Climate Change and the Future of Cities
May 9, 2016 5:33 PM Subscribe
Public Culture's special issue Climate Change and the Future of Cities is free to view (for a limited time). Articles highlight international research and collaboration on the impacts of climate change in cities, including a photo essay on fracking, "The Case for Retreat" as well as case studies on Bogota, Singapore , Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires.
Don't miss the interviews with experts from Rebuild by Design's international working group on post Hurricane Sandy recovery and the rush to replication.
Don't miss the interviews with experts from Rebuild by Design's international working group on post Hurricane Sandy recovery and the rush to replication.
It’s not that you say, “Oh, let’s do a Rebuild by Design in whatchamacallit,” because it doesn’t work. We did not design a blueprint and execute it step-by-step. We designed an ambition together.
The is is great,I've downloaded the pdfs to read all of them. I've read the first two, and they are striking. Especially as I sit here in a house without a solid roof and with no windows, almost a month after crazy weather swept thru this area. We've had tornadoes and softball size hail, in April. That doesn't happen here. Well, it didn't used to happen here, but between climate change and el Nino, this spring has been terrible. Looking out across my neighborhood, about half the people are still in hotels, every single roof has tarps, as we wait for the rains to stop long enough for us to reroof. I put a class 4, tornado roof on last year, and the 4/11 storm sent grapefruit size hail through it at more than 80mph, insurance estimated. Damages to just my house are well over $100k, and of the 15,000 houses in this town,more than 12,000 of them are damaged. Some folks don't have the insurance or capital to fix it, I think some of houses here will be leveled.
People can deny climate change all they want, but storms like this are getting worse every year.
We're lucky, even though every single room in the house needs repairs, the tornado roof kept it from being a tear down. Well that and an amazing general contractor who tyvak wrapped the roof to keep 3 weeks of rain from coming in the house. Still, it's unnerving to sleep in a boarded up house, because the wait for things like windows and roof shingles is crazy long,and there's a metric ton of people in line before you.
That said, it's only been a month, and there's still folks in New Orleans and New York that haven't been able to put their lives together, to say nothing of Japan, and Haiti, and everywhere else devastated by weather in the last decade. It's just a big ol hot mess in all directions but energy company boardrooms.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:46 PM on May 9, 2016 [11 favorites]
People can deny climate change all they want, but storms like this are getting worse every year.
We're lucky, even though every single room in the house needs repairs, the tornado roof kept it from being a tear down. Well that and an amazing general contractor who tyvak wrapped the roof to keep 3 weeks of rain from coming in the house. Still, it's unnerving to sleep in a boarded up house, because the wait for things like windows and roof shingles is crazy long,and there's a metric ton of people in line before you.
That said, it's only been a month, and there's still folks in New Orleans and New York that haven't been able to put their lives together, to say nothing of Japan, and Haiti, and everywhere else devastated by weather in the last decade. It's just a big ol hot mess in all directions but energy company boardrooms.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 6:46 PM on May 9, 2016 [11 favorites]
We are so, so fucked.
posted by Sebmojo at 6:51 PM on May 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Sebmojo at 6:51 PM on May 9, 2016 [6 favorites]
Helicopter flyover of Fort McMurray.
The comment I've read was about how much that sprawl relies on cheap gas.
We are all Fort Mac.
posted by wenat at 6:55 PM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
The comment I've read was about how much that sprawl relies on cheap gas.
We are all Fort Mac.
posted by wenat at 6:55 PM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
Oh my lord, that fort Mac footage. That's just heartbreaking.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:05 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 7:05 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
<"If you look at these challenges not through modernist or engineering lenses but more through an ecological lens, then all of a sudden those interdependencies make sense. You find that it’s not a matter of drawing a line on the map and saying, “This is my country or my city and I’m going to run it.” You have to look underneath and on top of it. You have to say, “Hey, how does the system of social, cultural, economic, ecological interrelationships work? And how can you organize, mitigate, adapt, and thus influence and act upon this system?” For me, grasping that complexity adds to my political wish to change the world"
From the Rebuild by Design interviews. I'm really glad you posted this - not just because it's important, but selfishly because I'm going to spend the summer researching this topic and how cultural orgs can help create the resilience needed to plan for rising sea levens and weather disasters. Sandy was a huge wake-up call for my family and me, and we need to be ready for change. This kind of collection, sharing experiences and strategies, is something we need a lot more of. I've barely dipped a toe into it yet, but it looks like a great resource.
