These days, I spend a lot of time thinking about cities and synergies. I believe that the very basic components of urban sustainability–and education about it–must be grounded in showing linkages between concurrent, parallel,and  symbiotic processes.  We can not talk about anything ecological without discussing the economic or equity component to it. Clearly I’m not the only one thinking about this stuff.

Resilience. via: http://maryjaneryan.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/resilience.jpg

SEED Magazine has an excellent article on urban resilience. Its header reads: Merging complex systems science and ecology, resilience scientists have broken new ground on understanding—and preserving—natural ecosystems. Now, as more and more people move into urban hubs, they are bringing this novel science to the city.

Discussing examples that range from the loss of wetlands around New Orleans–that ironically were destroyed during the construction of the levees as well as natural gas exploration–that ultimately helped contribute to the tragedy of Katrina’s effect, to the spoiling of 25 million liters of raw milk in Australia when natural gas power supply was knocked out, the article discusses the concept of resilience on an urban scale. And while of course there are parallels between ecosystem design and urban design, the fundamental basis of resilience is diversity, redundancy, and variety. These things are often seen as “inefficient” on an urban scale.

This might seem theory heavy to you, but it really was one of the most fascinating articles I have read in a long time. And real life applications–contemporary and existent–examples are used for every sub-heading. So, yes, while there are lofty concepts, the reality of our urban world is the basis for discussion.

And of course the question of climate change is never far removed. A brief excerpt reads:

“A key feature of complex adaptive systems is that they can settle into a number of different equilibria. A lake, for example, will stabilize in either an oxygen-rich, clear state or algae-dominated, murky one. A financial market can float on a housing bubble or settle into a basin of recession. Historically, we’ve tended to view the transition between such states as gradual. But there is increasing evidence that systems often don’t respond to change that way: The clear lake seems hardly affected by fertilizer runoff until a critical threshold is passed, at which point the water abruptly goes turbid.

Resilience science focuses on these sorts of tipping points. It looks at gradual stresses, such as climate change, as well as chance events—things like storms, fires, even stock market crashes—that can tip a system into another equilibrium state from which it is difficult, if not impossible, to recover. How much shock can a system absorb before it transforms into something fundamentally different? That, in a nutshell, is the essence of resilience.”

Take time to read this article. I promise you will be thinking about synergies afterward as well.

People talk about the tendency of contemporary America to be anti-intellectual. But what is perhaps more frightening is an anti-science tendency. Never mind that only 36% of Americans believe in climate change right about now. There is another whole subset of the population that believes in it even less–23% of white evangelical Protestants believe that there is “solid evidence” that the climate is changing.

Initially proponents of teaching creationism and intelligent design instead of evolutionary theory, the “fair representation of all theories” crew, now has climate change listed under its ranks as questionable science, that should not be taught in schools.

These are excerpts on the subject from an article in the NY Times.

In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

In Louisiana, a law passed in 2008 says the state board of education may assist teachers in promoting “critical thinking” on all of those subjects.

Last year, the Texas Board of Education adopted language requiring that teachers present all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming.

Oklahoma introduced a bill with similar goals in 2009, although it was not enacted.

In South Dakota, a resolution calling for the “balanced teaching of global warming in public schools” passed the Legislature this week. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” the resolution said, “but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.”

I have a pet peeve. When Californians brag about how much local produce they rely on, I want to say, “Really, that’s funny–the entire country relies on your produce, but it just happens to be local for you.”

Today’s article in the Economix blog on the NY Times, Keeping China (Relatively) Green made me think about this, as it  discusses geographical factors that weigh into environmental impacts. California, for example has the 3 metropolitan areas with the lowest carbon emissions in the nation. Part of that is because they have a moderate climate.

Chengdu from Above. Source: NASA

New Yorkers, who generally like to think of themselves (ourselves) as energy efficient urbanites, are still res ponsible for 10 times the amount of carbon dioxide than the most car intensive cities in China. So where is the gap?

For one, China’s energy use seems to be similar to what ours was 100 years ago, when industry was the major polluter. And in their households, heating from coal are the major source of pollution. In their stage of development, heating is more important than cooling.  And in general, appliances that require electricity are still a luxury. But that might be changing as air conditioning starts to look more attractive with rising incomes.

The article is full of specific emission levels in different Chinese and American metropolitan areas, but overall, the point of the article is that China, while now the largest overall polluter of carbon dioxide, pales in comparison to American, per capita and per household pollution levels. But their energy usage outlook for the next 50 years will change drastically. Can technology move as quickly?

While nations talk…

There is a chorus of media coverage on what is going wrong in Copenhagen. From walk outs to private jetting to arrested protests, it really is starting to look a bit like an act of the Theater of the Absurd. The most basic definition of absurd in this reference, “takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by an invisible outside force.” I leave this open to you for interpretation.

But beyond the theatrics and arrests, a somewhat more quiet–and active–group of people are meeting to talk about the role of cities in climate change and sustainable development. The Copenhagen Climate Summit for Mayors began today. CISC Director Bill Solecki is there and will be participating in tomorrow afternoon’s panel discussion on the work being done in NYC. He joins the Mayors of 80 cities ranging from leaders of Dar Es Salaam to Delhi, from Melbourne to Mexico City.

