ROUTLEDGE Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK URBAN CLIMATE CHANGE CROSSROADS Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group Urban Climate Change Crossroads Edited by RICHARD PLUNZ and MARIA PAOLA SUTTO Columbia University, USA ROUTLEDGE Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2010 by Ashgate Publishing Original edition printed 2008 Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York 2010 Richard Plunz and Maria Paola Sutto have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. This publication is issued in conjunction with the forum Urban Climate Change at the Crossroads held at the Camera di Commercio di Roma, Sala delle Conferenze, Via de’ Burro’ 147, Rome, Italy, February 4-5, 2008. Forum Working Committee: Cinzia Abbate, Francesca Billi, Flaminia Gennari, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Richard Plunz, Maria Paola Sutto, Giuseppe Tripaldi. The Forum and Publication have been made possible with the support of the Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato e Agricoltura di Roma - Ambiente e Territorio (AeT); the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti in Rome; the Urban Design Lab of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York; the Italian Ministry of the Environment in Rome, and the Italian Trade Commission in New York. Designed by Dimitrios Vlachopoulos. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Urban climate change crossroads. 1. Urban climatology--Congresses. 2. Climatic changes-- Environmental aspects--Congresses. 3. Climatic changes-- Risk management--Congresses. I. Plunz, Richard. II. Sutto, Maria aola.P 363.7’3874’091732-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Plunz, Richard. Urban climate change crossroads / by Richard Plunz and Maria Paola Sutto. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-7999-8 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4094-0078-3 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-0-7546-9980-4 (ebook) 1. Urban climatology. 2. Climatic changes. 3. Urban heat island. 4. Urban ecology (Sociology) I. Sutto, Maria Paola. II. Title. QC981.7.U7P57 2009 551.65173’2--dc22 2009035480 ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-7999-8 (h bk) IS BN 13: 978-1-4094-0078-3 (pbk) CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction, Jeffrey D. Sachs ix PART ONE Intersections Chapter 1: The Design Equation, Richard Plunz 1 Chapter 2: The Question of Environmental Justice, Julie Sze 11 Chapter 3: Five Health Concerns, Bettina Menne 17 PART TWO Beyond Mitigation Chapter 4: Cities and Governance, Harriett Bulkeley 29 Chapter 5: Taking Action, Cynthia Rosenzweig 39 Chapter 6: The Adaptation Imperative, Richenda Connell 49 PART THREE The Urban Psyche Chapter 7: Urban Competitiveness, Matteo Caroli 57 Chapter 8: What If. New York, David Burney 65 Chapter 9: Toponymical Rome, Lorenzo Bellicini 77 PART FOUR Communication Challenges Chapter 10: Communicating the Safe City, Antonio Cianciullo 85 Chapter 11: Real People, Urban Places, Matthew C. Nisbet 93 Chapter 12: Governance and Consensus Building, Marianella Sclavi 103 PART FIVE Post-Warming Chapter 13: The Mad Max Phase, Lieven De Cauter 111 Chapter 14: The Sociology of Disaster, Bruna De Marchi 117 Chapter 15: The Antarctica Project, Jorge Orta 123 PART SIX The Resistence Factor Chapter 16: A Vicious Circle, Cinzia Abbate 129 Chapter 17: Uncertainties, Alessandro Lanza 135 Chapter 18: Out of Alternative Explanations, Antonio Navarra 141 Contributors 149 Bibliography 155 Index 169 Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group ACKNOWLEDGMENTS “To build is to collaborate with earth, to put a human mark upon a landscape, modifying it forever thereby; the process also con- tributes to that slow change which makes up the history of cities.” Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian, 1951 In Rome, on February 4 and 5, 2008, within the formidable walls of the ancient Temple of Hadrian (145ad), a unique group of indi- viduals assembled for a forum entitled “Urban Climate Change at the Crossroads.” Indeed, in that historical setting, it was inevitable to reflect on the “end of history,” particularly poignant relative to the subject at hand. This extraordinary volume is an outcome of the event, organized by the Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato e Agricoltura di Roma - Ambiente e Territorio (AeT); the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti in Rome; and the Urban Design