The Enviro Boys Finale

It has been two years and eleven months of blogging for Enviro Boys. This blogging experience, to which Chris FM called a “blogospheric experiment” was a real delight. Over the past two years, we have written over 480 blogs posts on topics as diverse as transportation, water policy, renewable energy, waste management, climate change, environmental politics, bottled water, and the joys of blogging itself.

When we first started this blog, it was an opportunity to share what Chris and I were learning in our classes - from environmental policy to the more theoretical concepts in resource management, economics and geography (a combination of what we studied). Sharing this material in a more accessible and engaging way was exactly what the blogosphere enabled us to do. We have written posts specifically on why we enjoy blogging as a hobby in and of itself. You can read a few here and here.

Over the years, we have had 57,000 page views from over 11 countries around the world. This includes over 15,000 views from the U.S., 14,700 from Canada, 2,300 from Germany and 1,600 from China, to name a few. It's been special for us to see readership grow across the world.

This is our last chance to thank all of our esteemed readers, followers, guest post authors and everyone else who has made this a worthwhile experience. It has been fun, memorable, and something we have enjoyed so much since our third 3rd year of undergrad. I remain grateful to this day to Chris, who approached me three years ago to ask if I was interested in joining him with this side project.

To conclude, I will leave you with two links: one is my favourite blog post that I wrote for Enviro Boys, the other is my favourite post that Chris wrote.

Please use this website as an archive of knowledge and information. The google search bar at the top of the page will allow you to search our site (internally) for the various topics we have written about over the years.You can also view all of the topics we have blogged about on the right side of page below our blog list.

My enthusiasm for blogging will continue for years to come. Indeed, I am starting a blog with a friend in January. The blog will focus on cities - their economic rise, ability to attract talented and industrious people, their impressive public transportation networks, and their role in the coming years as the world becomes more urbanized. As the blog will be written by a planning student (me) and my friend (urban geographer), it will naturally have an urban spin. Once the blog is created, it will be advertised on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you, once again.

Tim and Chris

What is water's dollar value to the Canadian economy?

Image credit: http://blue-economy.ca/

The question above was partially answered by a research project called the Blue Economy Initiative involving a team of authors from the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, Canadian Water Network and RBC Blue Water Project.

Among the impressive list of authors is Professor Steven Renzetti, an environmental economist and one of Canada's biggest thinkers on the economics of water. You can read a summary here, which features an interview between Water Canada and Professor Renzetti. The report finds that water is responsible for a contribution to Canada's economy of between $7.8 and $22.9 billion.

Here is an excerpt from the interview:

"We just don’t know what the value of water is in Canada today. That’s the biggest concern. We’re making decisions on public capital and infrastructure and improving water quality, but we don’t have enough information to determine whether these decisions are sound. As usual, it’s a typical academic result in that we don’t know enough and we should.

To promote dialogue about how water contributes to the economy, people need to understand the wide range of ways from which we derive benefits from it. We need to have more experience and knowledge on measuring these values so we can incorporate them into decision making and protect the resource. Another worry is that we’re falling behind. When you look at places such as the European Union and China, they have large research programs aimed at informing decision makers about biodiversity and ecosystems. Here, we have lots of scientists worrying about the chemical and physical natures of water, but we don’t know about its economical nature. It means we’re not going to make good decisions".

Read the full interview here.

Traffic congestion in the GTHA

We all know that traffic congestion is a mounting problem for the Greater Toronto Area. Alas, the traffic woes are not confined to the GTA but extend to the Hamilton Area as well. This region is known as the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA).

While we are generally aware that traffic congestion is getting worse -- exacerbated by population growth  and a poor response in transit supply to demand -- do we really know the true costs of congestion in our urban areas? A recent article citing U of T Professor Eric Miller, offers a number of statistics and facts about the traffic congestion problem that any resident of the GTHA should know about:

"The average commute time in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area will jump by a third in 20 years without a major injection into transit, according to expert calculations."

This amounts to: "an extra 27 minutes a day, 2.25 hours more a week, 4.6 full days a year, that local commuters will spend in their cars battling congestion as the region adds an expected 2.6 million people".

"Studies have shown that GTHA congestion costs an estimated $6 billion in unrealized GDP each year. Gridlock also results in 26,000 fewer jobs created in the region".

I blogged about this topic a number of months ago discussing the importance of transit alternatives like high-speed rail to help alleviate traffic congestion on highway 401.

The article offers much more. A natural alternative is to expand transit services. Fortunately, Metrolinx, has a $50-billion, 25-year "Big Move" plan which will involve a conglomeration of 100 projects ranging from bike lanes to 1,150 kilometres of new transit lines. Eric Miller, who continues to caution that traffic congestion is a huge impediment to economic growth, thinks the Big Move is an “excellent start” but it won’t be the entire answer. The GTHA is competing with the world’s biggest metro areas — places like New York, London, Shanghai — which have very sophisticated transit systems.

To read the full story, see here.

The return of the e-waste discussion

Image credit: veracitystew.com

It has been a while since Enviro Boys has written about the topic of e-waste, or waste management more generally. Like all environmental problems, this one is complicated.

Elisabeth Rosenthal from the NY Times Green Blog reports:

"When Americans turn in their old car batteries for recycling, they probably think they are doing good for the planet. And done well, recycling batteries is certainly environmentally responsible, since lead mining and processing cause far greater emissions of carbon dioxide than extracting lead from old car batteries for re-use."

More:

"But my article from Mexico should remind us that recycling can be “green” or not, depending on how it is done. That is particularly true of electronic waste, including batteries, where one goal of the recycling process is to extract precious metals. In much of the world, recycling is a big business with ties to gangs and organized crime. That is often the case with lead battery recycling plants in Mexico, that country’s officials told me".

I wrote about this topic of couple of years ago. E-waste is electronic waste in the form of batteries, computers and other electronics that are exported from one country to another for informal recycling processes.

My quick assessment pointed to how the US has not signed the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. Worse yet, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of the US gives the country authority and control over hazardous and toxic wastes.

E-waste is simply a part of the US's waste disposal strategy. These policies surreptitiously cover up their inherent problems, because they appear to be designed to promote E-waste but in actuality, such waste can end up countries such as Mexico (as reported by Elisabeth Rosenthal). E-waste is also a problem within southeast and east Asia causing pollution and serious ecological harm. See here for the article. While the US is guilty, I am sure Canada is just as bad but alas, the lack of transparency with its waste disposal, make it difficult to know where our car batteries end up, for example.

E-waste is a tricky problem. There have been many recommendations made to nation states on how to deal with this problem. Rosenthal concludes with:

"The government could simply ban used battery exports, as Slab Watchdog suggests. Or it could require that Mexican factories processing used batteries from the United States meet our environmental standards and undergo inspections. The Food and Drug Administration inspects foreign factories that make drugs imported into the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency could take on a similar role for battery recycling plants".

You can read the full story of recycling American car batteries in Mexico here.

