Resilience is "the capacity or ability for a system to avoid, adapt to, or recover from shock or change." In a new report for the US Forest Service Urban and Community Forest Program, the Center for Resilient Cities argues that urban forestry is "simple climate protection technology," but that the USFS, like other federal agencies, is at just the earliest stages of planning for and adapting to threats posed by climate disruption.
The report suggests that urban forests may be central to designing and managing resilient cities in the 21st Century (though the report also notes the potential for conflict between urban forestry projects designed to cool a city and solar projects seeking to put solar power arrays on urban rooftops). At the same time, implicit in its critique of the Urban and Community Forestry Program and its lack of a clear message or plan for climate change is the indication that the Program itself may lack resilience.
This raises a crucial question as we enter a new chapter of US government leadership on global climate change: What can we do to ensure that we are building resilient government agencies that prize adaptaion, experimentation and concrete outcomes? In other words. how to create resilient agencies that are part of the solution? The President-elect makes clear that it is not about throwing money at the problem, but about clarity of purpose and leadership at every level.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Urban Parks: Why and Wherefore?
I am re-reading Jane Jacobs' "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (it rings as true today page by page as it ever has--this is one wise book) and I am struck by her insistence that urban parks must be designed and maintained for a specific purpose: " to intensify and knit together" the network of city streets within a neighborhood, and not "to island off different uses from each other." Jacobs argues that the urban street must be lively and interesting so that from their casual interactions urban residents will provide the emergent and self-organizing care for their own neighborhood safety and stability that nobody else can provide. At the same time, she argues that the urban "district" must provide the political power to deal with threats from the outside. Finally, parks must serve to knit streets together into a neighborhood fabric.
This week, from the revered British medical journal the Lancet comes a reminder that urban green space is also critically linked to public health. A Scottish research team found that access to parks and other green space eases health disparities for poor communities. The study found that "low income was associated with an increased incidence of all-cause mortality of 93% of areas with the fewest forests, parks and playing fields but only 43% in the greenest areas."
Taken together, Jane Jacobs and the Lancet study suggest that urban green space design is a delicate balancing act--that well designed spaces can dramatically improve the lives of poor communities in cities, assuming that those green spaces attract residents and do not contribute to the fragmentation of the urban neighborhood fabric.
This week, from the revered British medical journal the Lancet comes a reminder that urban green space is also critically linked to public health. A Scottish research team found that access to parks and other green space eases health disparities for poor communities. The study found that "low income was associated with an increased incidence of all-cause mortality of 93% of areas with the fewest forests, parks and playing fields but only 43% in the greenest areas."
Taken together, Jane Jacobs and the Lancet study suggest that urban green space design is a delicate balancing act--that well designed spaces can dramatically improve the lives of poor communities in cities, assuming that those green spaces attract residents and do not contribute to the fragmentation of the urban neighborhood fabric.
Word of the Year
According to a post today on the NY Times' Green, Inc. blog, the word "hypermiling" has been chosen as the word of the year for 2008 by the New Oxford American Dictionary.
We liked that word too, and I must say we have been hypermiling a bit ourselves since we first wrote about it in one of our posts from September. Remember not to hypermile through stop signs and red lights-unless it is a three way stop and there is nobody in sight.
We liked that word too, and I must say we have been hypermiling a bit ourselves since we first wrote about it in one of our posts from September. Remember not to hypermile through stop signs and red lights-unless it is a three way stop and there is nobody in sight.
Monday, October 27, 2008
French Ties
In my role as a co-principle investigator in the Baltimore Ecosystem Study I was thrilled to participate last week in the 2d France-US Urban Ecology workshop in Baltimore.
The BES is one of two National Science Foundation-sponsored long term studies of cities as ecosystems. At the BES annual meeting last week, BES scientists and research teams continued to refine our understanding of how cities work in powerful ways. In recent years, for example, BES studies have shown that riparian zones (vegetation along the banks of rivers and streams) do not operate in cities the way they operate in rural and suburban areas. In urban areas, the change in the rate of flow is so great that the riparian zones simply cannot serve to filter stormwater and pollution they way they do in rural areas. As such, the true riparian zone in cities is the urban tree canopy as a whole, which filters stormwater before it even gets into the storm sewers and then into the streams.
Stormwater runoff in the context of a changing climate was one of the common themes that emerged in the conversations between the French-US teams that followed the BES annual meeting. Two other fascinating topics that the teams will be working on together: The role for scientists in desiging and implementing the Urban Environmental Accords, UN-sponsored action plans for buidings sustainable cities, signed by over 100 cities since 2005, and also the concept of territoire, or the concept or sense of space created by public process and participation. On this last project, a team of natural and social scientists will be exploring the use of territoire as a method for integrating the social and natural sciences in urban planning. Heady stuff, and yet both of these projects seek to bring French and US research teams into the discussion of how we manage cities in the 21st Century.
