A Different Earth: IPCC Releases its Report on April 6, 2007
Something has happened that needs to be paid attention to by our industry of Transportation planning.
This was released yesterday, April 6, 2007. http://www.weather.com/multimedia/videoplayer.html?clip=6096&nav=84&collection=topstory&from=wxcenter_video
Executive Summary for Elected Officials: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf
New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/science/earth/02cnd-climate.html?ei=5089&en=1cafd042af922dd5&ex=1328072400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1170468662-37Eb0wLgH4moKzJIeYC22w
We need to think about this. We are the ones that are responsible for the infrastructure that supports the behaviors that are killing this planet, and ourselves. Transportation is the NUMBER ONE green house gas source on the planet, if you count ALL the industry involved, including paving that supports this activity.
EPA states: http://www.epa.gov/otaq/greenhousegases.htm
Based on current greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reporting guidelines, the transportation sector directly accounted for approximately 27 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions in 2003. Transportation is the fastest-growing source of U.S. GHGs and the largest end-use source of CO2, which is the most prevalent greenhouse gas. Estimates of GHG emissions do not include additional "lifecycle" emissions related to transportation, such as the extraction and refining of fuel and the manufacture of vehicles, which are also a significant source of domestic and international GHG emissions.
Rocky Mountain Institute States: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid342.php
The transportation sector is a climate-changing beast: it accounts for fully 32 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. Americans drive 1.5 trillion miles per year in automobiles alone, and an additional 600 billion miles in personal trucks and SUVs. Automobiles and light trucks combined consume 115 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel per year, emitting 19.8 percent of total U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. This fraction would be higher if we included all of the energy "embodied" in manufacturing cars, building roads and other infrastructure, mining and processing the materials, and refining and shipping the fuels used in transportation.
We are not in this alone. The Chinese have not maxed out their car ownership and are still under 2.0 cars per household. That's changing fast. Globally we are in serious trouble. But it is no longer sufficient that we shake our fingers at other countries and tell them to do what we will not. We must lead by example.
What's really grim, is that this keeps happening FASTER than scientists had originally anticipated. Any report I read, that's always in the beginning somewhere, "This happend faster than we expected" or something similar. It wasn't too long ago, they were talking about a 5 degree temperature change in the upper limit, now it's 8. For awhile they were saying, not until the end of the century or our children's generation will we be facing drastic impacts from global warming. 2020 is in my lifespan.
While this report is being conservative in the 1/3 extinction of species on the planet, keep in mind that there will also be species that will be "endangered" too. Combined it will be more than 1/3 that are effectively OUT of the ecology and environmental food and support chain. Looking at New Orleans will seem like no big deal compared to what's coming if we don't change how we approach urban and transportation planning.
What do you think will happen, when water becomes a dire need for survival to 1/3 of the planet? What has been the human reaction in the past? What would a father do to get water for his wife or children? A person like that would have nothing to lose would they?
We are talking about far more than 750 deaths in the Chicago Heat wave of 1995, and the thousands that have lost their lives to severe weather since then. We have a moral imperative to change direction. It will have to start with simultaneously educating the public while making some swift changes in policy. The people NEED to know how dire this is. They also need to know that the policy changes toward more mass transit and away from the automobile and from the need to own more than one vehicle per household will help to reduce the severity and save lives. Isn't it ironic that "safety" really isn't about accidents on the highway anymore...but also what's going on beyond the pavement?
To: CSS_Forum@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 8:04 PM
Subject: Re: [CSS_Forum] A Different Earth?
What you described was presented in an interesting and very emphatic fashion by pulitzer prize winning scientist Edward O. Wilson in the book The Future of Life (Knopf, 2001--also available in paperback).
He called the current crisis "The bottleneck", and suggested that insufficent action within the next five to ten years would seriously push us to the point of significant ecosytem collapse. Well, we're six years already from when he wrote that. When I see new buildings going up, I see very little "green" technology being implemented despite the significant initiatives by the City of Chicago. There seems to be also little true integration of environmental and restoration principles within transportation projects; rather, projects, with restorationists and bio-engineers brought in afterwards, if at all. That will ultimately be self-defeating. But there is certainly no shortage of tearing down and rebuilding, no shortage of new and wider roads. If we simply have more of the same, what's the point of tearing things up to build anew, if we don't build smarter, more enrgy efficient, and less impacting structures. The technology to do so already exists. The simple start would be to implement efficiencies on a large scale with that existing technology, and stop a huge amount of wasteful burning of fossil fuels. See Amory Lovins, the Rocky Mountain Institute.