Carbon emissions on the rise: a time for adaptation?

The NY Times reports that:

"Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery".

What's more:

"Emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, according to an analysis released Sunday by the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists tracking the numbers. Scientists with the group said the increase, a half-billion extra tons of carbon pumped into the air, was almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution, and the largest percentage increase since 2003".

Over the next few days, leaders from around the world are attending the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol, in Durban, South Africa. Other climate change conferences such as Copenhagen (2009) and Bali (2007) have had tremendous challenges in putting forward meaningful actions on mitigating climate emissions. Finding consensus on mitigating emissions is too difficult with the rising giants of India and China along with several developing countries.

Despite my cynicism, something positive may emerge from Durban. However, after working an internship with SFU for the past 6 months and learning about the many benefits of climate change adaptation, I feel more more inclined to support policies that address ways to respond and prepare for climate change impacts. I have blogged about this extensively. In short, adaptation is far more productive than climate change mitigation because people can begin to understand the potential impacts of climate on their lives and what sort of incentives are available to respond to this.

Matt Kahn at UCLA is famous for his work on the economics of climate change adaptation.  Take some of points with a grain of salt, but I think he's on to something that policymakers in the deveoped and developing world alike ought to pay attention to.

More on adaptation soon.

Water auctions and participatory water management

An excellent article by Abraham Abhishek on innovative ways to improve water management. Some highlights from the post:

"The Umatilla County Critical Groundwater Solutions Taskforce in Oregon, United States is a body that represents government officials, scientists and (perhaps most importantly) various communities and native tribes in the county. It was formed in response to a dual crisis - rapidly depleting groundwater, and impending conflict amongst various users in the county and neighbouring areas. The taskforce enabled water users and technocrats to work together, which resulted in comprehensive planning and effective implementation of groundwater management activities".

"the proposed water auction mechanism and the observed water management system—seem to make at least one common suggestion: that water security demands efficient water management, which should be based on decentralized decision making. All-in-auctions run counter to the more centralized processes of reallocating water rights, represented by quotas and subsidies. Umatilla-like participatory planning and outreach brings water governance a notch closer to the end users".

Full article here.

Public Perceptions on Water Issues in British Columbia

For the past two months I have been blogging for the Adaptation to Climate Change Team out of Simon Fraser University (SFU). As part of my internship with them, I have been blogging about Bob Sandford's cross-Canada tour where he has been presenting on the need for strong water governance and water policy reform in this country. Bob has been touring for almost two months now visiting the Prairies, Maritimes, Ontario, Quebec, BC, and Alberta. He is a water policy author for the Adaptation to Climate Change Team.

You can read my blog posts on the tour stops in Vancouver (summary of the presentation here, reactions from the audience here). And for Victoria (summary of the presentation here and reactions from the crowd here).

In short, the presentations in Vancouver and Victoria focused on a number of issues in water management centred on BC's Water Act Modernization Process and the exemplary water strategy in the Northwest Territories that should act as a resource for cities across the country.

Happy reading.

Edward Glaeser interviewed with The Economist

This 10 minute video is an interview with Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics at Harvard about his book "Triumph of the City". I have made reference to Glaeser's work countless times on this blog. I read his book in the spring and blogged about it here.

If you are interested in getting a snapshot of his book, check out the interview above. At the end of the interview, he mentions how technology such as real-time information for buses is only going to make our cities more manageable, efficient and pleasant to live in. I couldn't agree more and wrote a paper on this very topic for an urban transit class which you can view here.

I think Glaeser has a number of good ideas; some are vehemently rejected by the planning community. Some are embraced. But for anyone interested in cities (from an academic perspective or other) his work is highly informative and edifying.

Canada's leadership on the environment: dwindling or non-existent?

Among many of the articles I have read of late, along with hearing from prominent Canadian scientists and environmentalists, the state of Canada's commitment to the environment is eroding very quickly. An article from the Guardian provides some cogent facts:

-Canada's Stephen Harper government is spending more than 60 billion dollars on new military jets and warships while slashing more than 200 million dollars in funding for research and monitoring of the environment

-Some 776 Environment Canada employees have been told their jobs may be terminated. That's 11 percent of the current staff in a government department that has been a favourite target for budget and staff cuts for the past decade, to the point where it was barely functional

-For 34 years, the non-partisan Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN) successfully walked the line between the needs of government and the needs of its more than 650 civil society members. But on Oct. 13, after waiting more than six months for its expected 536,000 dollars in annual funding, the group was informed by letter it would not be coming. Ever.

-If there is a need to reduce the federal budget deficit, why is Canada continuing to give the oil and gas industry 1.4 billion dollars (1.3 billion U.S.) in subsidies every year?

My intention here is not to solely seek out facts that make the federal government look bad; but instead, raise some issues that I feel are quite salient. Making cuts to environmental and climatic research in 2011 sounds absurd to me. Moreover, the continuation of subsidizing an industry -- highly destructive to ecosystems and water supplies to say the least -- will lead Canada to become the world's most heavy GHG emitter. Sounds more backwards than economically productive to me.

Juliet Schor on the politics of consumption

Juliet Schor's E. F. Schumacher Lecture from New Economics Institute on Vimeo.


Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. The video above is a lecture she delivered at the Thirty-First Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures, New York City, November 5th, 2011.

Here is a summary of one of her ideas:

"2. Quality of life rather than quantity of stuff. Twenty-five years ago quality-of-life indicators began moving in an opposite direction from our measures of income, or Gross Domestic Product, a striking divergence from historic trends. Moreover, the accumulating evidence on well-being, at least its subjective measures (and to some extent objective measures, such as health), suggests that above the poverty line, income is relatively unimportant in affecting well-being. This may be because what people care about is relative, not absolute income. Or it may be because increases in output undermine precisely those factors which do yield welfare. Here I have in mind the growing worktime requirements of the market economy, and the concomitant decline in family, leisure, and community time; the adverse impacts of growth on the natural environment; and the potential link between growth and social capital".

More here.

Is local food production inefficient?

Freaknomics blog author Steve Sexton writes:

"implicit in the argument that local farming is better for the environment than industrial agriculture is an assumption that a “relocalized” food system can be just as efficient as today’s modern farming. That assumption is simply wrong. Today’s high crop yields and low costs reflect gains from specialization and trade, as well as scale and scope economies that would be forsaken under the food system that locavores endorse".

He argues that specialization and trade, economies of scale and even the health implications of local food do not make sense.

I disagree with a number of his points and feel that he has not adequately captured the local economic benefits of farmers' markets, the immense potential urban farmers have in helping contribute to our growing and vibrant cities and the educational possibilities associated with localizing our food choices. I understand he is arguing from an economics perspective but local food production is beyond just an economics discussion.  I will let my colleagues who work in this area respond to this article.

To refresh, Harvard economics professor Ed Glaeser (who I admire very much) is also against local food production. My friend wrote a critique of his article back in July which you can view here.

