At Seattle's Town Hall 11/11/09

1. A world of connected people, all innovating
rapidly to try to grow rich with a fraction of
the ecological impacts we have today,
sharing widely, substituting ideas for stuff…
this is not what we’re used to.
Here in the U.S., and especially here in
Seattle, our biggest challenge right now is
a conceptual one: acknowledging that
assumptions we’re held for a long time are
crumbling, and we’re moving into a world
that works differently.
We’re not the first people to experience a
“paradigm rift.”

2. 20 years ago today, East Germans were pouring into West Berlin
Image credit: A P

3. Those behind the Iron Curtain were in for quite a shock.
And they responded in different ways.

4. The Czechs, who had a tradition of dissidence, jumped right
in. I was there, I saw it.
As a result, Prague is one of the world’s great cities, and the
Czech Republic is part of NATO and the EU and ranks 36th
in per capita GDP: the first formerly communist country to be
classed as “developed” by the World Bank.

5. Albania went in a different direction. This was, after all, the
country of Enver Hoxha
Hoxhaism “for those who thought Maoism was too lenient”
eliminated almost all private property and cut off outside
influences
Paranoia: 750,000 bunkers

6. What did they do when the Wall fell?
“Elected” old rulers, continued similar policies.
Doubled down on the bunker mentality.

7. Pyramid schemes. 2/3 invested in them. By 1997, they were half
the economy.
When they fell apart riots killed 2,000 people + toppled the
government.
Image credit: NetEfekt CC

8. Doubling down on broken system stifled innovation and promoted crazy
investments.
Now Albania’s got a serious mafia problem, and ranks 111th in per capita GDP,
behind such economic powerhouses as Angola, Cuba and Kazahkstan.

9. Teams of young Albanians are trying to find new uses for their bunkers,
like turning them into hotel cottages. But no matter how innovative you
are, being in the position of trying to turn pillboxes into real estate is not
where you want to be.

10. The moral of the story: Don’t Be Albania!

11. Albania had to confront the failure of the idea of communism.
We have to confront the failure of the idea of limitless nature.

12. We’ve built our whole vision of prosperity on a reality that is no longer valid. If we want to
be more like the Czechs, and less like Albania, we need to embrace a new model of
prosperity.

13. Collapse of the outermost ring.
“The ruins of the unsustainable are the 21st century’s frontier.”
-- Bruce Sterling

14. Image: Ji Lee
Foreclosure crisis = sprawl crashed the economy.
Tight credit markets are expected to be the norm for some time: we may never
go back to the sloshing credit markets of 2000’s. Huge costs associated with
suburban development may mean it’s done.
"Road congestion, higher energy costs, and climate change concerns combine
to alter people's thinking about where they decide to live and work. It's a
fundamental shift.” ULI and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Emerging Trends in
Real Estate 2010.

15. We’re facing peak everything… so we’ll need to push the boundaries
of zero waste systems and closed-loop manufacturing.

16. Chemical perestroika… a lot of
cheap (but poisonous) things are
about to get more expensive.
Biggest wildcard trend: green
chemistry.

17. The “Recession Armada.” Trade is going to work differently.
Trade in cheap bulky stuff may never recover.

18. Locavore’s dilemma…“although food travels on average over 1,000
miles from farm to plate, this transportation accounts for only 4% of the
carbon impact of the average American meal.”
Production is a problem. Meat is a problem. Farmland preservation is a
huge problem.
Shipping is not the biggest problem. The real importance of supporting
local food and forestry, through markets and infrastructure, is in
preserving good local farms..

19. Farmland preservation and low-carbon farming are excellent reasons for preserving a
food shed. So is regional food security.
Food security real estate rush. UN: nearly 20m hectares (50m acres) of developing
world farmland - an area roughly half the size of all arable land in Europe - has been
sold or has been negotiated for sale or lease in the last couple years. Big money takes
this issue seriously.

20. Ecosystem services; clean water depends on healthy mountains;
mountains are under pressure. Preserving ecosystems and biodiversity
in the face of massive changes will take humility and active intervention.

21. Our marine ecosystems are critical to
our future as well.
Salish Sea: our sphere of concern.
The challenges facing us on marine
conservation biology here could take
up a whole talk on their own.

