[GWSG] Future cities; C footprints; ICLEI; Chicago destabilized; Bay knock-ons; biodiversity draft; turning point?

[Tilley, Al]

1. Grist has been running a series on the future of cities. This last installment links to the previous articles, and interviews six people who have ideas about what a clean, green, just city might look like in 100 years if things go well. https://grist.org/fix/sustainable-cities-of-2121-changemakers-envision-future/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily

2. Over half our CO2 emissions are produced in just 25 cities. Obviously, we need cities to do an inventory of their emissions sources and base an action plan on that. My home town of Jacksonville, FL, has refused to look at its own carbon footprint. That’s a good target for us local activists (and not a neglected one—our leaders really, really don’t want to know what they are doing, or at least they don’t want to let the rest of us to know). https://phys.org/news/2021-07-mega-cities-world-urban-greenhouse-gas.html

3. Cities which do want to see what they are up to have a friend in ICLEI, which represents about 25% of the global urban populations and 2500 cities and regions. ICLEI will help a city run a carbon inventory for a reasonable price—$30,000 or so, depending—and they will advise you on doing it on your own if you like. https://iclei.org/

4. The NY Times observes that it was probably a bad idea to build Chicago on a swamp. Now both low and high water threaten its stability. Other cities are probably also going to discover that their ground is shifting. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/07/climate/chicago-river-lake-michigan.html

5. A study of sea level rise adaptation possibilities in the San Francisco area illustrates how plans followed in one area can have effects in another. https://phys.org/news/2021-07-sea-level-strategies-impact-economies-floodwaters.html?utm_source=nwletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-nwletter

6. A draft of a UN treaty on biodiversity loss would cut the extinction rate 90% by midcentury. It is to be presented at a conference in Kunming, China, in early 2022. (The conference was originally set for Glasgow this fall, but covid concerns are expected to postpone the meeting.) As with the Paris Agreement, nations are expected to set their own courses of action. The specific goals range from cutting plastic production to conversion to instituting regenerative agriculture.  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/12/change-is-coming-un-sets-out-paris-style-plan-to-cut-extinction-rate-tenfold

7. Perhaps we need a turning point in our awareness of the climate crisis and perhaps it is happening now. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/12/our-climate-change-turning-point-is-right-here-right-now

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