Read the Freakonomics article by Steve Sexton. Some of you will agree, some will disagree. This is a critical issue of our time especially as food prices continue to rise and our nations continue to urbanize.

Green lifestyle choices won’t solve the climate problem

Check out this article by Gar Lipow on why individual choices to be green may not help in the long run. He argues that sustainability is a collective affair requiring collective solutions. Further, he posits that governments (especially the U.S.) do not spend enough on public goods:

"Setting an example by doing some simple, logical things to reduce an individual environmental footprint is wonderful. But ultimately, we will not make up, through private spending or lifestyle changes, for the fact that we currently don't invest enough in public goods. Nor will we privately make up for the fact that much of our public spending is directed to the wrong public goods".

He uses the example of railways versus highways in the U.S. to illustrate his point:

"The road to our current predicament was long, and built on public policy and public investment. Take the gradual reduction of freight rail in this country, for example. We have less than half the miles of freight-rail track we had at the peak of freight-rail shipping; that is a result of a massive public investment in public highways -- which do not in fact pay for themselves [PDF]. In our system, rail pays property tax and highways don't, much of the so-called gas tax is really diverted sales tax, and railroads also pay fuel taxes but don't get fuel tax money back the way highways do".

While I agree with many of the points raised in this article, I still believe that individual actions (i.e. using less water, using public transit over driving, for example) can go a long way insofar as we have the communication channels to support these activities. Investment in public goods has been declining, no doubt, but we live in an era where communication via social media and public events can at least harness and shift those "individual actions" into a more collaborative and collective effort.

The age of information is a powerful one and the more individuals arguing for their green choices -- via the web, telling their friends and peers and sharing in schools and workplaces -- the more weight these arguments will have when presented to politicians.

Once the information sharing begins along with collectively arguing for the benefits we can indeed derive from public goods, people may become less apathetic and more vocal to their politicians. These collective efforts can demand change and lead to benefits for all.

The Gated City by Ryan Avent

For you urbanites out there, check out this podcast with Ryan Avent, author of The Gated City.

Avent's central thesis is that cities in the United States such as Boston, NYC, San Francisco and Washington D.C. are all very desirable places to live but are very expensive to live in. There are many reasons for this including limited and restrictive housing construction which drives up housing costs. Thus, they have not seen the same levels of population growth and housing stock construction as places like Houston, Las Vegas and Phoenix, for example.

Is this a bad thing? Depends on which question you are asking. Avent suggests that the coastal cities that have not seen a growing housing stock and are pricing out a lot of people (including middle class families and skilled labour). These are the people we need to keep our cities productive. As cities become more and more attractive places, demand for housing will inevitably increase.

But if housing supply does not respond to this demand, then how are they suppose to grow? And if one of our goals is to foster vibrant and productive cities by providing skilled jobs for people who cannot even afford to live there (hint hint,Vancouver) then we fail at achieving our main goal.

Avent talks about how self-interested people living in high dense and highly desirably places (like San Francisco) can fight against housing development in their neighbourhoods (classic NIMBYism) which pushes that development away to other places that are more open to housing development such as Houston. Sound familiar? It should be. Ed Glaeser discusses the environmental implications of this at length.

Some statistics and facts from the podcast:

"The median owner-occupied home in Houston in 2009 was just about $130,000 in value. And in San Jose it was over $600,000. And that just dwarfs the difference in wages. And it's not associated with the difference in construction costs. There is a difference in construction costs but it's very small relative to the premium due to the difficulty in building in those areas in the country".

"From 2001-2009, the housing stock in Boston, NY, and the Silicon Valley area, each of those, it grew by a little over 5%. And then you look at a city like Las Vegas, the housing stock grew by almost 40%. And in places like Phoenix and Charlotte it grew by 25%. So it's just a huge difference in growth in the housing stock, which really has nothing to do with demand but has entirely to do with the ease of building in those places".

There is a fascinating discussion in this podcast about city politics, urban planning, how zoning can be problematic, the consequences of distorting public policy and much more.

If you want a more condensed version of this, check out this 10 minute video via The Economist.

Here is a short review of the book.

Keystone XL Pipeline and its discontents

From the New York Times' Green blog:

"Thousands turned out on Sunday at the White House for a protest against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta some 1,700 miles to Texas. Opponents say that oil sands processing contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, and that the pipeline itself could threaten a precious aquifer".

More here from the Winnipeg Free Press.

Bicycle friendly cities

The Copenhagen Index for the World's most bike-friendly cities has been released for 2011. Here is a bit context about the index:

Image Credit: mindbodygreen.com

"Early in 2011 a discussion arose at Copenhagenize Consulting about what cities really are the best cities for urban cycling. Over a period of six months our team has gathered information and statistics and developed an index with which we could rate cities for bicycle friendliness. It was originally meant to be a tool for internal use in the company but after a period of time we realised that the index was perhaps worth releasing on the internet".

The index is based on 13 criteria including bicycle culture, infrastructure, bike facilities, bike share programs, gender split, perception and safety and more.

Amsterdam took 1st place followed by Copenhagen and Barcelona. For North American cities, Montreal took first followed by Portland. Way to go Montreal!

Here is more information about how the index was created.

David Suzuki on moving forward

Last night, I had the pleasure of hearing David Suzuki speak at a public lecture at UBC. I heard Dr. Suzuki speak four years ago at Trent when his messages then were slightly more pessimistic (and that was pre-global financial crisis).

This time around, the messages, I think, were far more positive and inspiring. I came out of the Chan Centre at UBC feeling optimistic and telling myself that as a planner, a lot of work needs to be done on the ecological, social and political front to advance sustainability in our society.

But it's not just planners that will have a role in this, it's everyone in society who has a vested interest in preserving the ecological systems that support our economies, and those who care about the welfare of future generations. It is the responsibility of everyone in society as this is a collective task. As Marshall Mcluhan put it "There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew".

Here are a few messages from Dr. Suzuki's lecture that I want to share:

1) This time around, he was highly critical of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Among many of his critiques, he focused on Harper's anti-environmental science mentality as evidenced by the downsizing of Environment Canada through laying off scientists. David thinks this is absurd given the hitherto, well established science on climate change and its impacts to Canada. We need all of the scientists we can at this point to relay the information needed to bring about policies that help Canada adapt to climate change while concomitantly mitigating our emissions.

2)  Being tough on carbon emissions means shrinking economic growth? Suzuki was particularly vocal about this one. He criticized Harper for making claims that taking action on climate change will reduce Canada's economic competitiveness. Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden, have been very effective at cutting down emissions and growing their economy.

Suzuki made note of Sweden's introduction of a carbon tax in the 1990s which helped reduce the country's Co2 emissions by 9% below 1990 levels (thus meeting the Kyoto targets) while growing their economy by over 30%. Thus, there are examples out there of success, political will is the problem.

He argued that developed countries like Canada are so fixated and obsessed with "GDP" that we miss other important aspects of life such as belonging to a community to build relationships, going for walks to enjoy nature, getting to know our neighbours, volunteering, taking time away from work to appreciate other parts of life such as spending time with family. All of these activities are part of our human nature yet GDP does not capture them and thus they become trivial from a economic growth perspective.