posted by Miko at 7:10 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
From the Rebuild by Design interviews. I'm really glad you posted this - not just because it's important, but selfishly because I'm going to spend the summer researching this topic and how cultural orgs can help create the resilience needed to plan for rising sea levens and weather disasters. Sandy was a huge wake-up call for my family and me, and we need to be ready for change. This kind of collection, sharing experiences and strategies, is something we need a lot more of. I've barely dipped a toe into it yet, but it looks like a great resource.
posted by Miko at 7:10 PM on May 9, 2016 [2 favorites]
[reading on]
"The interesting thing is that when you call design “innovation,” all of a sudden you have more friends"
*snort*
posted by Miko at 7:15 PM on May 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
"The interesting thing is that when you call design “innovation,” all of a sudden you have more friends"
*snort*
posted by Miko at 7:15 PM on May 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm about to be in the market for a new house, and I've actually restricted my search based on the projected 2100 sea levels because I think we're fucked.
posted by aramaic at 8:12 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by aramaic at 8:12 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
Bogota, Singapore, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires.
Let's just do the yellow cubes. I'm pretty sure Singapore isn't even in the infection pile.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:13 PM on May 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
Let's just do the yellow cubes. I'm pretty sure Singapore isn't even in the infection pile.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:13 PM on May 9, 2016 [4 favorites]
I get the "we're fucked" meme, insofar is that it's about realizing that yeah, this is happening. At the same time, I sort of worry about "fucked" - because we're not fucked, we're able to create solutions and do some smarter planning around what we can predict as the reality. There's going to be a lot of change, but collective action can make it a lot less painful and cataclysmic than it would otherwise be. That's what I appreciate about the essays in the link - they show people and organizations taking it head on, trying to plan community adaptations that are going to get us across a difficult horizon, rather than either burying heads in denial or walking away. Or cynically investing in the new waterfront, as, don't you doubt, plenty of real estate bankers have already gotten there to do.
posted by Miko at 8:17 PM on May 9, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by Miko at 8:17 PM on May 9, 2016 [11 favorites]
The concreteness of these essays is definitely heartening, even against the (totally disheartening) backdrop of the inexorability of the crisis. I'm torn between hating the fact that this is, in fact, the history I'm living in -- and being encouraged that the daily muddled business of living is going on in it.
posted by SandCounty at 9:29 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by SandCounty at 9:29 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
We might need a new catchphrase: Summer is coming.
posted by wenat at 9:47 PM on May 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by wenat at 9:47 PM on May 9, 2016 [8 favorites]
And after, the fall.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:01 PM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 10:01 PM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]
This seems like the perfect place to mention that Break Free, a two week campaign of mass actions across six continents demanding an end to fossil fuel use, is happening right now. Reading papers is a great way to learn about the nuances of the problem, but ultimately it's time to get out in the streets and demand progress on this one, folks (see also).
posted by yobgorgle at 11:06 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by yobgorgle at 11:06 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]
The sad thing is, I have several friends who get all up in arms when I discuss how the prospect of climate change frightens me. Seriously, what is UP with fifty and sixty year old American libertarians who deny anthropogenic climate change? They always rattle off the same talking points, too.
"It's a solar cycle!"
"Some of the NASA data was falsified, and I can't believe any of it now!"
"I don't believe the credentials of these so-called climate change scientists."
"The human causation of temperature warming is exaggerated!"
WTF? Yes, I'm sure that continuing to deny global warming is going to do so much good... Where is all this coming from, anyway?
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 1:41 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
"It's a solar cycle!"
"Some of the NASA data was falsified, and I can't believe any of it now!"
"I don't believe the credentials of these so-called climate change scientists."
"The human causation of temperature warming is exaggerated!"
WTF? Yes, I'm sure that continuing to deny global warming is going to do so much good... Where is all this coming from, anyway?
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 1:41 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
The biggest problem with climate change is that it requires people who are mostly shielded from its effects by money or location to sacrifice on the behalf of poor people living in unfashionable parts of coastal and island cities they'll never visit.
By the time apocalyptic weather reaches enough of the comfortable its going to be way too late.
posted by zymil at 2:05 AM on May 10, 2016 [11 favorites]
By the time apocalyptic weather reaches enough of the comfortable its going to be way too late.
posted by zymil at 2:05 AM on May 10, 2016 [11 favorites]
suburbanbeatnik,
I think there are a few effects at work. First off you get the religious inspired thinking along the lines of "God created the world, man is small, therefore it is presumptuous of man to think that we can change what God has created." I realize that is a crude statement. I have the thought but I'm not sure I can phrase it better than that. Consider the case of animal extinction. Quoting from here:
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) joined the fledgling National Museum in Paris in 1795, and quickly became the world's leading expert on the anatomy of animals. He then used that knowledge to interpret fossils with unprecedented insight. Legend has it that sometimes even a few fragments of bones were enough for him to reconstruct the complete anatomy of a previously unknown species with uncanny accuracy.
