Greening Our Cities

The following letter concerning climate change is a kind of thought experiment put in to action.  The thought experiment is this: Is there a discernible starting point for an idea that makes its way into public discourse, and can that idea come straight from the bottom of the power hierarchy, by a person with no connections, no political experience, and no expertise?  How do popular sentiments exist (for example the idea of "universal health care") and where do they come from?  Can one individual make use of social media and more traditional forms of communication to start and spread a specific governmental policy initiative? In a nutshell, the letter says that curbing the impact of global warming is a project suited for the federal goverment, and one part of that project could be mandating that all American cities become functionally sustainable.  I am curious to see how this idea is replicated and/or altered as it meanders its way through the hands and minds of other Americans.  Over the course of the next few months, I will be mailing a copy of this letter to every member of Congress, various offices within the executive branch, environmental lobbying groups, think tanks, and political pundits.  All of this effort may amount to nothing, or it could blossom into something big.  We shall see...

Please read and comment on this post and pass the idea or the link to this blog along to others!

Greening Our Cities:

      An Open Letter to Public Officials

From

A Concerned Citizen

To any and all concerned with the long-term sustainability of human existence on planet Earth:

I am writing this letter to try and communicate to elected leaders, policy makers, and environmental advocates that there is a real need for a large-scale policy initiative on the part of the federal government to stem the tide of carbon emissions and reverse the trends in global warming and adverse climate change.

While most of us can acknowledge that in the long term there are surely dire outcomes awaiting the course of humanity should it remain on its current heading—that being the wholesale exploitation of fossil fuel resources in the name of industrial growth—nevertheless, the rhetoric of elected officials does not engage the problem.   Even market-friendly legislation like cap-and-trade cannot find traction to make its way into law. Special interest groups on the behalf of the fossil fuel energy lobby to keep short-term considerations front and center, and with good reason—continuing to profit from fossil fuel extraction means jobs for millions of people.  Still, the legacy we are leaving our children and grandchildren is dire indeed. I feel there is a gut-level sentiment held by a majority of Americans that the time to act is now, and that the scale of the vision must be awesome.  We need ideas that combine the technical precision, energy, and impact of some of America’s greatest achievements—an aggregation of Rural Electrification, the Federal Highway Project, and the Moon Race—but laid out on a scale and a timeline far exceeding any endeavor that has come before.  The 21^st Century should be known as the century humanity saved itself from itself. 

Here is what I offer as a policy:

The Federal Government mandates that all U.S. cities be functionally sustainable by 2075.

The obvious first question is what the term “functionally sustainable” means for a city.  The idea is to bring a city’s total carbon footprint to near-zero, and one major way to accomplish that goal is the total conversion of the city’s residential and commercial spaces to renewable energy sources.  Buildings would be adapted to renewable energy programs piecemeal, and as each one came to a net-neutral energy position it could then place excess energy back on the grid, which could then be used by other facilities.  These programs would occur in conjunction with the building of wind farms, solar stations, and other renewable energy projects. Natural gas and micro-nuclear power plants could serve to bridge some of the gap in energy consumption as well as create job markets.  The aggregate effect for the long term would be to completely offset the traditional coal-fired energy grid that currently supplies energy to much of the nation’s cities. 

The next question one may ask is, why cities?  My proposal attempts to merge two opposing viewpoints.  One the one hand, there are those among the environmental movement who identify the term “civilization” as signifying urbanization and the growth of cities.  Since places of high population density are fundamentally extractive in nature as opposed to productive—meaning cities cannot survive without pulling in resources produced or manufactured elsewhere (agricultural products being most crucial)—some environmentalists see cities as the ultimate locus of our destruction, the graveyard of the human species.

One the other hand, there are those who think about the increasing human population and conclude that stacked housing, mixed-use edifices, and mass transit are the means to solving crises of privation and inequality by maximizing efficiency.  They also view the opposing side as succumbing to bucolic daydreams of pastoral serenity, espousing an agrarian ideal no longer practical or even desirable given our current way of life.

Thus my proposal calls upon the power and resources of the federal government to find a workable compromise between these two ideologies. 

Here’s one possible way to execute the mandate:

The President announces that as part of his budget proposal for the coming year 10 billion dollars will be allocated to one medium-sized city (100,000-500,000 people) for the purposes of converting the entirety of that city and its inhabitants to a sustainable way of life.  Every city of the appropriate size will have an opportunity to submit in-depth proposals as to how they would allocate the federal grant.  A blue ribbon panel comprising climatologists, environmentalists, urban planners, architects, and other related experts will select the winning city (yes, a contest of sorts).  This city will be the test case.  The city will devise its own bureaucratic apparatus to administer the funds, but all expenditures will be independently audited and open for review to ensure fiscal accountability.

Phase two of the proposal: An assessment will take place at a specific time (say two years) from the issuing of the grant to determine what policies and initiatives are effective and what aren’t.  This assessment will provide the general outline for how subsequent federal money will be allocated to other cities.  That money will be increased to 100 billion dollars per year, effectively bringing online 10 additional cities each year to begin the process of sustainable conversion. 

(The dollar amounts and implementation procedures are my starting points for a conversation.  They would need to be adjusted or discarded as needed by those working inside the political system.)

Here are some additional ideas that could be folded into the policy:

·  Developing localized, community-sponsored agricultural initiatives that set a specific threshold of agricultural production within the city (via community gardens and other means) and the surrounding countryside (say a 100-mile radius) equating to a specific calorie-to-inhabitant ratio (for example 2,000 food calories produced locally each day during the growing season for each city resident).

·  Promoting green-sector jobs by setting part of the grant money aside to hire recent college graduates with degrees in related fields; also, the creation of numerous internship positions that would be staffed by college students and would count for course credit to a degree.

· Creating urban training centers, perhaps as extensions of area universities, which would provide education free of charge to low-income or unemployed people in fields vital to urban sustainability.

To conclude, my great hope with such a proposal is not to see it enacted as stated but as intended, and the intent here is simple: It is time for Americans to act en masse to change the course of humanity and set it on a different path.  The instrument of change that can rise to the scope of the challenge that now faces us can only be the federal government, simply because of the revenue it commands and the laws it can make and enforce.  It is time for real leadership and an honest commitment to sustainable strategies that will ensure the survival of this country and of the human species.

Thank you very much for reading this letter and passing the idea along.

Sincerely,

Joshua Bush