This Discontinuity 3: Strategy

This is the third part of a 3-part presentation on climate change that has been converted to posts.
Previously:

Let’s look at Columbia, MO, which is the biggest city in our club’s general area, and also a pretty good example of a small American city. It has a population of around 100k to 120k depending on how you are counting.

COLUMBIA’S PLAN

Columbia is doing a great job of reducing the ratio of people to carbon emitted… but it isn’t coming anywhere close to zero or negative emissions. Nowhere close. Still going up.

Climate Action and Adaptation Plan

Columbia organized a group of people to come up with a cohesive strategy for the city, and they really did a great job. Here’s a link to that:

Climate Action and Adaptation Plan

Purpose of the Plan:

  • To prepare Columbia’s natural and built environments (neighborhoods, resources, and systems) and people to be more resilient to the impacts of a changing climate
  • To reduce GHG emissions communitywide, through targeted municipal, residential, industrial and commercial activities

Emissions Targets:

  • Communitywide Target: 35% by 2035, 80% by 2050 and 100% by 2060.
  • Municipal Operations Target: 50% by 2035 and 100% by 2050.

Areas of Vulnerability:

  • Heat Stress
  • Air Quality
  • Vector-borne Disease
  • Mental Health
  • Housing
  • Stormwater Management
  • Transportation
  • Drinking Water Supply and Drought
  • Surface Water Quality
  • Drinking Water Quality
  • Trees and Open Space
  • Agriculture

Again, I want to emphasize that I think the group that worked on CAAP did a great job. However…

Problems with CAAP:

  • Columbia’s report is based on the IPCC report, which is wrong — as a result, their strategy does not address the severity of the problem
  • Promotes increase in total amount of air conditioning — air conditioning is one of the biggest contributors to green house gas emissions, and we need to find an alternative that is sustainable
  • Assumes growth — As long as growth is a bigger priority than surviving climate change, we will not be able to come up with a viable plan to survive climate change because the growth of capitalism is dependent on increasing use of fossil fuels.
  • Cannot achieve negative carbon emissions, probably not even zero emissions — based on the idea of “increasing efficiency” which never becomes zero.
  • Does not prepare Columbia for powerdown — the reality is that in order to survive, we are going to have to completely power down most things in our lives. If we’re not preparing for a (hopefully temporary) powerdown, we are not preparing to survive.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Part 1 (Theory)

Columbia is located in Boone County, MO.

Rule of Thumb: 5-10 acres/person for sustained survival

442k acres of land divided by 178k people = 2.48 acres/person

This is not enough land. But we could have a significant population drop, down below 88k, as the university shuts down, dramatically reduces services, or switches to a mostly remote model.

5 Themes of a Just Transition

from Kingston, NY (Hudson Valley)/Movement Generation

  1. Democratizing communities, wealth, and the workplace
  2. Advancing ecological restoration
  3. Driving racial justice and social equity
  4. Relocalizing most production and consumption
  5. Retaining and restoring cultures and traditions

A NARRATIVE FOR THE FUTURE

International Socialism is a solid idea, but it is boring and doesn’t really help people to understand how human technology can adapt to our future reality. We must find a compelling narrative for our children — something that allows us to adapt our expectations for the future, while still being optimistic.

We need to find a narrative for the future that emphasizes the themes of creativity, coping with adversity, making due with what you have, and finding novel solutions.

Fiction can offer models for adapting our expectations in terms of human technology. STEAMPUNK, SOLARPUNK, and HOPEPUNK are great ways to approach the future with your kids. These all offer an alternative future where people have to use creativity to handcraft solutions from the wreckage of the past.

Related: Hopepunk and Solarpunk: On Climate Narratives That Go Beyond the Apocalypse

Related: Don’t Be Scared About The End Of Capitalism—Be Excited To Build What Comes Next

RECOMMENDATIONS: Part 2 (Practice)

FOOD PRODUCTION and TRANSPORT

  • Provide tax exemption for properties that produce food
  • Remove any ordinance that makes it harder to grow food — including ban on roosters, other farm animals
  • Convert unused lots and some roadways into farmland
  • Create ordinances that encourage agricultural land to grow food for humans rather than livestock
  • Expand CCUA (Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture), similar programs
  • Remove city sales tax on food grown in Boone County
  • Find ways to use city resources to move food from surrounding county into Columbia

RE-LOCALIZE, DEMOCRATIZE PROPERTY

  • Dramatically increase the property tax for owners who do not live in the county
  • Dramatically increase the property tax for locations that are not a primary residence
  • Exempt first $100k of primary residences from property tax
  • Tax reduction for worker-owned businesses
  • Tax reduction for union-friendly businesses
  • Avoid using eminent domain to increase food production

MANAGE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES

  • Remove automobile roads — e.g., Broadway from College to Providence
  • Parking garages at edge of city
  • End planning and zoning requirement for on-site parking
  • Increase property tax on internal combustion engine transport vehicles
  • Convenient, free light rail and bus service
  • Rickshaw fleet (foot, bicycle, and small electric vehicles)
  • Protected, separate bike roads and walking paths

MANAGE HEAT SANELY

  • Work toward overall reduction in AC systems
  • Find other ways to cool interior spaces; e.g.,
  • Structural changes that maximize air movement
    • Solar-powered fans
    • Solar-powered systems that use the earth’s constant temperature… and no freon
    • Shade
    • Build structures further down into the ground

PROVIDE HOUSING

  • Disallow unoccupied dwellings — tax them out of existence
  • Give housing to owner-occupiers after a trial period
  • Convert abandoned retail and industrial space to free housing

CONSOLIDATE YOUR HOUSING

  • Physically consolidate where you live with friends and family that you are close to.
    • Reduces the cost-per-person of housing
    • Reduces per-capita carbon output
    • Provides a physically immediate community so we can better support one another.

This is the number one thing you can do to protect yourself and your people during this discontinuity. In Columbia, you can have up to 2 unrelated people in a home zoned for a single family. For example, if you have a 4-person nuclear family, you can have 2 additional people living there, for a total of 6.

NO MORE GROWTH

  • New construction must take place in the footprint of existing buildings

RACIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL EQUITY, RESTORING CULTURES AND TRADITIONS

  • Re-make the Sharp End: The Sharp End was Columbia’s Black business district that was destroyed by bureaucratic shenanigans.
  • Rename the city, perhaps after the people who originally lived here.
    • “Columbia” is one of the three goddesses of the United States, a symbol of nationalism and conquest based on Christopher Columbus. (The other two are Liberty and Justice, but everyone likes those.)

RENEWABLE POWER & POWER DOWN

  • Eliminate all fossil fuel energy use by…
  • Increasing renewable power infrastructure
  • Eliminating energy use wherever possible
    “Collapse early and often!”
    • Switch back to paper
    • No more freon-based space cooling

COLLEGES CAMPUSES

  • Our local colleges and universities are unlikely to survive as they are. MU has started eating itself.
  • How do we want to use this resource if the state no longer is able to claim it?
  • Maybe Columbia can continue as a place where people come to learn.

Are these solutions politically possible?

These solutions are not politically possible. In fact, not even the inadequate and non-disruptive CAAP is likely to be politically possible. They created the report, but I will be completely shocked if the city government actually implements any of it. The fact is that we are probably not going to make it, but we know what is necessary, so it is only a matter of doing it. Let’s hope that the majority of people wake up to reality soon. Every day we wait makes what is necessary for survival all the more horrific.