Climate change is linked to profit and the development of infrastructure to facilitate further profit. How do we reverse this trend if everyone is more interested in profit than stopping further expansions of greenhouse gases, especially if it makes companies lose profitability?
Our efforts of attempting to meet climate change goals in the decades ahead by building more roads, more bridges, in more cities, may end up having exactly the opposite effect of reducing greenhouse emissions. By expanding on our current way of doing business, we would be increasing the number of people on the road.
As small towns and communities get even smaller as opportunities condense further into cities, as algorithmic technologies create more powerful server farms (and the pollution that comes with their creation) as well as the limiting scale of infrastructure development to accommodate this growth, means cities will be producing considerably more greenhouse gases, not less.
The future of infrastructure development has to be not just “Building Back Better,” but to build more intelligently, with more environmentally sound outcomes in mind. Some cities have already begun implementation of those ideas by limiting the number of cars on their roads.
The New York Times reports: “Increasingly, experts warn that if states want to slash planet-warming emissions from cars and trucks, it won’t be enough to sell more electric vehicles. They’ll also have to encourage people to drive less.”
This is being studied and tested by increasing incentives to ride mass transit (including making it entirely free to ride), redesigning our cities to incorporate more walking, bicycling and electric vehicles all of which reduce emissions in an era where every car we can take off the road, the better it is for everyone.
• But how will we resolve this problem at a national level?
• Since every state has different infrastructure needs, how will we decide which climate problem to address with our infrastructure design?
• Which challenges should be met first?
• Is there a general way to determine which processes create the most greenhouse gases?
• If we CAN determine this, how do we go about changing those infrastructure questions since someone’s money is sure to be affected by these future changes?
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All this and more, tonight on Climate Change by the Elements
with your hosts Thaddeus Howze and Carol Bluestein
5:00 PM PDT – 8:00 PM EDT.
A live-cast of The Good Men Project | Publisher: Lisa Hickey
Dial-in number: 1-701-801-1220
Access code: 934-317-242 (then press #)
You can also reach the show via your computer at:
https://www.startmeeting.com/wall/934317242
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REFERENCES:
The New York Times | How Billions in Infrastructure Funding Could Worsen Global Warming
Highway expansions tend to bring more greenhouse gas emissions. A few states are trying to change that dynamic, but it won’t be easy.
https://www.nytimes.com/…/highways-climate-change-traffic.h…
Permalink:
#climatechange#buildbackbetter#infrastructure#economics
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This post was previously published on Facebook and is republished on Medium.
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