The BES is one of two National Science Foundation-sponsored long term studies of cities as ecosystems. At the BES annual meeting last week, BES scientists and research teams continued to refine our understanding of how cities work in powerful ways. In recent years, for example, BES studies have shown that riparian zones (vegetation along the banks of rivers and streams) do not operate in cities the way they operate in rural and suburban areas. In urban areas, the change in the rate of flow is so great that the riparian zones simply cannot serve to filter stormwater and pollution they way they do in rural areas. As such, the true riparian zone in cities is the urban tree canopy as a whole, which filters stormwater before it even gets into the storm sewers and then into the streams.
Stormwater runoff in the context of a changing climate was one of the common themes that emerged in the conversations between the French-US teams that followed the BES annual meeting. Two other fascinating topics that the teams will be working on together: The role for scientists in desiging and implementing the Urban Environmental Accords, UN-sponsored action plans for buidings sustainable cities, signed by over 100 cities since 2005, and also the concept of territoire, or the concept or sense of space created by public process and participation. On this last project, a team of natural and social scientists will be exploring the use of territoire as a method for integrating the social and natural sciences in urban planning. Heady stuff, and yet both of these projects seek to bring French and US research teams into the discussion of how we manage cities in the 21st Century.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Solar Cities
Building sustainable cities requires innovation and partnerships at every level of government. In this political season, the debate over the role of government is reduced to sound bites over where there ought to be more or less government. As with all political discourse these days, that seems to miss the point.
At issue for sustainable cities is not whether local governments will be involved, it is how to redesign the role of government so that innovation can flourish. The Solar America Cities project is a good example. In 25 cities across the country, local governments are working with the Department of Energy, universities, non-profits and the private sector to develop sustainable solar power infrastructure by removing regulatory and other barriers to the implementation of solar power projects in each city. The cities are working to integrate solar power into city plans and zoning codes, to streamline city regulatory processes such as permitting and inspections and to promote adoption of solar power in the private sector through incentive programs, outreach and education.
The programs and practices in each of these 25 pilot cities should provide significant data as well as models for adoption by cities across the country. Building by building, neighborhood by neighborhood, solar projects will reduce the climate footprint of a city and its residents and work force. Look for solar panels soon on a school or business near you--here comes the sun.
At issue for sustainable cities is not whether local governments will be involved, it is how to redesign the role of government so that innovation can flourish. The Solar America Cities project is a good example. In 25 cities across the country, local governments are working with the Department of Energy, universities, non-profits and the private sector to develop sustainable solar power infrastructure by removing regulatory and other barriers to the implementation of solar power projects in each city. The cities are working to integrate solar power into city plans and zoning codes, to streamline city regulatory processes such as permitting and inspections and to promote adoption of solar power in the private sector through incentive programs, outreach and education.
The programs and practices in each of these 25 pilot cities should provide significant data as well as models for adoption by cities across the country. Building by building, neighborhood by neighborhood, solar projects will reduce the climate footprint of a city and its residents and work force. Look for solar panels soon on a school or business near you--here comes the sun.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
The Costs of Meltdown
It is the nature of a crisis that we tend to focus on the problems in front of us. It is the nature of our democracy that we tend to solve problems in two and four years chunks. Remarkable, therefore, that during 2007 and 2008 we saw systemic changes in environmental business practices and legislative structures that looked across decades and not months. In the Summer of 2008, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a suite of environmental statutes that truly change the regulatory landscape and that speak in terms of decades and not months or even years.
Similarly, I spent yesterday consulting to the Sustainability Committee of the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA). The Association's board has committed itself to "Contribute to sustainable communities by promoting the environmental and economic value of maintaining healthy trees," and now the staff and dedicated members, small business owners all, are working on a sustainability strategy for the industry. Present at the meeting was a Vice President for a supplier to the tree care industry, a major manufacturing company that itself launched a sustainability strategy last year. As he described it, the company came to sustainability because of a concern over costs, and found that recycling steel in their manufacturing process saves the company $6 million per year. What followed was a company-wide explosion of interest in sustainability and a commitment to exploring environmentally sounds practices across the company--a culture shift. This VP reported that the company had changed forever and that he was urging his colleagues not to feel guilty about how they got to the table (reducing costs) and rather to focus on sustaining the momentum.
A true tragedy of the timing of this financial crisis then is that it comes at a time that new institutions were beginning to take sustainability seriously. Most of the Massachusetts legislative initiatives require new staff at the state level--and the Governor is sure to require a hiring freeze as the state looks at massive deficits and as the Treasurer cannot even borrow against current receivables. Quite apart from the fact that sustainability practices save money, layoffs and slowdowns will inevitably blunt the momentum within companies like the one I met yesterday as well. This morning in the Boston Globe, there is a story about the businesses, big and small, that are struggling in the face of the credit crisis. The point, of course, is that the financial meltdown is already hitting main street and has been for a long time. The article suggests we take a wider view on how this current crisis effects a broader scope of people and of issues--how it touches or will touch lives outside Wall Street and institutions and issues far removed from a handful of investment banks.
