Yes, the coronavirus is bad for the entire world, but there's something equally bad, if not much worse, waiting for us behind the pandemic, and we have to deal with it, similarly, on a planetary scale: climate change. I've been reading and hearing that fairly often in the media.
Scientists, public health experts, elected officials and pundits-for-hire are arguing that the first real pandemic in a century -- and humanity's response to it -- should serve as a reminder of how seriously we are threatened by global warming and as an example of how our species, when it has no choice, is capable of confronting and slowly overcoming a horribly large and deadly threat.
We've had no choice but to turn our lives inside-out to defeat the coronavirus, they are saying, and we have no choice now but to do the same against climate change. Our future and our grandchildren's future depend upon that choice. Everyone's children. Everyone's grandchildren. Everywhere.
Today, the boldest voices on this subject make a connection between the engineering of an economic recovery, post-pandemic, and the construction of the massive infrastructure projects needed to reduce warming and cope with its effects.
I went searching for information on the scope of our infrastructure needs and came across an excellent article in the MIT Technology Review, "Climate change means the US must start building big things again." It was written by James Temple, the Review's senior editor for energy, and published Jan. 15, 2020, well before COVID-19 took over our lives. Here are two key excerpts from the article:
1.
"Major portions of the nation's highways, bridges, water pipes, ports, railways, and electric transmission lines were constructed more than half a century ago, and in many cases they are falling apart. The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated a $1.4 trillion gap between the funding available and the amount needed to maintain, rebuild, or develop US infrastructure between 2016 and 2025. That figure swells to $5 trillion through 2040.
"That all bodes terribly for our ability to grapple with the coming dangers of climate change, because it is fundamentally an infrastructure problem. [Bold facing added] Reducing US greenhouse-gas emissions in line with global efforts to prevent 2 degrees Celsius of warming will require annual investments in clean technologies like renewables and a modern grid to increase tenfold by 2030, from $100 billion to $1 trillion, according to a 2015 study by the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project.
"To prepare for the climate dangers we now can't avoid, we'll also need to bolster coastal protections, reengineer waste and water systems, reinforce our transportation infrastructure, and relocate homes and businesses away from expanding flood and fire zones. Depending on how rapidly or slowly the world cuts emissions, climate adaptation costs could run tens or hundreds of billions of dollars per year by midcentury, according to the latest National Climate Assessment."
2.
"When I asked Costa Samaras, director of Carnegie Mellon's Center for Engineering and Resilience for Climate Adaptation, what parts of our infrastructure we need to renovate or rebuild for coming climate dangers, he recited a list: 'Water systems, power systems, stormwater systems, reservoirs, dams, pipelines, airports, train tracks. It's everything.' "
Metropolitan Boston is the economic driver of Massachusetts and much of New England. That is why, pre-pandemic, the highways into the city were always congested and officials from Worcester, Springfield and New Bedford were always focused on getting high-speed passenger rail service from their cities to Boston. Boston was where the jobs were. That's where they'll be again.
Yet Boston, with its 46-plus miles of shoreline and marvelous economy, is exceptionally vulnerable to ocean flooding caused by global warming. Boston has more filled-in land than most major cities in the U.S. And that land is lying barely above sea level in many spots, such as the Seaport District and parts of the North End, East Boston and Charlestown.
According to the World Bank, there are only four cities in the U.S. that would sustain higher damages from rising sea levels than Boston, as measured in dollars. They are Miami, New York City, New Orleans and Tampa. That's not a list you want to be on.
According to climate scientists, over the last one hundred years, the level of the water in Boston Harbor has risen by about 11 inches. Conservative estimates hold that the harbor will be 6 inches higher by 2030, 13 inches higher by 2050, and 59 inches higher by 2050.
The coronavirus pandemic and the warming of our planet are separate and distinct phenomena. Now, however, we need nothing so much as the imagination to see them as a single monstrosity and the will to take them on simultaneously.
No comments:
Post a Comment