Transcript Lecture 7 Elements of Sustainability

The Ecological Limits on Transportation Sustainability
Norman W. Garrick
Lecture 7
Sustainable Transportation
The Nested Box Model of Sustainability
ENVIRONMENT
SOCIETY
ECONOMY
(LOW AND GLEESON 2003, HART 2006)
Understanding the Limits
What goes on in society and the economy is subjected to the natural
environment which supplies the inputs and absorbs the waste. And
similarly, what goes on in the economy is subjected to the fairness,
integrity and stability of society.
If, according to Low, both human society and economic systems are subject to the
limits of the natural environment – we need to develop mechanisms to accounting
for these limits.
Environmental sustainability can be considered from two perspectives: local and
global.
Local Environmental Impacts
Negative local environmental impacts of transportation are generally associated with
the mass use of private vehicles on public roads
Good reminded us this is not a new phenomenon - in the past cities suffered from
having to deal with horse manure and dead horses in the roads.
The modern toll according to Low includes
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Injuries and Fatalities
Damage to Health and Life from Pollutants
Indirect Health Effects from Motor Vehicle Use
Degradation of Urban Public Spaces
Loss of Habitat and Farmland
Global Environmental Impacts
According to Low, with the right sort of climate to dissipate the pollutants, auto
dependent cities can provide acceptable (but not livable and socially just) urban
environments for humans.
However, acceptable cities are far from environmentally sustainable. Even cities that
have a high local environmental quality might still not be sustainable. For true
environmental sustainability, we must consider the global dimensions of this issue.
Low breaks down the global issues affected by urban transportation into three areas:
• fuel
• biodiversity and food
• atmosphere (or climate change).
The Dimensions of the Local Environmental Impacts
The local issues affected by urban transportation include:
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Injuries and Fatalities
Damage to Health and Life from Pollutants
Indirect Health Effects from Motor Vehicle Use
Degradation of Urban Public Spaces
Loss of Habitat and Farmland
Local Environmental Impacts
Injuries and Fatalities
Low wonders at how readily we accommodate and live with
what to him is an astonishing toll in terms of the number of
people killed and injured in motor vehicle accidents.
He attributes this acceptance to some idea in society that these
incidents are self-inflicted. However, he points out that those
who die have no choice in the matter.
Local Environmental Impacts
Damage to Health and Life from Pollutions
Low claims that modern societies are less tolerant of the impact to health brought on
by atmospheric pollutants. He does not mention other pollutants such as those
affecting water since presumably the impact on health is less obvious.
The atmospheric pollutants affect everyone living in a city in a general sense, but there
are also very local effects. For example, people sitting in their cars on a busy
roadway breathe in the un-dispersed pollution from hundred of other cars.
Recently there have been a number of studies in the USA showing that kids living
near freeways are more likely to suffer from asthma.
Low points out that pollutants do not have an immediate effect and we do not fully
understand the long-term impact of small doses of pollutants on human health.
He suggest that the cost to human health of air borne pollution might be even
greater than the toll from motor vehicle accidents.
Local Environmental Impacts
Indirect Health Effects from Motor Vehicle Use
Problems under this category include the so-called obesity crisis in the US and other
countries.
Some research suggests that one of the contributing factors is the decrease in walking
as transportation. As Lows puts it, cars spread out land use, making it impractical
to walk to most destinations. So we travel further but get less exercise doing it.
Local Environmental Impacts
Degradation of Urban Public Spaces
Low suggests that the use of cars has resulted in our devaluing urban public spaces.
Public space is now treated as leftover space filling the gap between the private
realm and the motor vehicle. He points to the importance placed on public
squares and boulevards in walking cities. He says that public space occupied by
large numbers of motor vehicles suffers from a loss of environmental quality.
This I think is similar to Good’s concept of us being domesticated by cars.
Low points to efforts over the last 40 years in many cities to reclaim public space from
cars. Notable examples include Copenhagen and Zurich, where the effort is well
advanced, and London and Paris (and now New York City) where the effort is just
starting (see my article on the Paris Trams).
Local Environmental Impacts
Loss of Habitat and Farmland
Loss of habitat and farmland results from cities spreading out into the surrounding
countryside. The spatial expansion of cities is typically associated with a move to a
more auto-oriented transportation system. The lost of land reduces habitat for
some species and also encroaches on farmland.