A new challenge, then, for the coming several years: How do we sustain the momentum for deep and systemic change in a climate of fiscal crisis?
Similarly, I spent yesterday consulting to the Sustainability Committee of the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA). The Association's board has committed itself to "Contribute to sustainable communities by promoting the environmental and economic value of maintaining healthy trees," and now the staff and dedicated members, small business owners all, are working on a sustainability strategy for the industry. Present at the meeting was a Vice President for a supplier to the tree care industry, a major manufacturing company that itself launched a sustainability strategy last year. As he described it, the company came to sustainability because of a concern over costs, and found that recycling steel in their manufacturing process saves the company $6 million per year. What followed was a company-wide explosion of interest in sustainability and a commitment to exploring environmentally sounds practices across the company--a culture shift. This VP reported that the company had changed forever and that he was urging his colleagues not to feel guilty about how they got to the table (reducing costs) and rather to focus on sustaining the momentum.
A true tragedy of the timing of this financial crisis then is that it comes at a time that new institutions were beginning to take sustainability seriously. Most of the Massachusetts legislative initiatives require new staff at the state level--and the Governor is sure to require a hiring freeze as the state looks at massive deficits and as the Treasurer cannot even borrow against current receivables. Quite apart from the fact that sustainability practices save money, layoffs and slowdowns will inevitably blunt the momentum within companies like the one I met yesterday as well. This morning in the Boston Globe, there is a story about the businesses, big and small, that are struggling in the face of the credit crisis. The point, of course, is that the financial meltdown is already hitting main street and has been for a long time. The article suggests we take a wider view on how this current crisis effects a broader scope of people and of issues--how it touches or will touch lives outside Wall Street and institutions and issues far removed from a handful of investment banks.
A new challenge, then, for the coming several years: How do we sustain the momentum for deep and systemic change in a climate of fiscal crisis?
Friday, September 26, 2008
Bailing while Sailing
All I can think of is a Popeye cartoon from my childhood: Popeye with one hand on the wheel and the other on a coffee can, arm windmilling, desperately tossing water off of the boat as it slowly goes under. There are no bailouts for the global climate system.
Reports today that carbon released from burning fossil fuels and cement production increased 2.9% in 2007 over 2006. Such growth is at the high end of the estimates from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for annual increases and could point to total global temperature increases of 11% by the end of the century. So-we are outside the worst case scenario.
This news comes as the first carbon cap and trade program in the United States, the 10 -state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, held its first auction this week for carbon emissions permits. The RGGI program applies only to energy producers and will achieve modest 10% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from that sector by 2018.
While RGGI is a start, and a good one, we must not lose sight of the critical components of an international climate program that are missing: Engagement with the developing economies and an urban policy that addresses the over 50% of climate emissions that are attributable to the built environment (homes and businesses).
The world's developing economies (and especially China and India) now account for 53% of total emissions. They are not covered by the Kyoto accord (which seems not to be working in any case).
Politically, as we are seeing today, the temptation is for quick fixes and bold moves. But we cannot bail out the global climate system with one national program. Rather, this will take real federal leadership to change the way we design and manage cities. Land use patterns are central to climate change. How we manage homes and commercial buildings are crucial to climate change. We need real incentives to change where we live, how we live and how we build. We need federal standards that require reductions in energy use and vehicle miles traveled, city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, and then we need local innovation to get it done in a way that works well in each local context.
Reports today that carbon released from burning fossil fuels and cement production increased 2.9% in 2007 over 2006. Such growth is at the high end of the estimates from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for annual increases and could point to total global temperature increases of 11% by the end of the century. So-we are outside the worst case scenario.
This news comes as the first carbon cap and trade program in the United States, the 10 -state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, held its first auction this week for carbon emissions permits. The RGGI program applies only to energy producers and will achieve modest 10% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from that sector by 2018.
While RGGI is a start, and a good one, we must not lose sight of the critical components of an international climate program that are missing: Engagement with the developing economies and an urban policy that addresses the over 50% of climate emissions that are attributable to the built environment (homes and businesses).
The world's developing economies (and especially China and India) now account for 53% of total emissions. They are not covered by the Kyoto accord (which seems not to be working in any case).
Politically, as we are seeing today, the temptation is for quick fixes and bold moves. But we cannot bail out the global climate system with one national program. Rather, this will take real federal leadership to change the way we design and manage cities. Land use patterns are central to climate change. How we manage homes and commercial buildings are crucial to climate change. We need real incentives to change where we live, how we live and how we build. We need federal standards that require reductions in energy use and vehicle miles traveled, city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, and then we need local innovation to get it done in a way that works well in each local context.
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