A new study published by Columbia University Press attempts to combat global warming on a global scale. Generally, the people most affected by Global Warming are those who barely are able to get by. In cities and slums around the world the rising tides of climate change are threatening the very existence of large groups of people. The report is supposed to be a useful tool for policymakers in order to make sure we who are less visibly affected by climate change are aware of how it affects others and how best to combat it.

Close to 50 cities were studied for the report, with over 100 researchers and authors taking part in the study. The study chronicled how each of the different cities was affected by climate change and how they attempted to respond – especially at reducing GHG emissions – through alternative energy use or other means. The main points of the study are summed up in one of the smaller sections dealing with 12 cities spread throughout the world. The study reports that:

• Urban climate change risk results from a combination of hazards, vulnerabilities, and adaptive capacity. In the twelve cities listed above, average temperatures are projected to rise between 1°C and 4°C by the 2050s, increasing extreme weather events including heat waves.
• Coastal cities should expect to experience more frequent and more damaging flooding related to storm events in the future due to sea level rise. Particularly at risk are populations like those living in slums located in the lagoons of Lagos.
• In many cities, the quantity and quality of the energy, water, and transport systems will be significantly affected by the projected increases in both flooding and droughts. In developed country cities, leakage from the water supply distribution system can be severe, resulting in system losses of between approximately 5 percent and more than 30 percent. Developing country cities may use informal distribution systems, which can be even more vulnerable but whose loss is not as quantifiable.

Although much of the information in the study is not completely new the evidence it presents and the possible use it might have on policy is a victory to be celebrated. More studies like this one need to be done so we can understand the effects of global warming in specific regions and throughout the world even better.

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The United States and other industrial nations, such as those of the United Kingdom, have long lacked adequate transportation plans. Their current plans ignore public transportation and manual transportation, such as walking and bike riding. Instead they promote the freedom that comes from personally owned cars. But, with the oil crisis and peak oil looming it is time to reexamine our relationship to these metal beasts in order to understand how to overcome our car addictions.

Earlier this month on this blog we did a two day report on advancements in green transportation. We tried to show ways that people could rethink the way they did everyday traveling, to work, school, or to the grocery store. What these blogs didn’t touch on was the role of cars in American culture at large, and how these make this facet of the environmental movement hard for some to embrace.

Few cities in the United States have friendly public transport systems. Luckily for many people who read this blog, a city like San Francisco happens to be one of the places where you can get around without a car. However, the more quintessentially American place to live is the suburban sprawl that requires of its inhabitant to own a car to get anywhere, but their neighbors. If you ask most young Americans what their cars mean to them many will reply freedom.  This is because cars have become associated with adulthood and individuality. In a culture where individual identity, the car you own, is considered infinitely more important than a collective identity, public transportation, the personal freedom of a car that a car offers is very important. You can own a car before you can do just about anything else, including voting or drinking. It is a gateway into adulthood for many of us growing up; it gives you the freedom to move whenever you want.

However the feeling that comes with owning a car is reinforced by our urban planning. We live in a manner so spread out that it takes many of us fifteen minutes to walk to a minimart, or store of any kind. In the suburbs the world is not closed without a car, but too far away. In many suburbs and small cities sidewalks do not even exist. If you want or need to walk then you have to do it in the shoulders of the road. This is not only dangerous, but makes you feel like you are doing something wrong. You feel alienated without a car. The car is such an important symbol of life and identity in the suburbs that to live without one you can almost feel like a child, unable to leave home at will.

If we can all agree that our addiction to cars is a bad thing and that cars are a status symbol in America, how do we change it? By lobbying for public transportation, better bike lanes, and more sidewalks. Investment in these areas will spur the green movement on. It will create more green jobs, as the people that run them and build them will be helping the environment. In this way we can change the dynamic of the burbs themselves, we can walk more, and not just to give us a quaint green feeling of accomplishment. We can make walking safer and more common so people do not feel awkward doing it. We need to do it because the way of life that involves every person from 16-90 feeling like that need to own a car is not working for us anymore. It is against everything the green movement stands for. This is one way to work from the ground up for change, so let’s start.

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When discussing the Green Movement an important move that is often overlooked is buying locally.  This means buying from farmers who grow their products close to where you live. Definitions vary on what exactly can be considered ‘local,’ but in most cases this means within a seven hour drive, at most.  The local food movement has thus far been centered around Farmers’ markets and chain “healthy foods” stores like Whole Foods.   At the moment these are generally the only places where you can be certain of whether or not you are buying locally grown food.  Independent restaurants will sometimes support local growers, but these types of restaurants are still fairly rare in most cities.

How does buying local contribute to the Green Movement?

Locally transported produce consume less gas.  Many products on grocery store shelves are shipped over 1500 miles before they reach their destination.   By increasing the amount of local food we purchase we are reducing the amount of oil used to prepare our meal.

The products are fresher.  Much of the produce that grocery stores stock are picked one week before hitting the shelves.  Local food, by contrast, is often picked the same day it is purchased.  Although not directly related to the green movement, fresher food tastes better, which is always good.

Buying local supports local business and agriculture.  Supporting smaller or local farmers, often by purchasing from them at farmers’ markets, means that your money goes directly to them and not to grocery stores and middlemen who leave little for the farmers.

Small and local farms are also more environmentally friendly.  Large factory farms use fertilizers that deplete the soil of nutrients necessary for future growing, and strong insecticides that can be toxic.  Not to mention, they also use large machinery that consume a lot of energy.

Finally, buying locally creates a sense of community.  Farmers’ markets allow people within a community to interact with and get to know one another.  Another local project is the communal garden.  These gardens grow organic local food and often do not make money off of their produce.  Like farmers’ markets, communal gardens become places of interaction between neighborhoods and larger communities.  In some neighborhoods communal gardens are places where people can volunteer or buy small plots of land to utilize for themselves and their families.  In other cases, communal gardens have become places for homeless people to find rehabilitation and work as gardeners who are paid out of city funds and profits from the gardens themselves.

It may seem simple, but there are many aspects to going green, such as buying locally, that have not been tapped.  We should think about how we can build stronger communities by being green and buying local.  By doing this we can support clean energy and the green movement in a more personalized way.

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