Interestingly, Low list this as a local problem here, but later in the article speaks about
it as having global significance. It is in fact both a local and a global issue.
The Dimensions of the Global Environmental Impacts
The global issues affected by urban transportation include:
• fuel
• biodiversity and food
• atmosphere (or climate change)
Global Environmental Impacts
Fuel
The world’s transportation system largely depends on the burning of oil, which is a finite
resource. Low sees us moving to an era in which oil will become increasingly scarce. The
problem is that there is no farsighted effort underway to restructure the transportation
system away from this dependence on fossil fuel.
He says that technological advances in vehicle engines hold some promise but that there are
many technical and institutional barriers to overcome which will require huge investments
before full implementation is possible.
Global Environmental Impacts
Fuel (continued)
Political and economic leaders seem to be relying entirely on rising oil prices to be the impetus
for the restructuring. The problem with this approach is that rising oil prices are likely to
lead to a global economic depression - which according to Low will make the inevitable
restructuring more painful and difficult.
Good also points out that the outcome of this restructuring will be different in different places,
depending on how they have positioned themselves. So, for example, Singapore and Dubai
(or Boston and Las Vegas) might feel the pain of the restructuring to different extents.
Global Environmental Impacts
Biodiversity and Food
Low links the two issues because they both result from the same cause: the explosive spread of
urban places into species habitat and onto cropland.
He argues that all species have a right to continue to exist, and that species extinction is an
“unfortunate global crime”. He sees it as a global issue because the earth’s species do not
belong to the nation in which they happen to be found but are part of our global heritage.
Global Environmental Impacts
Biodiversity and Food (continued)
The issue of the loss of cropland is becoming severe, especially in countries with huge
populations, such as China and India, where there is a diminishing supply of productive land
due to the growth of the cities. He observes that the scarcity of cropland is so serious in
some countries that it could alter transportation policy in favor of more efficient bicycle-rail
system over motorcars.
A recent crisis in Mexico, with the rapid run-up in the price of corn and tortilla flour shows how
these global issues of food and fuel are interconnected. The price increase has been
attributed to the growing demand for ethanol from corn in the USA and elsewhere.
Global Environmental Impacts
Atmosphere and Climate Change
Low argues that the issue of climate change is the most serious global environmental problem
that we are faced with. He also says that it is the least likely to be resolved peacefully or
justly. He feels that this is the most critical issue to be resolved for environmental
sustainability.
Global climate change is caused by the increase in CO2 (and other greenhouse gases – at the
National Academy of Sciences exhibit they remind us of this fact by having a cow in the
exhibit) in the atmosphere due to the growth of the carbon-based economy over the last 200
years. He points out that there is very little dissent in the scientific community on this issue.
The consensus is that i) the world is warming; ii) the warming is dues to man’s activities.
This warming will have dire consequences for both human and non-human species. We can
expect species extinction due to habitat destruction by climate changes, which will be too
rapid to allow for any possibility of adaptation. We can also expect that coastal cities will be
threatened by raising sea levels.
Global Environmental Impacts
Atmosphere and Climate Change
He sees global climate change as the first truly global problem of environmental sustainability
that humans will have to face.
Quoting figures from the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, he points out that in 1999 we burned over 6000 billion tons of fossil fuel.
However, to stabilize the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a sustainable
level of 450 parts per million-volume we need to reduce the amount of fossil fuel that we
burn by 60%, to 2500 billion tons per year. The problem is that under a business as usual
scenario, the amount of fossil fuel burned could be 92,000 billion tons per year by 2050. The
task is daunting.
The increase is expected to come from continued growth in North American and European cities
but also explosive growth in India and China.
Low emphasizes that North American and European cities are currently the biggest contributors
to carbon emission, but that a big part of the problem in the future is what he refers to as the
‘transfer of the “developed” way of life to cities in the developing world’.
The Path to Sustainability?
Low goes back to the theme that the projection could be altered by the rising costs of oil, but
argues that it is bad to depend on global depression to bring about transportation
sustainability.
