Climate Change and Transportation

In this video, Michael D. Meyer, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, delivers a lecture at the University of Kansas about the link between climate change and transportation. In essence, he discusses how transportation contributes to climate change and the opportunities we have to mitigate its impact and better adapt our transportation systems to become more resilient to floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes etc. The video is long but very educational and informative.

The focus of his talk in on the United States. Nonetheless, he still presents a number of ideas and opportunities that apply to Canada and other jurisdictions. In the U.S., transportation is 28% of national GHG emissions. In Canada, it's about the same. Within the transportation sector, highway vehicles (passenger cars and trucks) account for 82% of the GHG emissions.

He also talks about how various states are now writing aggressive climate change plans to address how they will reduce their emissions on the transportation front. Some are very ambitious indeed.

The most interesting part of his lecture to me was his discussion of adapting to climate change from a transportation perspective. Floods, earthquakes and hurricanes can bring about serious damage to our municipal and provincial infrastructure. To learn about how transport engineers and planners are dealing with this, and the various opportunities for improvement, check out the video. The Alaska Department of Transportation is now re-designing their highways because the foundation of their roads are sinking due to permafrost.