Waiting for change about climate change.
February sunshine in Toronto melts the snow on my south-facing front stairs and it is so much faster where the grey concrete is exposed so I can do a poor job of shovelling and take advantage of what you might call an ecosystem service. The poor schmuck across the street has to work harder. In this February of our global pandemic, I have observed similar melt issues across the back yard too, how to make artful patterns in the snow to mould-melt shapes. I am waiting to see if it worked. I am likening my professional and personal existential angst to being in a sort of waiting place, while I learn more about urban microclimates (my front walk), read about my Texas-based friend’s fight with freezing pipes when they got hit with Toronto-like temperatures in a house built for heat issues, and read from another pal, a sailor, about the Atlantic Ocean’s anomalous warming this year (in Spanish and English: https://www.meteored.com.ar/noticias/actualidad/inusual-anomalia-temperatura-corriente-del-golfo.html ).
The short of that analysis is that hotter Atlantic water will make a mess of the Gulf Stream and the system of world ocean currents: through more evaporation will come higher ocean water salinity levels and heavier water which will cause warmer water to sink sooner before it reaches Europe. Add fresh water from melting glaciers and the issue of salt vs freshwater weight; this is causing a sort of traffic jam as currents collide. The Gulf Stream changes: the Northern Atlantic ocean gets cooler up north, hotter to the south; the Eastern Sea Board gets more hurricanes and Northern Europe gets colder nasty weather events.
It has been cold in Toronto, but I remember baking last summer, trying to get sipping cooling beverages in the shade became a primary mortal drive. I have looked around for Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect research to learn about how I may do better to survive my next hot summertime. I came across Singapore’s efforts to rebuild areas to take advantage of certain microclimate cooling effects. (https://www.coolingsingapore.sg/urban-heat-vulnerability ). There are reports from Cooling Singapore, suggesting where it is most unbearable to live in Singapore – the poorer areas to the north-west – and how to rebuild to take fuller advantage of prevailing winds, manage shading better, try to reduce AC energy consumption (which in turn would mitigate climate change causing atmospheric pollution) and keep these residents from heatstroke and the related kidney failure, heart attacks and other physical stresses heat exhaustion causes. See this report about strategies for Singapore: https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000258216
Singapore might have both the money and the governance modes to rebuild entire neighbourhoods, I don’t have first-hand experience. My city (Toronto) functions differently and retrofitting existing peripheral urban forms – the buildings where people live on the peripheries of the city and the economy – is the affordable, manageable, achievable path forward, I reckon.
New York City has a fascinatingly straightforward plan that might well be one of the coolest approaches I have come across so far. NYC CoolRoofs (https://www1.nyc.gov/nycbusiness/article/nyc-coolroofs ) is a dual effort to offer white silicone flat roof painting for flat-roofed buildings for free or cheap, depending on building ownership or tenure, as well as employment for local underemployed people. The non-heat absorbing, sunlight reflecting silicone leaves the upper floors cooler and would affect a cooler local micro-climate whereas the heat-absorbing asphalt or tar roofs retain summer heat and share that heat all through the nights too. For the people doing the work, the program offers training, teamwork skills, resume building, etc. The mindset of the program seems to be a “community-benefits” approach for both social equity building and environmental-social health. Toronto seems to have a tiny grant for homeowners to plant green roofs or paint, which isn’t much. But Toronto has made inroads into the community-benefits framework: https://www.communitybenefits.ca/city_of_toronto_community_benefits_framework. Cool stuff I hope to learn more about.
The way the snow and ice reflect sunlight and the way concrete and asphalt cause it to melt faster on my front stoop made me think of this. Icecap melting and dark ocean water absorbing solar energy make me think we are waiting too long to make a serious change, and it is time to take another chance.
#ClimateChange #NYCCoolRoofs #sustainabledevelopmentgoals