Lab of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York. We are very grateful for the support of the above collaborators; as well as the Italian Ministry of the Environment, and the Italian Trade Commission in New York, which provided additional sup- port specifically for the preparation of this publication. At the AeT, we are especially grateful to its Director, Giuseppe Tripaldi, who has enthusiastically embraced the project since its inception and has provided continuous support throughout; and to Alessandra Nutta and Stefano Rossi Crespi for the operational and careful sup- port work for the forum; we are also grateful to Cinzia Abbate who served as the Italian coordinator for the project. At the Fondazi- one Adriano Olivetti, we are indebted to Laura Olivetti, President, for her continuing interest; to Flaminia Gennari and Bartolomeo Pietromarchi for their initial contributions to the conference con- tent; and to Francesca Billi, who served as coordinator for their sponsorship. At the Earth Institute, we are indebted to Steven A. Cohen, Executive Director, who early on provided encouragement and support. We also acknowledge the support of Corrado Clini, General Director of the Italian Ministry for the Environment in Rome, and of Claire Servini of the Italian Trade Commission in New York. As well, Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Steven Hammer of the Urban Climate Change Research Network, and Jeanette Limondjian, of Barnes & Noble Booksellers were all most generous with their time and sug- gestions about the conference participants and format. For their assistance in the complicated task of assembling the material in this volume, we wish to thank Gabriella Folino, Merrell Hambleton, Monika Kowalczykowski, and Emily Weidenhof for their general viii Urban Climate Change Crossroads editorial work; and Suzanne Fass for copyediting. Most important of all, we are deeply indebted to Dimitris Vlachopoulos of the Urban Design Lab, who made the graphic design and production. Without his extraordinary skills, this record could not exist. Richard Plunz, Maria Paola Sutto INTRODUCTION This volume is a remarkable collection of ideas, visions, and tools for rescuing a global civilization on the path to calamity. Urban climate change is a crossroads in two very different senses. One is historical. With the world now more than half urban, and given the ecological consequences of the world’s high-consumption urban centers, we are at an ecological crossroad. We either head off the worst of ecological collapse through concerted and forward-look- ing action, or we face a “Mad Max future” of dystopia, violence, and upheaval. The second crossroad is intellectual. Our individual disciplines are unable to grasp the magnitude of the economic- ecological challenges ahead. For that we need to work holistically, calling on the knowledge of climatologists, engineers, sociologists, economists, public health specialist, designers, architects, commu- nity organizers, and more. The intellectual crossroad is nothing less than a new intellectual field of Sustainable Development. This book makes vivid the first crossroad by achieving the second. The range of insights is enormous. Richard Plunz sets the stage by reminding us of the Club of Rome’s dramatic entry onto the world’s consciousness in 1972. Limits to Growth was dismissed by the mainstream then, but its warnings have proved to be inescapable and sometimes eerily on track, such as the estimate of atmospheric carbon concentration for the year 2000. We are not facing an inevi- table collapse. There is still time to head off the worst, and to adapt to the changes and dislocations that are already in train, but only if we mobilize our knowledge and our politics to do so. Perhaps the current financial maelstrom will have a silver lining, reminding us of our civilization’s fragility and our vulnerability to the risks of abrupt change that Plunz emphasizes. The volume’s remaining es- says give us insights as to how that can be accomplished. There are no finished proofs or theorems in this volume, only the outlines of a new edifice of sustainable urbanization. Sustainable cities will be sustainably integrated into local and global ecologi- cal processes, using energy-efficient and low-carbon technologies, emphasizing the quality of life in local communities, and building healthy systems for transport, recreation, and employment. Ecol- ogy and economics will merge, rather than being distant and often conflictive