You might believe that all the cities we need have already been built. I think the future changes everything. Nearly 4 billion people live in cities today and those populations are growing larger. Our cities already have infrastructure that manages water, electricity, food, waste, and transportation. But that infrastructure was built for a world that keeps growing. The Earth’s urban population has almost reached its natural boundaries.
Most cities are built along rivers and coastlines. These are the places most likely to flood due to bad weather. Bad weather means raging storms. These storms come off the ocean or form over vast areas of land. The Earth’s climate is changing. It’s growing warmer. The sun’s heat energy is trapped in the atmosphere and that causes our wind patterns to change. These changing patterns change where rain falls and how much rain falls.
The clash between moist warm and dry cold air creates storm systems. These storm systems swirl with too much energy and so they move around. The world is pushing millions of tons of water through the skies, across the oceans, and through our rivers.
Many cities around the world are facing new challenges their builders were unaware of. That is why the Resilient Cities movement is so important. Local governments are coming together to find common solutions to problems too big for conservative politics. Even Republicans have to deal with rising sea levels, more violent storms, and aging infrastructure. They can pretend the “science is still out” all they want but the climate isn’t waiting for them to get a dose of reality. It’s literally drenching everyone with reality.
Our cities are under siege. We’re at war with a hostile climate that threatens us all. Millions of plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction. When they are gone nature will need millions of years to replace them. How will mankind survive in that dreary, half-empty world? We grew up in an environment that nourished us. And now we have almost destroyed it.
If you have never heard about the Resilient Cities Project you should visit their Website and learn more about it. Every community will need help from its residents. Students who are unsure of what careers to choose should consider the future. Maybe you’re being called to serve in a Resilient program. Cities need to grapple with these problems now.
The Environment Includes Us
One image I hate about modern environmentalism is that it paints mankind as separate from the rest of the environment. We are not intruders. We belong here. This planet is our home. Everything we do affects it in some way. And everything in the environment affects our well-being.
This is no time for people to be worrying about their stock portfolios. The portfolio of the future consists of drowned, broken cities that die from neglect. Experts in climate change estimate that hundreds of millions of people will relocate farther inland.
The environment isn’t some forest 1,000 miles away from your house. It’s not a desert on the far side of the world. The environment is the tree outside your window. The environment is the air you breathe when driving along a highway. The environment is the water your city cleanses for your drinking. The environment is all those dead animals on the road.
We cannot repair an environment we ignore. If you don’t appreciate the environment you live in, where will you live in the future? The Earth won’t be a desert like a cheap movie. It will be a darker, more complex world. Life will still find a way but we will compete for dwindling resources.
As people move away from the coasts they will settle in the best cities they can find. Those cities need to upgrade their services and ordinances. The influx of new residents will be gradual at first. But what happens if New Orleans becomes impossible to sustain? What happens if New York City or Washington are gradually worn down by floods? People won’t live in flood zones. They won’t live near dangerous, unhealthy sources of water. They will move away.
It is better to accept that now than to ask in 10, 15 years what happened. We know what is happening.