3) We need to think about future generations! David was very clear on this one and I found this part of his lecture to be the most inspiring. As a 75 year old with grandchildren, he remarked that it is his grandchildren that keep him going everyday. Thinking about our future children, our future planet and the world they inherit is something that First Nations discuss through the 7 generations model. David told stories about his dad being the most important figure in his life in terms of wisdom, understanding the importance of family and thinking about the next generation.

He talked about living at his same house in Kitsilano for over 30 years and making space for his grandchildren. We need to step back and think about what we really need and want as a society. Do we really need that extra car, Iphone, large television set etc. David challenges us to think carefully about our consumption in light of succeeding generations.

4)

My only criticism of his talk was his rant about cities putting us out of touch with nature. He does have a point about how we used to be farming societies that generally lived within our means and did not consume like the urbanites we are today. However, cities are the future and whether we acknowledge this or not, they are the engines of creativity, talent, opportunity and innovation. As Jane Jacobs put it "the point of cities are multiplicity of choice".

So, I agree with David that nature is often restricted in cities and that's why we need to make more conscious efforts to preserve and promote nature within them (as done masterfully by Vancouver's Stanley Park). Losing connection to nature is what fuels consumption with completel disregard for ecological systems.

I was very happy when I left his lecture - inspired and feeling challenged on how I am going to confront these issues in my lifetime.

Here are some other links about David's life, his ideas and his leadership on such an important topic of our time.

The story of the future has yet to be told

Environmentalism's mistakes and where to go from here

On green energy

Ontario's leadership in Water Conservation

For the past month I have been blogging for the Adaptation to Climate Change Team out of Simon Fraser University (SFU). As part of my internship with them, I have been blogging about Bob Sandford's cross-Canada tour on Canadian water governance. Bob has been touring for a month now visiting the Prairies, Maritimes, Ontario and now BC. He is a water policy author for the Adaptation to Climate Change Team.

Here is the first post on Saskatchewan. Here is the latest post on Ontario.

Happy reading.

Cap and trade in California

A recent article by James Tansey from the Tyee reports that:

"The ARB (California Air Resources Board) voted unanimously on Friday to approve the final regulations that will create the second largest carbon market in the world, beginning in 2013. While the U.S. Federal government's interest in climate policy has declined, California, still the world's seventh largest economy, will implement a cap and trade scheme that represents the most significant issue in U.S. climate policy since the Kyoto Protocol".

This evidently puts pressure on British Columbia to be more committed to the Western Climate Initiative.

"While British Columbia's interest in climate policy was affirmed by the premier earlier in 2011, the government's commitment to the WCI is currently subject to an economic impacts review; often in government this kind of study is the earliest sign of a retreat from a policy position".

This bold move by California (a state that has had tremendous financial hardship through its budget crisis), marks a sense of commitment and leadership to climate policy. Whether other U.S. states follow in a time when the economy dominates every political discussion is unlikely. However, BC has and should consider its commitment to the WCI, not least for a province that ostensibly prides itself on green initiatives like the carbon tax (which I think needs to be reformed) but for a great opportunity to harness the enthusiasm from down south to move forward on climate policy.

Localizing climate change to move forward

This article by Anna Fahey summarizes how talking about climate impacts on “socially distant groups” (and probably vulnerable species like polar bears) is likely to amplify polarization about the issue. This statement is complimented by the following elaboration:

"Climate change campaigns in the United States that focus on the risks to people in foreign countries or even other regions of the U.S. are likely to inadvertently increase polarization among Americans rather than build consensus and support for policy action".

The writer offers some insights by a recent study which argues that "when information about the risks of climate change are localized, connected closely to values such as public health, and communicated in terms of co-benefits to the community, these campaign efforts are likely to be more successful at transcending ideological differences and building support for action.”

I think this piece is relevant to all discussions that pertain to climate change. Indeed, climate change is so poorly communicated and politically driven that peoples' perceptions constantly shift along political and ideological lines. This is dangerous, I think, as it does not offer citizens a chance to digest the information and to think about the issues and risks themselves and produce their own logical conclusions.

Communication in the climate change arena needs to be ameliorated. There are some positive examples within the British Columbia context of communicating the local impacts of climate change, but more needs to happen. In an era of social media, we could use YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other tools to build a dialogue about what kind of action we can take right now to help us understand and adapt to climate change. No doubt, this is already happening, but it gets diluted with political sentiment.

Planners have a role here, but so do politicians, climate scientists and our leaders.

Bill Rees on the disconnect between economics and ecology

In my first year as an undergraduate student, I took a course called Environmental Science 101. It was a fascinating and comprehensive overview of both the arts and science dimensions of the discipline (e.g. environmental toxicology, energy systems, air pollution, environmental law, politics, planning, public policy and economics, to name a few).

In the first few weeks of class, our wonderful professor exposed us to the ecological footprint analysis, a concept that was co-created by William Rees, a professor in my grad program at UBC. I studied his ecological footprint analysis in my undergrad and explained it (or attempted to) numerous times to my friends in other areas of the academy.

5 years later, I am now taking a class with Prof. Rees on ecological economics. Bill is passionate and his ecological footprint analysis has been widely used, discussed and studied all over the world. The video above is a just a taste of a professor who has done so much in arguing for the importance of ecology in our society and why planning and economic systems must account for ecological dimensions first, before we can begin to even think about sustainbility.

Bill is retiring this year from UBC and I feel quite privileged and honoured to have taken a course with him.

A Green Leader we miss: David Miller

Despite the critiques of David Miller's mayorship of Toronto, he is and will certainly be remembered as a leader in the environmental and sustainability realm. This Globe and Mail articles features Miller's thoughts about Transit City and how  transit is critical to any successful city like Toronto. I wrote about an idea I had to Transit City's financial issues back in May 2010. You can view that post here.

The article from the Globe also provides an update about what Miller is doing these days. He continues to practice his green ethos through a new position as Future of Cities Global Fellow at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, a post he landed after chairing the C40 group of mayors. He is also going to teach a course to senior engineers and graduate planning students (at NYU) that will use an existing derelict site as a case study in rebuilding cities.

Good on you, David. If only Toronto's current mayor was half as sensible, Toronto would be able to renew its hitherto impressive environmental record, thanks largely to Miller's leadership.

Josh Farley on the Ecological Economy

Joshua Farley is Professor of Community Development & Applied Economics and Public Administration at the University of Vermont. He is a famous ecological economist who has contributed immensely to the field and has provided several strong arguments for its purpose as a discipline. The video above captures it all -- a introduction to ecological economics, its main goals, some of his ideas -- and lasts for about 40 minutes or so.

It's a really useful video that essentially discusses how we can adapt our economic systems to the ecological and physical constraints of our planet.