He says that local environmental quality in the mega-cities, including a shortage of land for
agriculture, might also serve to short circuit the pursuit of a car/road solution for
transportation in these cities. But this is not a certainty, since there are growing signs of a
boom in motorization (especially in China) that will lead to both local environmental
degradation and global climate changes.
Talking Sustainability, Funding Roads
Low claims that in the USA the rhetoric of sustainability is increasing at all levels and there is a
significant grassroots movement towards more sustainable values.
But spending continues unabated for more infrastructure, especially roads. DOTs are set up to
enlarge and upgrade the state highway systems and there is great momentum behind this
(including road lobbies like the American Highway Users Alliance).
He fails to mention explicitly the huge financial interests that would suffer from a shift in course.
These include some of the biggest political contributors to election for governor in most
states.
Fast Trains and Sustainability
He also critiqued the movement in Europe for fast trains between cities, which he claims
escalates dramatically travel between cities and regions.
He acknowledges that public transportation is necessary to improve local environmental quality
but states that high-speed trains do nothing for environmental sustainability on the global
level.
I am not sure I totally agree with this perspective, given the inter-related nature of local and
regional travel but it does show that we should not take any action for granted when it
comes to sustainability.
The Brown and the Green Agendas
McGranahan and Satterthwaite use a different a slightly different framework for considering
urban environmental problem. Like Low, they divide them into two sets of issue or agendas.
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The first is the ‘Brown’ agenda, which addresses issues associated with environmental health
– this prospective is often championed by urbanists. The relevant issues include unsanitary
living conditions, hazardous pollutants in the air and water, and the accumulations of solid
waste. These are problems that have immediate environmental impacts and tend to burden
mostly lower income groups in society.
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The ‘Green’ agenda on the other hand is generally championed by environmentalists (often
from high income countries). The green agenda focuses on how urban-based production,
consumption and waste generation contribute to ecosystem disruption, resource depletion
and global climate change. These issues are problems that have more long term impacts that
are dispersed and delayed – in other words, they threaten long-term ecological sustainability.
From an article by McGranahan and Satterthwaite in
Pugh, Sustainable Cities in Developing Countries, Earthscan, pg. 73-87
The Brown versus the Green Agenda
According to McGranahan and Satterthwaite one reason that it is important to distinguish
between the Brown and Green agendas is that conflicts sometimes arise between
proponents of each of these agendas about which one should be accorded priority.
According to the authors, these problems are especially acute in the developing world but
they also arise in the developed world.
The only way to address these potential conflicts is to understand and acknowledge their
existence. The authors state that those conflicts can best be minimized if both agendas are
taken seriously.
The Equity Perspective
The authors state that there are real conflicts between the proponents of the brown and the
green agendas as to which problems should receive priority and what are the strategies for
tackling the problems. However, they point out that it is important not to create a false
dichotomy since environmental improvements often serve both agendas.
Furthermore, the concept of ‘equity’ is at the heart of both agendas. The conflict then boils
down to the question of equity for whom?
Conceptualizing Sustainability
Haughton’s Five Equity Principles
The authors use Graham Haughton’s five interconnected equity principles to try to understand
the differences between the brown and the green agendas.
Haughton’s Five Equity Principles are
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Intragenerational equity
Procedural equity
Intergenerational equity
Transfrontier equity
Interspecies equity
Brown Agenda based on
Haughton’s Equity Principles
The brown agenda focuses on the following two principles of equity: intragenerational equity,
and procedural equity.
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Intragenerational Equity addresses the need for all urban dwellers to have healthy and
safe living and working conditions and the corresponding infrastructure and services.
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Procedural Equity addresses the legal rights for all persons to have safe and healthy living,
and working environment, that they are treated fairly and that they can engage in a
democratic decision making process about the management of the urban centers in which
they live.
Green Agenda based on
Haughton’s Five Equity Principles
The green agenda on the other hand is described as focusing on three of the principles of equity:
intergenerational equity, transfrontier equity, interspecies equity.
• Intergenerational Equity promotes the idea that urban development should not draw
on finite resource bases and degrade ecological systems in ways that compromise the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs.
• Transfrontier Equity prevents urban consumer and producers from transferring
environmental costs to other people and ecosystems.
• Interspecies Equity recognizes the rights of other species