The work of local and municipal governments plays an interesting role when their goals and standards are potentially higher than that of state, federal, or international ambitions. New York City  is a particularly interesting example when it comes to the energy leviathan that is the United States. Residents of the Big Apple already have about one third the carbon footprint than that of their fellow Americans. And we are seeking to cut these emissions further.  Perhaps these initiatives are possible because there is political–and scientific–support for the cause. Seventy eight percent of New Yorkers believe climate change is happening compared to 36% nationally. And 60% of us say that we worry a great deal about climate change. I wonder if there are similar differences in national and city specific numbers elsewhere. (Any information on that would be appreciated if readers have it. The Guardian reports that 3 out of 4 Britons fear climate change, so I guess London or other cities would need to be 4 out of 4 for this to hold true in England…)

There are a lot of political and socio-economical considerations to take into account for why this divide might exist, specifically in the United States. Purely from anecdotal evidence–although there is rigorous methodology that shows the same thing–cities and their metropolitan regions are generally wealthier and sometimes more politically progressive than their suburban or rural counterparts. Is that why climate change and sustainability legislation is more successful here? Constituents see climate change as real, current, and dangerous, which means they have an interest in addressing it–or they have support for their leaders to address it. Elsewhere, if people are not immediately concerned, political will diminishes.

This is all speculation. But I doubt we will see walk outs from the Mayors Conference similar to the likes of what we have seen in the general summit. Beijing and New York won’t spar on differences. Rather they might learn something from each other. Perhaps it is because their constituents want them to…If I was in Copenhagen, I would focus on the cities. And the art.

For the last few days, I was lucky enough to attend and participate in an event packed full of inspiration, art and climate science. We at CISC had been working with the Earth Institute at Columbia University, The British Council and the UK based organization TippingPoint, to organize the first United States held TippingPoint conference. The event worked to bring together about 90 of the New York City region’s top climate scientists and active artists to think about, discuss, and deliberate on the climate crisis we face.

Home sweet home.

The event itself was a leap of faith and a reminder that extraordinary things come with minimal fine print, directions or user guides. Participants (and planners might I add) had relatively little knowledge of what kind of event we were getting into save for a few listed highlights: Wally Broecker’s attendance–for those who do not know, he coined the term climate change and is a grandfather of climate science–and a provocation speech by Jeffrey Sachs on day 2. Other than that,  discussions populated the agenda. And we in turn populated the discussions.  This was an “open-space” conference format. Open-space facilitated conferences came out of event feedback where participants would continually say, “The best portion was lunch or the conversation I had at the bar…” So, the idea is, why not have  a conference where we can have one long lunch session? Why not have an event where we can decide what we want to talk or learn about? And as our adept and quite funny facilitator pointed out, “There was no Plan B.”

Breakout sessions over the 2 days included: creating direct collaborations between artists and scientists, public experiments, practicality, dealing artfully with climate contrarians, Antarctica vs. the Wall St. Journal Editorial Board, putting the public to work, and many many more delightfully spontaneous themes that bridged the science and art nexus.

Major themes that meant something to me. 1 – Climate Change is not yet understood or deeply cared about by most Americans. (Only 36% of Americans believe climate change is human caused, down from 47% in April of 2008.) 2 – We have no ethical framework to deal with climate change, since our usual ethical framework does not deal with the future. 3 – We need to express collective responsibility and action. If climate change threats could be controlled regionally, would we be more willing to deal with it? 4 – Changing light-bulbs is not enough. We have failed miserably on the solution side of things. 5 – Climate Change is already effecting the world’s most vulnerable citizens. When there are droughts in California, we have water restrictions. When droughts occur in Ethiopia, people perish. 6 – More people need to dedicate their lives to solving this issue because it is THE issue of our lives. And if (when) they do join, they have an army of inspired, able and down right fabulous  individuals to work with.

Jeffrey Sachs, after explaining that geologists have given the official ok, after official testing, to use the term Anthropocene Epoch-a new human driven geological epoch that has replaced the Holocene Epoch of the last 12,000 years–reminded us that a world with 9 billion people will be crowded. But this is not the time to start asking for a return to a simple existence with nature. People will die before and when this happens. This is the time to understand that humans have now taken over the entire operating system of the planet. It no longer controls itself. Think about that…

Regarding the sense of shared responsibility, I want to leave you with a thought about tipping points for a moment. Few of the things said over this weekend moved me more than the idea that we might come to a point where we have to tell our children, or our mothers and brothers, “We wrecked it.” We inherited something flawed and instead of re-envisioning it or re-configuring it to a better state, we killed it. There is no turning back, there is no chance to fix this.

We can not begin to imagine what this means. We can begin to read about it, but sit and think for one moment about what it might mean to really go beyond the threshold of this earth, to be the last weight needed to tip the scale, so we can never return to what once was. How will we feel about carbon taxing or climate change politics then?

According to Sachs–and climate scientists–more research is needed on what exactly this tipping point might be. But what we do know is that all humans (many to a FAR greater extent) have somehow moved us to where we are in the progression toward no return. We, through no fault of our own, have inherited this legacy in the name of economic development and certain modes of production. And we need to deal with that, in the hopes that those after us will inherit our legacy and deal accordingly with it. If we do not, the fault certainly is our own. We must take the responsibilities of our time which clearly is much more than the sum of our contemporary parts.

While the content of the weekend’s events were certainly worth fearing–thinking about the sheer power of one species to have changed the geological era in which we live is frightening–I do believe that the more positive and hopeful contributions we might make to our human-controlled planet override the fear. The simple fact that this event existed, that we have minds as great as our problems and creativity as limitless as the number of people on this planet must mean something.  The biggest take away from the weekend’s event for me: We must remain–or become–passionate about the world in which we live. It is beautiful in ways that we may not fully understand , but that we now control.