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Health & Fitness

Planning for Reality: Don't Fight Climate Change the Hard Way

When 97% of scientists agree human created climate change is coming, and there’s a trail of hurricanes, heatwaves and tornadoes the likes before we haven’t seen it’s hard to imagine there are still deniers. I’m sold. But the bigger question is what’s the most effective strategy to solve this issue?

Today in 2013 many initiatives we are seeing seek to fight climate change do so “the hard way”. While the one percent of those most concerned by climate change are willing to make quite radical lifestyle changes, imposing these same approaches on the other 99 percent of the general public is akin to swimming upstream.

The Hard Way to Fight Climate Change

Take for instance the idea of high density and urbanization advocated by Plan Bay Area, PDAs and the Marin County Housing Element. If everyone got on board and accepted living in smaller apartments and taking transit to work we could reduce emissions very quickly.

Such a  mindset is spurred on by studies showing that the next generation – the twenty-somethings or "millenials" – are abandoning cars and prefer living an urban lifestyle. So this must be the future.

The future however, lies elsewhere in this author's mind. In my 20s I enjoyed living in urban west London and taking the train to work. But as I hit my 30s and had kids my world changed and I sought out, as if programmed (those damned sitcoms!) a single family home in the suburbs.

The lure of the suburbs is strong and not to be underestimated and the appearance of kids brings a desire to seek out a more spacious home and a yard and or street where the kids can play, and suddenly school districts become a very high priority when selecting where to live.

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These high density and urbanization approaches are first generation attempts to address climate change. They are spurred on by a government made up of quasi government agencies which are not directly elected but made up of elected officials who are appointed, but who are not experts and because of the appointments not directly accountable.

The Challenge of "Joint Powers Authorities" or JPAs

The problem with these “Joint Powers Authority” or JPA organizations that have weak accountability is that they become very subject to manipulation by special interests. Today we are seeing this with the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) which in it's Plan Bay Area adopted many amendments based on the direction of housing advocacy groups. These same groups are remarkably funded or used as vendors for conducting market research by ABAG itself.  These organizations also attend public input events and create an echo-chamber by egging on ABAG's programs that serve their interests. It’s incestuous and creates a cycle that serves to diminish voter and community input. Communities become increasingly disenfranchised and this can manifest as incivility.

This first-generation approach to sustainability of imposing urbanization on suburban areas is now occurring with ABAG's Plan Bay Area – with tremendous community resistance, by those becoming aware that 5 story high density housing may appear in their neighborhood, or that their freeway exit is going to be overwhelmed by new residents. There is an overemphasis on getting people out of cars and into transit, with land use planning forcing new development into high density development near transit hubs.

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The Easy Way – Sustainability 2.0 Tactics

We need to get beyond the current painful period of painful, costly and overly-imposing sustainability 1.0 tactics. Not everyone is in the first percentile of climate change opponents and willing to make major sacrifices. Our government needs to step back and recognize that the stick approach is going to simply result in more and more resistance and be rendered ineffective if attempted on the other ninety nine percent.

What’s needed instead is not quite a free market approach (I believe human nature isn’t perfect and needs some guidance) but a very subtly guided approach using carrot more than stick. This is already happening: for instance the Whitehouse has  already  enacted legislation that mandates that cars must be greener. This legislation requires that by 2025 the average new car achieves 54.5mpg – and we can do much better than that.

The US - Catching Up With Europe on Car Emissions

My brother still lives in the UK where cars are taxed not on price or residual value, but on CO2 emissions. Just over a year ago he proudly told me he was buying a 76mpg Vauxhall Astra. This is no nerdy 2 seat Smart car lacking in mass appeal. The Astra is made by the UK arm of General Motors. It's like a Ford Focus - it's a 5 seater hatchback. It has a diesel turbo engine giving it remarkable “pep” and power for such an efficient vehicle and it looks like a mass market car - not like a Prius that some may feel is a little too eco-smug for them.

Note, it must be mentioned that UK mpg figures are inflated by about 16% as a UK gallon (4.54l) is larger than a US liquid gallon (3.79l). So my brother’s 76mpg car really does 63mpg in US terms – still remarkably good for a car produced in 2012 when in the US so many boast about cars achieving 35mpg.

Fighting Climate Change: The Easy Way

We need to apply subtle, not imposing measures such as taxing cars on CO2 emissions. We need to follow more carrot and less stick approaches.

If cities and counties want to reduce emissions they should look into providing more financial assistance through loans and subsidies to drive down use of electricity for home heating and air conditioning. This can be done through programs stimulating use of solar panels, installing more efficient HVAC systems or simply improving housing insulation. The return on the investment in terms of dollars spent for emissions reduced is much greater when put into these "going with the flow" approaches.

The Aesop Fable of the Wind and the Sun

In conclusion this reminds me of the Aesop fable of the wind and the sun. They saw a traveler and attempted to prove which was stronger by making the traveler take of his coat. The wind’s - akin to ABAG and it's Plan Bay Area - is applying a forceful approach tat  only heightened the traveler’s resistance and he clutched his coat ever tighter – but the Sun’s kind persuasion worked with much less effort.

We need to move beyond severe sustainability 1.0 tactics and embrace sustainability 2.0 – an approach that like the Sun in Aesop's fable embraces kind persuasion to much greater effect.

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