic pollution is harmful because it travels through soil and water and can be consumed by wildlife, thus threatening the health of animals and humans,” said UNC-CH professor Gangi.

Energy-Intensive Process

Turning plastic fibers into textiles requires energy and petroleum-based products that release volatile particulate matter into the air. Supply chains require 10 times more energy to generate one ton of textiles than does the production of one ton of glass. Factories require electricity to wash, dry and dye the cloth. Shipping the garments often by ship and truck transport release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Ships burn bunker fuel that contains 1800 times more sulfur than domestic vehicle fuel, making shipping a major energy-polluting component.  From processing yarn and fabricating textiles, to transporting and selling clothes to customers, fast fashion adversely impacts the environment.

Fast fashion also poses societal problems. A 2018 US Department of Labor report found evidence of forced and child labor in the fashion industry in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Philippines. The low cost and rapid pace of fast fashion mean supply chains often subcontract low- and middle-income countries for production. Gangi said marginalized communities – rather than consumers — bear the biggest burden of fast fashion habits.  Research shows that wages paid in some garment-producing countries remain too low to meet the basic needs of workers. In addition, workers face exposure to hazardous work environments.

Cost of Clothing Consumption

A review by the United Nations Environment Program and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation reported that 62 million metric tons of apparel were consumed globally. The report asserted that fast fashion accounts for more annual carbon emissions than all international flights and maritime shipping combined. The study forecast that fast fashion may contribute to a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions within a decade. Many clothes end in landfils as lower quality clothing degrades after only a few times being worn. Many people opt to discard clothes rather than donate them when they’re worn out or no longer trendy. This cycle poses public health and environmental dangers to local communities that are often the site of landfills that can release toxic air emissions and leach pollutants into groundwater.

Gone are the days when people would buy a shirt and wear it for years. Rapid production means that sales and profits supersede human welfare, said UNC professor Gangi. Taking steps toward advocating for a green-friendly fashion industry and becoming environmentally-conscious consumers can help slow down climate change.