To: css_forum@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 9:28 AM
Subject: [CSS_Forum] A Different Earth?
I don't know how many of you are in the biological and/or environmental sciences. I'm sure that what I'm about to pass along is not news to them. In fact it would be interesting to get their comments.
There has been a change in the "language" that scientists in these fields are using, specifically, among the scientists that concentrate on conservation, restoration and ecology.
A year or two ago they were still speaking the language of "restoration" in conservation. What that means is that they believed given other studies that it was still possible to "restore" a habitat back to its pre-urbanization and sometimes pre-settlement condition. This has changed. They are no longer speaking in these terms.
What has changed is the recognition that we can no longer "restore" an area to its former self because scientists in this field believe that we have shifted the climate and there is no going back for a long, long time, centuries in fact. However, that's not the worst case scenario. The planet, and human society can take a 2 degree temperature rise. Unpleasant in some places, a climate shift certainly, but not unmanagable.
The worst case scenario is called "a different earth." Right now, this is now what ecologists are trying to prevent. A different earth would significantly change the biota of this planet. Massive species die offs with the introduction of mutations in other species is a reality, the escalation of which could have cataclysmic effects on the world economy and societies. Imagine traveling back in time to the dinosaur. And of course it wouldn't be that period our climate will turn into necessarily. In fact, ecologists have no idea what we are looking at, but we are going there VERY VERY fast.
Let me lay out to you how this thing has played out. The depression era people...those in power in the 1950s, 1960s could have done something about global warming. They didn't. So we are in global warming. Our generation, not our kids, ours right now at this moment will decide if we merely shift the climate 2 degrees or less or if our children when they are our age will be facing "a different earth."
We have 10 maybe 15 years before the die is cast to pull her around. Let me tell you why this is a problem. The average life time of a transportation project, any project, from "planning or inception" until construction is 10 years. Pretty much that's the same for rail. Municipal Planning Organizations do things in 20 year windows. These "20 year plans" are the guidelines for which money gets allocated and projects get queued up. Now that's what I know in transportation. But I'm guessing that development and city planning isn't much different as far as plans to finished buildings.
And what's needed now is a complete refit of the American city if was are to make "a different earth" not happen. But we already have and our following the 2020 (year) plan. The one that didn't take climate change into account. See the problem?
In 45 years scientists have said 33 percent of the biodiversity in plants will be gone. That's flora habitat, habitat that supports other living organisms. When you add to it "more severe storms", "disease vectors", "over crowding", dwindling fresh water supply, etc You start to see a very frightening picture.
The Ecology of the earth is like a Jenga tower. Every species falls into a "niche." Every "niche" serves a function that keeps the "factory" running that keeps our lights "on" so to speak. It takes 100s of years to create a rich ecology and diversity where there is none. In other words for species to evolve if niches are completely absent.
What's happening right now even as I type this is that species are dying at a rapid rate. Niches are being weakened, and sometimes an entire niche is removed. Other species die out as a result. What this is like is like playing Jenga. We don't know which "niche" when it is removed will cause the tower of markets and society to collapse. With everything ecologists know they don't know when it will occur, the day that the one species dies that will makes it all go boom. But with a 33% eradication of the biodiversity of the planet and the projection that 20to 25% of the "seed" banks will not be able to be replanted because the niches to support them will be eradicated in the next 45 years what do you think the odds are that this one species will go?
Does it look promising to anyone else?
If I and a few other planners, environmentalists, transportation professionals, and academics are the only ones in this fight, we will lose. Simple as that. What is missing is political and corporate will.
We're not worried about human extinction exactly, although if nothing is done tens of thousands of people will die as direct result of climate change, even in this country every year. That's grim, but what's really at stake is the collapse of human civilization and with it all we have accomplished, and learned. And it could happen. It could happen because it has already happened in the past under much less dire global circumstances.
If you want to take a look at what we are facing in our immediate future read the book "Collapse."
What we need to do is to begin planning with ecology and environmental science on the same par as transportation demand, access and capacity. It is my belief that with the addition of environmental sciences in the balance, the rest of what we are trying to accomplish from health to fitness to quality of life will follow. Yes this is a multi-disciplinary approach. The heart and soul of CSS and a preventative of the archaic idea that solving problems with more concrete and strictly civil engineering will actually work. This outmoded idea of monodisciplinary approach is ultimately dangerous for us all. We need CSS process. We need multi-disciplinary and adaptive management processes in planning. We need environmentally educated public partners. And we need more than just pay lip service to it. This is no longer a want, fad or a means of selling something to the public. It's a rope for survival.