The Business Case for Public Transit

Chris and I have blogged a fair bit about transportation issues through Enviro Boys. However, rarely have we discussed the business case for public transit and the multiplier effect it creates such as benefits for individual businesses, attracting creative and talented people to a city, moving millions of people everyday and really being the lifeblood of a vibrant and economically productive city.

My friend, Lewis Kelly, wrote a brilliant article for Alberta Venture on making the business case for public transit. His article is mostly focused on the new Light Rail Transit lines in Calgary and Edmonton. Here is an excerpt from his article:

"Regardless of their fiscal efficiency, rail lines tend to get built because of their political expediency – and the reasons for that are the same reasons that make building new train lines do wonders for business. People like riding trains and living in cities with extended rail networks. There’s an expectation among prospective employees that any world-class city will offer a certain level of cultural sophistication, diversity and a well-run rail network. “It really comes down to incubating and becoming a draw for talent,” says Brunnen at the Calgary chamber. “When we invest in these major public-transit infrastructure projects, we become more desirable for new investment – because we become more desirable as an international destination of talent.”

He also quotes two professors I think highly of, Professor Eric Miller at U of T and Professor Murtaza Haider at Ryerson U.

I think planners, environmentalists and other transit advocates should spend more time discussing the economic and business benefits of transit. After all, when glancing at the numbers, it is clear that investments in public transit can yield benefits far superior to simply investing in roads and highways. Ultimately, transit systems improve mobility and accessibility for our cities which in turn, create environmental and social benefits. And when transit is clearly linked to economic productivity (and being good for individual businesses) it is hard to argue against it. The more advocacy from different sectors and groups in society, the better!

FLOW Tour: Saskatchewan update

As part of my internship with the Adaptation to Climate Change Team, I will be blogging about updates and stories from the FLOW cross-Canada tour. FLOW stands for the Forum for Leadership on Water.

FLOW Co-Chair, Bob Sandford (who was also the lead author of the ACT report I helped edit this summer), is going across Canada to present some of the positive lessons learned from the Northwest Territories Water strategy and to hear from Canadians about what they think needs to be done to better protect our water resources.You can view a list of Bob's tour dates here.

Here is short summary of what came from the Saskatchewan tour stop:

Saskatchewan experienced droughts and floods in the same basin this year, with farmers submitting insurance claims for both in a first for the insurance industry. The issue of flooding, accurately projected from climate models, is a major concern for the people of Saskatchewan and this was manifested at the tour stop through questions regarding ways the province’s water infrastructure should be managed and how to account for the “new normal”.

You can read more of my post here.

Climate Change Adaptation and Water Governance report

In May 2011, I started an internship with the Adaptation to Climate Change Team (ACT) out of SFU. One of my job responsibilities was to review and provide on-going feedback to the Climate Change Adaptation and Water Governance report led by policy author Bob Sandford. After months of revisions and feedback from several professionals, academics and students working in the field of climate change adaptation, ACT released the finalized version of the report on Tuesday October 4th. Here is a snapshot of it:

“The days when Canadians take an endless abundance of fresh water for granted are numbered,” warns Bob Sandford, lead author of ACT’s new report Climate Change Adaptation and Water Governance. “Increasing average temperatures, climate change impacts on weather patterns and extensive changes in land use are seriously affecting the way water moves through the hydrological cycle in many parts of Canada, which is seriously impacting water quantity and quality."

“The reform of water governance structures in Canada is essential if we want to successfully manage and protect our water supplies and minimize climate-related impacts on our environment, our economy and our society,” says Sandford."

To inquire about more details of the report along with some of the work I have been doing over the past 5 months, see here.

Roads vs. transit in the U.S.

The Infrastructurist provides a thoughtful discussion of federal funding for roads versus funding for transit in the United States.

"Take Obama’s latest proposed jobs bill, which includes $27 billion for immediate spending on highways and bridges, and around $9 billion for rail. Clearly, that’s a huge tilt. What about changing that ratio of fund distribution, on the basis that nearly every large city is currently working to introduce transit? In other words, what if we gave $27 billion to transit, and $9 billion to roads?"

The conclusion of the post:

"Given all of this context, where should the federal dollars go (assuming that any ever get distributed)? The answer, according to transit experts, may lie in a compromise — adjusting our standards for design, say, so a bridge reconstruction must include accommodation for a future rail line. And making transit decisions with a discerning eye. “Transit lines should expand in response to land use – not just because of the desire to expand,” Eddy says. “And on the highway side, what needs to be wrestled to the ground is the idea that you must always get in a car to get where you want to go — and that your car is the best way to get there.”

The bottomline is that cities in the U.S. and all over North America are growing and demanding better transit service. Transit has grown tremedously in popularity across North America's biggest cities since the 1980s. In Vancouver, transit ridership has grown 50% over the past 10 years while the population has only grown by 15%. Reasons for this increase in demand are numerous but principally revolve around gains in efficiency, service and comfort level.  Beyond federal funding though, transit systems need to be financially sustainable in order to provide good service. David Levinson's offers us some ideas on how transit systems can be financed sustainbly.

Evaluating the merits of small wind turbines

A recent NY times article reports that there has been a rise of small wind turbines in the U.S. and Britain:

"In a report to be released later this month, the American Wind Energy Association says that the market for small wind turbines in the United States grew 26 percent last year — faster than in prior years. And in Britain, a report in April found growth in the year ending in December 2010 even higher, at 65 percent — making it the “greatest year on year increase” for the small-turbine industry, according to the report."

Through reading articles about wind energy over the years, and through listening to Chris talk about it a lot in 4th year undergrad, it appears that any successful wind energy market needs strong incentives. Such incentives may include feed-in-tariff programs that are being used in Britain, Ontario and most recently, Nova Scotia.

I think wind is a very promising renewable technology and it's great to see it taking off in different parts of the world.

The Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada

From the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRT):

"Climate change could be expensive for Canada. Unless global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are brought down and Canada invests in adaptation, the economic impacts of climate change on Canada could climb to billions of dollars per year.

Those are the conclusions of a new report of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy called Paying the Price: The Economic Impacts of Climate Change for Canada. This is the first national-level study assessing the economic impacts of climate change on Canada.

We found that the costs of impacts could range from $5 billion per year in 2020 to between $21 billion and $43 billion per year in 2050, depending on global greenhouse gas emissions and domestic economic and population growth. There are also risks that costs could be much higher – for example, there is a 5% chance of costs exceeding $91B per year in the 2050s with high climate change and rapid socioeconomic development".

More about the report here.