A few earlier naturalists, such as Buffon, had argued that species might become extinct. But for some people in Cuvier's day, the idea of extinction was religiously troubling. If God had created all of nature according to a divine plan at the beginning of the world, it would seem irrational for Him to let some parts of that creation die off. If life consisted of a Great Chain of Being, extending from ocean slime to humans to angels, extinctions would remove some of its links.
In short, to a person of this mindset, saying that human activity is influencing climate change feels like an attack on their value system and that, in turn, is exceedingly uncomfortable.
Then you get the people who deeply believe, for whatever reason, that modern western liberalism is absolutely corrupt. Thus you get the poisoned well effect in that, to this mindset, anything that comes from a liberal politician must be bad. The obvious example here is the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), which literally implemented the Heritage Foundation's concept for healthcare, somehow became intolerable because it came from a Democratic president.
By this reasoning, ideological resistance to even recognizing climate change may be due entirely to the fact that it was popularized by Al Gore. In an alternate universe, where a RAND Corp or Pentagon study somehow caught everybody's attention and played that role, the Republicans might be leading the charge of doing something about it. You could be hearing lots of talk about "War on Climate Change" and "Private Industry will save our coastal cities!"
This unfortunately feels like a natural human reaction to me. I mean I consider myself more or less rationale but if Ted Cruz suddenly started speaking up on some new issue my natural response, because I dislike his work intensely, is to think "What's he trying to damage now?" and not "I wonder if we've got common ground on this topic."
Somewhere in this list are people who don't really know enough to appreciate the science and are at the mercy of what the media is telling them. If you're inclined to watch more conservative media you're probably going to think climate change is a bunch of bunk. It's hard for me to work up a lot of anger against people who don't know any better.
Finally, as we continue to slide down the spectrum of cynicism, we encounter the people that are probably fully aware of what climate change means to the world but don't particularly care because they've got something personal to gain by publicly arguing against it.
I think there is a big turning point lurking out there: Miami. The city, as it is today, is basically doomed. Once it starts to become uninhabitable due to persistent flooding, and massive population relocation starts happening, I think the public perception of the issue is going to change dramatically. We'll see, I guess.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 5:45 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
I think there are a few effects at work. First off you get the religious inspired thinking along the lines of "God created the world, man is small, therefore it is presumptuous of man to think that we can change what God has created." I realize that is a crude statement. I have the thought but I'm not sure I can phrase it better than that. Consider the case of animal extinction. Quoting from here:
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) joined the fledgling National Museum in Paris in 1795, and quickly became the world's leading expert on the anatomy of animals. He then used that knowledge to interpret fossils with unprecedented insight. Legend has it that sometimes even a few fragments of bones were enough for him to reconstruct the complete anatomy of a previously unknown species with uncanny accuracy.
A few earlier naturalists, such as Buffon, had argued that species might become extinct. But for some people in Cuvier's day, the idea of extinction was religiously troubling. If God had created all of nature according to a divine plan at the beginning of the world, it would seem irrational for Him to let some parts of that creation die off. If life consisted of a Great Chain of Being, extending from ocean slime to humans to angels, extinctions would remove some of its links.
In short, to a person of this mindset, saying that human activity is influencing climate change feels like an attack on their value system and that, in turn, is exceedingly uncomfortable.
Then you get the people who deeply believe, for whatever reason, that modern western liberalism is absolutely corrupt. Thus you get the poisoned well effect in that, to this mindset, anything that comes from a liberal politician must be bad. The obvious example here is the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), which literally implemented the Heritage Foundation's concept for healthcare, somehow became intolerable because it came from a Democratic president.
By this reasoning, ideological resistance to even recognizing climate change may be due entirely to the fact that it was popularized by Al Gore. In an alternate universe, where a RAND Corp or Pentagon study somehow caught everybody's attention and played that role, the Republicans might be leading the charge of doing something about it. You could be hearing lots of talk about "War on Climate Change" and "Private Industry will save our coastal cities!"
This unfortunately feels like a natural human reaction to me. I mean I consider myself more or less rationale but if Ted Cruz suddenly started speaking up on some new issue my natural response, because I dislike his work intensely, is to think "What's he trying to damage now?" and not "I wonder if we've got common ground on this topic."
Somewhere in this list are people who don't really know enough to appreciate the science and are at the mercy of what the media is telling them. If you're inclined to watch more conservative media you're probably going to think climate change is a bunch of bunk. It's hard for me to work up a lot of anger against people who don't know any better.
