Image: Tremco

Climate Change

The harsh reality is that our planet is getting hotter. But I’m still optimistic because there are many ways to combat climate change.

As different parts of the country become drier, wetter or hotter, green infrastructure can help improve community resiliency today and into the future. With the tons of information available to all of us, we need to be able to connect the dots and implement many of the obvious solutions – at least obvious to those of us in the green infrastructure and living architecture communities. Here are some resources.

Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4)

Have you read the new US government report, Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) yet? Released on Friday, it chronicles a dire warning about climate change and its potentially devastating impacts. Aside from the major environmental concerns, it also states our economy could lose hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of this century. In the worst-case scenario, the US could lose more than 10% of our GDP.

Image: Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), pp 28-30

Project Drawdown

There is an excellent book out titled “Project Drawdown,” and in my opinion it’s the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming:

Drawdown maps, measures, models, and describes the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming. For each solution, we describe its history, the carbon impact it provides, the relative cost and savings, the path to adoption, and how it works. The goal of the research that informs Drawdown is to determine if we can reverse the buildup of atmospheric carbon within thirty years. All solutions modeled are already in place, well understood, analyzed based on peer-reviewed science, and are expanding around the world.

Here are Drawdown’s top 10 Solutions:

And, by the way, Green Roofs rank #73 on Drawdown’s Solutions List!

See Drawdown’s entire Summary of Solutions by Overall Rank.

EPA Resources

You can also read about multiple solutions to climate change from our own US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)‘s website, including:

• Green Infrastructure for Climate Resiliency
• Using Green Roofs to Reduce Heat Islands
• Soak Up the Rain: Green Roofs

24 Hours of Reality

And finally, don’t miss a very informative online only event presentation of “24 Hours of Reality: Protect Our Planet, Protect Ourselves,” coming up on December 3-4, 2018. Hosted by former Vice President Al Gore, the global broadcast event says it will sound the alarm on the clear and present danger that fossil fuels and climate change pose to the health of families and communities across the planet. Just as important, the eighth-annual Climate Reality Project’s 24-hour event will show how we can solve this crisis and create healthier, thriving communities by making a global transition to clean, renewable energy.

Those of us within our industry know that along with much stricter measures such as reducing the use of fossil fuels, changes to the global construction, food, and energy markets, etc., architectural vegetative solutions can help combat global warming.

Let’s start at the local level to reverse climate change by implementing more green roofs and green walls within our cities! Learn more by visiting our Greenroofs.com Projects Database.