NOx standards on new vehicles in LA

In the summer I listened to an EconTalk podcast with Prof. Robert Frank of Cornell University. The podcast can be listened to here. Consider this statement from Robert Frank:

"In Los Angeles, in order to meet the air quality targets they were shooting for, they had to adopt stringent nitrous oxide (NOx) requirements on new vehicles because they were unwilling to have old vehicles comply with the pollution requirements--mostly low income drivers drive the old vehicles and it was thought to be too onerous to require them to comply. So we ratcheted up the requirements on the new cars to meet the target and it was about $900 a pound to get all the NOx out of new cars--all the low-hanging fruit had already been picked in that domain--so for the inevitable democratic impulse to shield poor people from hardship we ended up spending $900/pound to get NOx out of the air, whereas if we had forced older vehicles to come into compliance we could have gotten that same pound out for $10. Way cheaper over all if we'd taxed wealthy motorists in California a little bit extra and given a voucher to poor motorists, who would turn in their old cars and buy a 5-year old Toyota Corolla or some other compliant vehicle."

The example above relates to the content of a class I am taking called "Environmental Policy Analysis".We talked today about pollution standards and how they could be inherently more inefficient in terms of social and economic costs. If we wanted to improve air quality for everyone (using the LA example), then it would be more sensible to tax the wealthier motorists so that enough money could be re-distributed to lower-income drivers to purchases cars that are less intensive in terms of NOx. This would be a much less expensive way to alleviate pernicious pollutants that cause respiratory illnesses. Standards are helpful but when considering overall economic costs, there are more efficient and equitable ways of doing it. Yes, this is also a political game, but political games such as these ones can make everyone worse off.

More to come on risk management, environmental policy and how to improve decisions that make everyone better off.

An Integrated Planning Approach to Climate Change Adaptation

I will be presenting my research at the Eighth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability in January 2012. The conference will be held at the Robson Square, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada from 10 to 12 January 2012.

My title is "An Integrated Planning Approach to Climate Change Adaptation: Exploring the Water Sector in Canada". My abstract is below and has been slightly revised since. But here is the gist:

Through my internship with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, I have been exploring strategies and best practices surrounding climate change adaptation in the water sector in Canada and abroad. Interest in adaptation could not come at a more important time as various academics and practitioners are pressuring the Canadian government to reconsider a more holistic and robust water policy. Given the complexity and uncertainty surrounding climate change, adaptation must take a holistic and pro-active approach to consider environmental and economic strategies that will help us adapt today to bring a more promising tomorrow. Through a literature review, content analysis, and the use of social media, my project develops a planning guide based on best practices in the water sector that the federal government could use to make decisions on how fund or assist communities with their adaptation plans.

The intended results are to complement the growing national movement calling for a Canadian water policy. Through contacting professionals in the water field along with raising awareness of the value of water through social media, this project will engage various perspectives and beliefs - all of which are critical for creating robust adaptation plans with a supportive national water policy.

U.S. partisan divide over the causes of global warming

Stories in 2011 concering the debate about what causes global warming are always supremely entertaining for me. Check out this story from the Environmental Economics blog:

"37% of Democrats believe global warming is the result primarily of human action, while only 14% of Republicans believe this. Conversely, 43% of Republicans believe global warming is the result of natural causes, up from 35% in 2010. Self-identified Tea Party members display still more certainty (49%) that global warming is caused by natural events".

More here.

An introduction to ecological economics

I am taking a course this term with Professor Bill Rees. Bill Rees is renowned for co-creating the Ecological Footprint concept back in the mid-1990s. Bill is also a distinguished professor in my graduate program (SCARP).

The course I am taking with Bill is all about about ecological economics. In short, ecological economics is about treating the economy as a subsystem of the ecosystem and has an emphasis upon preserving natural capital.

Here is short and informative introduction to the discipline.

A great article on financially sustainable mass transit systems

David Levinson is Professor of Transportation Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He blogs at The Transportationist. Check out his post on some ideas on how to achieve financially sustainable mass transit systems. Many cities around the world recognize that transit is an indispensable component of greening their cities. Transit brings a number of benefits with the obvious environmental gains being shown through decreased carbon emissions per capita in the transportation sector.

The real challenge being faced by transit agencies around the world is financing their systems. They have to overcome a lot of inefficiencies that are embedded in the system (often created by local governments). Levinson has some good ideas. Here is the start of his post:

"Mass transit systems in the United States are collectively losing money hand over fist. Yet many individual routes (including bus routes) earn enough to pay their own operating (and even capital costs). But like bad mortgages contaminating the good, money-losing transit routes are bogging down the system."

More here.

Links on climate change adaptation

Multidisciplinary team led by Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom to conduct research on impact of climate change, capacity for adaptation.

For those who do not know Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences for her analysis of economic governance,) see here.

How to pursue policies that are based on climate change adaptation and mitigation to yield benefits in both camps.

Tim Jackson on prosperity without growth

Jackson says "prosperity consists in our ability to flourish as human beings within the ecological limits of a finite planet".

More here.

Private cities in the developing world

The idea sounds completely absurd but private cities are ostensibly taking off in many developing countries. Marginal Revolution tells the story here.

"Private cities are happening now for a reason. Africa, India, and China are urbanizing more rapidly than has ever occurred in human history. In Africa, the number of urban dwellers is projected to increase by nearly 400 million, in India at least 250 million will move to cities and in China more than 400 million will move to cities in just the next 20 years... The rising middle-class want to live in first-world cities and in many of these countries only the private sector can deliver those cities".

Private cities will surely provide the much desired amentities and infrastructure for those that can afford it, but I worry about the inequality and complete exclusion that can emerge from this. Yes, these cities can probably help places urbanize and provide what Jane Jacobs would call "multiplicity of choice". But if the benefits and opportunities are overwhelmingly concentrated in them -- while neglecting other places in the city -- there could be severe ramifications.

The transit funding discussion continues in Metro Vancouver

A recent article in the Globe and Mail titled "Transit advocates launch campaign for property-tax hike" adds to the hitherto highly mixed discussion regarding funding for TransLink, the regional transportation authority for Metro Vancouver.

The article makes reference to a group in Vancouver called the Sustainable Transportation Coalition:

"An influential group of planners, architects, and environmentalists is launching a campaign this week to persuade hesitant Metro Vancouver mayors to commit to property-tax increases in order to kick-start a plan for massive transit expansion."

The group favours a hike in property taxes to pay for transit, but they have also echoed support for using revenues from the carbon tax and road pricing as well. Here is some information about the funding plan that is going to be voted on within the next month among the 22 mayors in Metro Vancouver:

"The plan, which is a supplement to TransLink’s basic operating budget, would raise $700-million over 10 years. That would provide TransLink’s share for the long-delayed Evergreen Line in the northeast. It would also provide another $300-million for other major improvements, including a bus on King George in Surrey, a Highway 1 express bus for Langley commuters, and an extra SeaBus for the North Shore".

Whichever funding alternatives gets the green light, this will be a momentous decision for transit in Metro Vancouver for the future.

Coping with a drought in Central Texas

This article from the NY Times tells a story of how Llano, Texas is coping with a water drought.

"Government has always had a hard time telling Texans how to live. But the ban on most types of outdoor watering has been embraced by people in Llano, where a kind of World War II-era rationing spirit has become a way of life."