Finally, as we continue to slide down the spectrum of cynicism, we encounter the people that are probably fully aware of what climate change means to the world but don't particularly care because they've got something personal to gain by publicly arguing against it.
I think there is a big turning point lurking out there: Miami. The city, as it is today, is basically doomed. Once it starts to become uninhabitable due to persistent flooding, and massive population relocation starts happening, I think the public perception of the issue is going to change dramatically. We'll see, I guess.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 5:45 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]
suburbanbeatnik: Where is all this coming from, anyway?
I've seen a recent estimate that Exxon and others have been spending on the order of $115 million annually to support organizations who run campaigns to deny climate change. Here's a summary of the background and some of the high points from last year.
Reading the stories about Fort McMurray here in Alberta, I'd say the people who think that oil is the best way to fuel our economy (and their livelihoods) have got the message loud and clear.
posted by sneebler at 6:28 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
I've seen a recent estimate that Exxon and others have been spending on the order of $115 million annually to support organizations who run campaigns to deny climate change. Here's a summary of the background and some of the high points from last year.
Reading the stories about Fort McMurray here in Alberta, I'd say the people who think that oil is the best way to fuel our economy (and their livelihoods) have got the message loud and clear.
posted by sneebler at 6:28 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
The sad thing is, I have several friends who get all up in arms when I discuss how the prospect of climate change frightens me. Seriously, what is UP with fifty and sixty year old American libertarians who deny anthropogenic climate change? They always rattle off the same talking points, too.
According to Brian Dunning, it's because from the beginning, climate change was brought to the American public by politicians instead of scientists. Compare for example the effect of CFCs on the ozone layer. This was presented to the public by scientists as a scientific problem, and although there were a few naysayers, "ozone hole denial" never really became a thing. The countries of the world did what they had to and passed the Montreal protocols, which phased out the production of ozone depleting chemicals. Not that the treaty is perfect, but the ozone hole in Antarctica has begun a slow recovery, and is expected to regain pre-1980 levels by 2050 or so.
I don't know whether Dunning is right or not, but politics does have an amazing ability to distort one's perception of reality. Look at how people perceive the state of the economy, or the nebulous concept of whether "the country is headed in the right direction".
posted by Pararrayos at 6:32 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
According to Brian Dunning, it's because from the beginning, climate change was brought to the American public by politicians instead of scientists. Compare for example the effect of CFCs on the ozone layer. This was presented to the public by scientists as a scientific problem, and although there were a few naysayers, "ozone hole denial" never really became a thing. The countries of the world did what they had to and passed the Montreal protocols, which phased out the production of ozone depleting chemicals. Not that the treaty is perfect, but the ozone hole in Antarctica has begun a slow recovery, and is expected to regain pre-1980 levels by 2050 or so.
I don't know whether Dunning is right or not, but politics does have an amazing ability to distort one's perception of reality. Look at how people perceive the state of the economy, or the nebulous concept of whether "the country is headed in the right direction".
posted by Pararrayos at 6:32 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm starting the final 3000 words of the close to 10 000 I've had to write about this tomorrow. Thank you for adding to my references list. Seriously. Bloody brilliant. Gonna plagiarise the fuck out of all of it. Woot! Oh hang on. I mean synthesise and quote and cite and reference. Totes.
posted by taff at 6:33 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by taff at 6:33 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
what is UP with fifty and sixty year old American libertarians who deny anthropogenic climate change?
I'm not sure they matter a whole lot. They're finally starting to become marginalized. Also, for me the answer is the same: okay fine, you don't think human activity caused this, or caused all of this. That doesn't change the fact that the sea level is demonstrably rising and we need to do something about planning our communities around it, or go insanely broke building seawall after seawall and bailing out flood after flood.
posted by Miko at 6:46 AM on May 10, 2016
I'm not sure they matter a whole lot. They're finally starting to become marginalized. Also, for me the answer is the same: okay fine, you don't think human activity caused this, or caused all of this. That doesn't change the fact that the sea level is demonstrably rising and we need to do something about planning our communities around it, or go insanely broke building seawall after seawall and bailing out flood after flood.
posted by Miko at 6:46 AM on May 10, 2016
I get the "we're fucked" meme, insofar is that it's about realizing that yeah, this is happening. At the same time, I sort of worry about "fucked" - because we're not fucked, we're able to create solutions and do some smarter planning around what we can predict as the reality. There's going to be a lot of change, but collective action can make it a lot less painful and cataclysmic than it would otherwise be.