Residents are taking several innovative steps to conserve water and make use with as little as possible. Alas, there is no discussion about water pricing. Texas, like many southern states, is subject to droughts. Implementing pricing measures to reflect water scarcity would go a long way in helping communities like Llano adapt to climate change. All this would mean is that when there are droughts and water supplies are limited, a pricing structure would be in place to reflect how much water there is. As droughts portend limited water, prices would be high and would theoretically send a signal to households to use less.

A radical SuperFreakonomics story has come to fruition

A year ago, I blogged about a famous book called "SuperFreakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (read my review here). One chapter in their book titled "What Do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo Have in Common?" is all about solutions to climate change. In this chapter, Levitt and Dubner specifically embrace geo-engineering solutions which are highly controversial in climate change circles. One of the wild and far fetched geo-engineering ideas reported, evidently thought of by Intellectual Ventures, is the garden hose to the sky:

"A team of British researchers called SPICE (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering) is trying to pump particles of water into the atmosphere as a test run before moving onto sulfates and aerosols that would reflect sunlight away from earth, mimicking the aftereffect of a massive volcanic eruption. SPICE is building the garden hose at an undisclosed location, with £1.6 million in U.K. government funding and the backing of the Royal Society".

Essentially a long garden hose from the Earth would pump sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to allow for a cooling effect. 

Sound a little nuts to you? This is one of many geo-engineering ideas out there. Amid the ambivalence about how to mitigate GHGs and adapt to climate change, geo-engineering nerds and fanatics are proposing solutions that, while controversial on the surface, may have some merit if we explore our curiosities and gamble with risks. I am skeptical of geo-engineering myself but am interested nonetheless.

More about this here.

A less enthusiastic take on HSR in China

Image Credit: The Globe and Mail (August 12, 2011)

We have blogged about high speed rail (HSR) several times before, particularly focusing on China (see here and here). Amid my research this past year and constant enthusiasm for HSR in China, my own perspective on it has changed dramatically over the past few months. I was skeptical about its rapid progress to begin with, but the July 23rd crash only furthered my worries and general skepticism.

As shown in the map above, China leads the world in kilometres of HSR. The environmental motivations for this nation wide network are admirable, but given the citizens' demand for more low-cost transportation, along with a security of reaching destinations in a safe manner, HSR provides a case of tremendous uncertainty.

You can read this article for a more complete picture outlining genuine concerns of HSR in China. Take note: I am not against HSR in China. I think the country is on the right track in terms of sustainable transportation. However, rushing such projects with complete government control to ostensibly show off the nation's great technological rise is a bit idiotic, and when crashed do occur, this not only instills fear in the nation's citizens, but casts doubt from people all over the world.

Is the G.O.P. Anti-Science?

In a recent Op-Ed in the NY Times', columnist Paul Krugman argues that the Grand Old Party (GOP for short and the nickname for the Republican Party in the U.S.) is becoming anti-science. Paul cites just a few examples of Republican party contender nominees who still question topics such as evolution and climate change:

"Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

The article proceeds with Paul's worries and sentiments about the prospect of having a U.S. president -- or simply a U.S. party-- that is aggressively anti-science and anti-knowledge. This is concerning to say the least, particularly because of the emerging consensus about human induced climate change and the general importance of scientific research that informs public policy. Dismissing scientific research such as climate change or worse yet, cutting funding to it, is not only backwards but frightening!

Read the full article here.

A Case of Baptists and bootleggers?

From the Environmental Economics blog:

"A major environmental group has teamed up with a conservative think tank and others to urge the congressional supercommittee to slash oil, coal, ethanol and nuclear subsidies — a move the groups say would save $380 billion over the next five years.

Friends of the Earth, the Heartland Institute, Public Citizen and Taxpayers for Common Sense released a report Wednesday, dubbed “Green Scissors 2011,” that casts the cuts as benefiting both the environment and the economy.

“While all four groups have different missions, histories, goals and ideas about the role of government, we all agree that we can begin to overcome our nation’s budgetary and environmental woes by tackling spending that is not only wasteful but environmentally harmful,” the groups said in the report."

$20 million for water research in Southern Ontario

A couple of days ago, the University of Toronto announced that the Southern Ontario Water Consortium (composed of many diverse groups and individuals including U of T researchers) will be receiving $19.58 million from the federal government. FedDev Ontario, an agency created in 2009 as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, was the agency that informed U of T of the grant.

"The funding will allow the Southern Ontario Water Consortium to build an integrated system for the development, testing and demonstration of new market-driven water technologies and services, primarily along the Grand River and adjacent watersheds".

This is important because the money will, among other things, help U of T researchers develop technologies to treat and improve water quality. Enviro Boys has blogged about water quality before,  discussing the emerging contaminants of concern including pharmaceuticals, personal care products (deodorant, soap, shampoo, perfume etc.) and illicit drugs which have and continue to worry many public health experts.

With the $20 million grant, Professor Andrews and his team at U of T will be to further develop advanced oxidation technologies to treat the aforementioned compounds. Improving water quality and enhancing dis-infecting technologies, are critical for water systems and for ensuring that the water we drink is safe. Their research is applied driven; the results will be shared with municipalities in Ontario and the province with the intention of improving current standards and targets for water quality. You can find out more about this through viewing the video below. This news really excites me (as a water nerd) but should excite everyone who appreciates the great water we enjoy in Southern Ontario.


Interview with Professor Robert Andrews, U of T from U of T Engineering on Vimeo.

U.S. widlife preserves, bike lakes, cheap gasoline and fuel subsidies

Check out the following links:

1. Emerald Cities from the NY Times.

2. Bike Lanes Benefit Drivers.

3. Gas Is Cheaper, but We’re Still Driving Less.

4. Eliminate All Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Says Org.

Using RCTs for Water Research

RCTs refer to Randomized Control Trials, a powerful statistical tool that has been used by the medical profession for quite some time. I am currently reading a book called "Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty" by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. These MIT researchers (both development economists) are using RCTs in a lot of the research they do on poverty.

One example of an RCT experiment is giving computers to kids in school to see if it improves their overall learning and educational experience. The example provided is that 100 schools are randomly selected. 50 are given computers (treatment group) 50 are not (control). Banerjee asks "if we find that the schools where children did have access to a computer did in fact learn more, does this mean it's because of the computers that they learned more, or is it because the government gave the computers to the schools where the students were more enthusiastic and were more interested, and that's why the kids learned more?

Banerjee says that one can easily conflate reasons for why children are doing better now because they received computers. But what randomized control does is it solves that problem of inference. It basically says: with this school and that other school, all the names of the students are put into a hat and we draw out 50 of their names at random. And so the schools that did get the computers are chosen at random, and that gives you the advantage that you can compare the two groups. There's no difference between them; decide by lottery which will be in each group. 100 is a smaller sample size but nonetheless, the idea is randomization which helps minimize selection bias.

There is a lot more sophistication to these experiments which you read about here. As someone who is learning more about statistics everyday and starting to appreciate them for their ability to produce policy recommendations,  RCTs are certainly worth exploring beyond the medical field or international development. Indeed, water researchers can certainly use them. Suppose we wanted to use water meters as an intervention in a community to test whether meters help cut down on household water consumption. Meters are expensive to install and are politically and socially unpopular and some argue they don't even cut down on water consumption. Thus, doing an RCT to evaluate their effectiveness merits consideration. If our sample was 2000 community members (all with different socio-economic backgrounds), we could randomly select 1000 people for the trial (like pulling names out of a hat). The other 1000 would be homes that do not receive water meters so we can compare the two.

You would probably have to wait a few months for the meters to be fully installed, but this intervention (while not as interesting or significant as a drug experiment by the FDA or an experiment by Banerjee and Duflo), would still help decision-makers understand the effect of the meters on water consumption. The intervention might show us that water consumption has gone done considerably and because we have randomized the population (litterally by doing a coin toss) we can have a better idea of the effect of this intervention. Not that meters cause consumption to go down, but help give us more reliable information.

Every method of research has its limitations, but the more we can do to minimize biases, the more influential and cogent our recommendations will be for policymakers (whether it's water meters or computers in schools in developing countries).

Short video on NYC's water supply system

The YouTube video above provides a short (but comprehensive) overview of NYC's water supply system; where it comes from, how it's distributed, how a majority of the water is unfiltered and what steps PlaNYC is taking to protect its water supply from contamination. Despite NYC's water abundance, it's important to keep in mind that conservation initiatives (public education and water metering) should be critical components of its planning process and vision.

It would great to see other videos on other cities' water supply systems such as the one above. I would personally like to see one of Vancouver and Toronto. Short videos like these can go a long way in building awareness of a city's water system and the programs, risks and policies that should be known by residents.

Two links to check out

Edward Glaeser on the "The death of distance and the rise of cities". In this audio lecture, Glaeser discusses regional policy and declining cities, urban sprawl, urban environment and gas emissions, density, affordable housing and other intriguing topics. The lecture is from 2008 and is on topics he is an expert on, not on urban farming which he evidently gets wrong.

The Heart of U.S. Economic Decline: Our Inability to Raise the Gas Tax. A link from the Infrastructurist on how raising the gas tax, among its many benefits such as helping re-build transportation infrastructure in the U.S., can actually help the country's financial troubles.

Flood zones and homeowner behaviour

This article from the NY Times presents a story of a community in South Dakota that is prone to flooding. Of course, residents and developers alike, aware of the flood risks in the first place, dismissed them in order to reap the benefits of living in a barren peninsula at the intersection of two rivers complete with million-dollar homes and a private golf course.

"They call it “the Dunes” for a reason, the warning went — the rivers put the sand there, and the rivers could sweep it away. But, much like the developers, the new residents were not worried. A few even paid a premium to be closest to the flowing water of the Missouri and the Big Sioux.

Now, a little more than two decades later, the stately homes on Spyglass Circle and Pebble Beach Drive have been evacuated and the 18th hole is under six feet of water, as miles of newly built levees strain to keep this community from surrendering to a historic flood".

“Most people don’t understand what flood risk is,” said Gerry Galloway, a civil engineering professor at the University of Maryland who has written extensively about his concerns. “They assume that if there is some level of protection like a levee or an upstream dam, they’re safe. As a general rule, public officials don’t like to dissuade them of that fact.”

This is a classic problem and often comes up in climate change adaptation research. First, people instill a lot of trust in engineering facilities such as levees or dikes instead of taking personal responsibility to protect their own homes or not live in these flood prone areas in the first place. Thus their perception of safety is based on infrastructural investments that are not even designed to account for frequent and strong floods in the first place.  I wouldn't blame the people though, much of this stems from bad policy.

In Matt Kahn's Climatopolis, he discusses the idea of the land assembly problem which is relevant to the story from the NY Times:

"An example comes from the state of Missouri where some local governments encourage developers to develop on high risk flood plains. This so-called "land assembly problem" allows developers to build on really cheap land in flood prone areas and make huge profits. The local government is excited about the new tax revenue and the job creation that accompany these projects. Alas, when floods happen in that state the federal government comes in a bails out the developer with tax payers' money because they were foolish enough in the first place to build in risky areas".

The second problem:

"As the years passed, those who dismissed a flood as unlikely started talking about it almost as an impossibility. Most residents dropped their flood insurance; only 172 homes in the entire county now carry it, backing studies that found that homeowners typically dropped the insurance after several dry years.

After about a decade, concerns about the less predictable Big Sioux prompted the construction of a levee, which led the government to reduce the flood risk for another 160 lots — removing the flood insurance requirement and making them easier to sell" (NY Times)

The problem above stems from the U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (which covers more than $1.2 trillion of assets today).

Revival of Urban Agriculture

My good friend, Marc Schutzbank, recently published an article titled "revival of urban agriculture". His article provides a very informative and educational overview of the history of urban agriculture (or urban farming which can be used interchangeably) in North America and why it is a salient topic of discussion today. He discusses four principal reasons why urban agriculture is important which include its potential to alleviate obesity, assist cities with food safety, help mitigate the burden of high international food prices and its benefits in creating an environmentally focused local food system.

Marc is a Master's student in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC. His research is focused on evaluating the feasibility of urban farming in Vancouver, particularly how urban farming businesses contribute to both the economic and social fabric of Vancouver’s growing local food movement.

Here is an excerpt from his article:

"Canadians are witnessing increasing rates of obesity, heightened risk of food contamination, and inflated food prices. As a result, many people are starting to seriously consider the question of how to feed themselves for the first time since the 1950’s. One of the answers is the rejuvenation of urban agriculture, dusting off pitchforks and turning soil in a new grow-your-own food culture.

In this article, we will explore four modern motivations for urban agriculture in Canada: an increasing obesity epidemic, fear of food insecurity, heightened food prices, and a desire to make environmentally sound food choices. Canadian urban agriculture organizations are beginning to address these massive problems. We will highlight their work, concluding with a discussion of a new urban farm that we helped to initiate".

"Urban farmers are developing local food markets and producing food choice just by showing up at the market. Both local rural and urban farms build a market where citizens can use dollars to vote for local businesses over national chains, environmentally sustainable food over conventional agriculture, and a food culture that values its producers".

Please find his article here.

The Suburbanization of Phoenix

Thanks to the Urban Demographics blog for sharing this interactive map of Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. The images below are taken from NASA. According to the Urban Demographics blog, this suburb grew from just 3,799 residents in 1950 to 176,581 residents in 2000, based on 10-year census figures. "That's an average population growth rate of 8% per year".

The implications of this growth are noteworthy from an urban planning perspective. While I've heard that US Southwest cities are not growing as fast today (due to a slower real estate market among other reasons), interactive maps like these really demonstrate years of suburban growth when developers took advantage of a relatively stable real estate market, good housing demand and inexpensive (and highly undervalued) water supplies. The sad reality is that such suburbs today (particularly in the US Southwest) are really not practical to live in due to the disadvantages of urban isolation and the growing scarcity of water.