I mean, I get this, but at the same time, I have friends that have degrees in this shit, and they all say that we need to drop carbon emissions to basically zero by 2100 to have any hope of staving off a 6-7C increase (we're already locked into 3-4C of warming, according to them, because we'd have to drop our carbon emissions by like 75% by 2040 which lol.)
Maybe they're wrong; I don't know. But it seems like "we're fucked" is a pretty good summation of the facts.
posted by Automocar at 8:49 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
I mean, I get this, but at the same time, I have friends that have degrees in this shit, and they all say that we need to drop carbon emissions to basically zero by 2100 to have any hope of staving off a 6-7C increase (we're already locked into 3-4C of warming, according to them, because we'd have to drop our carbon emissions by like 75% by 2040 which lol.)
Maybe they're wrong; I don't know. But it seems like "we're fucked" is a pretty good summation of the facts.
posted by Automocar at 8:49 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
I've read that Connecticut is the least natural disaster prone location in the US. Because even moving away from the coasts, you get forest fires out west and the tornadoes and hail the size of small child in the middle of the country (although going up north gets you blizzards instead).
So Stand on Connecticut? I'm pretty sure we can all fit.
posted by Hactar at 9:14 AM on May 10, 2016
So Stand on Connecticut? I'm pretty sure we can all fit.
posted by Hactar at 9:14 AM on May 10, 2016
Dunning may be right, Pararrayos, but it's also the case that addressing the ozone hole never required us to talk about changing fundamental aspects of our energy economy. CFCs were widely used, but nothing like fossil fuels. Presumably that's why politicians took the lead over scientists.
(Apologies if Dunning makes this point! I didn't read the link.)
posted by col_pogo at 9:19 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
(Apologies if Dunning makes this point! I didn't read the link.)
posted by col_pogo at 9:19 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]
But it seems like "we're fucked" is a pretty good summation of the facts.
And, you know, we're probably not going to hit that target. I have no illusions that we can reverse or prevent climate change. But we can reduce future, further impact, and we can adapt. I may be kind of a fatalist, but I think that's the task that's ahead. Not thinking beyond "fucked" to "what if..." and "what then..." and "how will we..." seems like a mistake. Humanity is going to survive, at least in the foreseeable term. The question is, how will we make it not suck for as many people as it will otherwise.
posted by Miko at 9:27 AM on May 10, 2016
And, you know, we're probably not going to hit that target. I have no illusions that we can reverse or prevent climate change. But we can reduce future, further impact, and we can adapt. I may be kind of a fatalist, but I think that's the task that's ahead. Not thinking beyond "fucked" to "what if..." and "what then..." and "how will we..." seems like a mistake. Humanity is going to survive, at least in the foreseeable term. The question is, how will we make it not suck for as many people as it will otherwise.
posted by Miko at 9:27 AM on May 10, 2016
suburbanbeatnik, I collect climate denial. See the link to my blog in my profile. Warning: there's a lot.
posted by agregoli at 9:54 AM on May 10, 2016
posted by agregoli at 9:54 AM on May 10, 2016
And, you know, we're probably not going to hit that target. I have no illusions that we can reverse or prevent climate change. But we can reduce future, further impact, and we can adapt.
I mean, maybe, if "surviving" means "small bands of humans left at the poles".
Again, I'm just going by what my knowledgeable friends say when they get drunk, and 6-7C of warming is pretty much unsurvivable.
posted by Automocar at 10:02 AM on May 10, 2016
I mean, maybe, if "surviving" means "small bands of humans left at the poles".
Again, I'm just going by what my knowledgeable friends say when they get drunk, and 6-7C of warming is pretty much unsurvivable.
posted by Automocar at 10:02 AM on May 10, 2016
New York Attorney General To House Republicans: Are You Kidding? "Not content to let the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology’s reputation for hating science rest for even a moment, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has now subpoenaed the New York attorney general over his investigation into Exxon’s role in sowing climate denial."
posted by homunculus at 6:36 PM on May 20, 2016
posted by homunculus at 6:36 PM on May 20, 2016
I mean, maybe, if "surviving" means "small bands of humans left at the poles".
Well, it might. In that case, what do you propose? Might as well fire up the AC and maximize power draw every way possible, I guess.
posted by Miko at 6:40 PM on May 20, 2016
Well, it might. In that case, what do you propose? Might as well fire up the AC and maximize power draw every way possible, I guess.
posted by Miko at 6:40 PM on May 20, 2016
What Happens When the American Southwest Runs Out of Water? We thought we conquered the desert, but it was only a draw.
posted by homunculus at 11:17 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 11:17 AM on June 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
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