22. And of course, climate change will change our relationship with the sea: here’s
what 3 meters of sea level rise would cover, unchecked.
Rising seas. We’re beyond the IPCC worst case scenario. Sea level rise is likely
to be dramatic: 1.4-5 meters by end of century, perhaps sooner. $100 billion in
coastal losses in California. - Pacific Institute

23. Although we probably won’t be in this position anytime
soon…

24. Seattle Climate by 2030:
(given greenhouse momentum)
Weather:
Wilder storms.
Hotter, drier summers, wetter
winters. April 1st snowpack
decreases by 30% in 2020s.
Water shortages and less
hydropower. Forest fires double
in severity.
Nature:
Dead zones in the sound.
Global weirding and invasive
species. Diseases and pests
spread up from south.
Forest die-offs; need for climate-
adaptive restoration
http://www.worldchanging.com/local/seattle/archives/009457.html

25. A lot more weirdness in general: Homeland Security disaster icons…

26. Though our region will feel impacts, other regions much harder hit.
Dust bowl: 2.5 million people move from great plains in 5 years; another 1.6
million african-americans move from combination of racism, poverty and
environmental disruption (droughts and boll weevils). In all, a similar
migration would have 15 million people leaving their homes today.... Think
about the SW: drought, peak fossil water, dam-irrigated farms + desert
sprawl.

27. People heading our way… lends a surreal air to Alaska’s state motto
Need to prepare for immigration.
The State estimates that Puget Sound metro area population will rise from
~3,900,000 in 2010 to ~4,900.000 in 2030 - about a million more people in the next
20 years. Other guesses up to two million in the next 20 years.
I’d match their guess with one of my own: our population may well double in those
20 years, especially if our economy’s strong and our climate’s stable.

28. Total number climate refugees in 2050: between 50 million and 1 billion
people, with average estimates now between 200 and 250 million, or “around
10 times the number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world
today.”

29. Up until now, we’ve been mainly
focused on two approaches:
the Shift and the Swap…

30. The Shift: Personal actions, small steps.
Not meaningless: a recent study by Dietza, etc. found that by picking low-hanging
fruit, we could reduce 7.4% of U.S. national emissions. 10% almost immediately is
possible (indeed, campaign in UK 10% by 2010)
The problem is, that still leaves a lot of work - systems. And voluntary change is
always limited. Live our values, but don't mistake that for changing the world
(sufficiently)
Image courtesy NYT

31. The Swap involves changing
components of the current system,
without changing the system itself.
It ends up revealing the places that
system is broken.
Image: CityCar

32. Clean energy the most common Swap component.
We already use clean energy here. That’s great.
(Though there are issues: Google “Renewistan.”)

33. Our dams are mostly why we have a lower
carbon footprint than the US average…

34. Photo: Natalia Brataslavsky, Environment Washington
Take away our hydro, though, and as a
region we start look a lot like most other
US cities.
If we’re serious about facing the planet’s
limits, we need to take on our addiction to
cars. We can’t change much, unless we
drive a lot less.
We could discuss peak oil here. But we
won’t. Suffice it to say, oil’s about to get a
LOT more expensive.

35. Won’t electric cars save us?
It is true that electric cars are about 4x more
energy efficient, as a rule, than internal
combustion engines. And if their energy
source is clean energy, they have very low
operations emissions.

36. So, provide an electric car infrastructure -- like Project Better Place -- and build
a bunch of new wind farms… (leaving aside problems with supply)
Problem solved, right?

37. Wrong.
2009 study: 35% of average car’s lifetime carbon footprint doesn’t
come out of the tailpipe -- and this study didn’t count indirect health,
social, infrastructure or land use impacts.
Those parts of a car’s carbon footprint don’t go away no matter how
clean the car.

38. In fact, building auto infrastructure alone - roads,
freeways, parking lots, gas stations and so on - is a major
contributor to climate emissions, a major expenditure of
both public resources and regional capital.

39. Heck, our approach is starting to look awfully Albanian.

40. Driving less makes you money.
Portlanders save $2.6 billion every year (about 3% of the Portland region's annual
economic output) in spending on cars and fuel because they own fewer cars and drive
20 percent fewer miles than other US residents.
That’s just cars and fuel, not roads, not pollution impacts, not health care costs.

41. In fact, the health costs alone of auto-dependency staggering:
Risk of early death (42,000 Americans a year killed in car accidents; air quality in outer-
ring suburbs now often worse than central cities) and lifestyle illness (the more time you
spend in cars, the more you weigh and the higher your blood pressure). Alan Durning:
walking/biking to work can save you time because of increased life expectancy!
Social isolation (at a time when we’re learning that friends and family are vital to health).
Health costs of sprawl may be as much as 20% of total health care costs in U.S.

42. Well, we need cars to live in affordable places, right?
Housing and Transportation Affordability Index clearly shows
that denser communities are more affordable to a wider range
of incomes.

43. But the suburbs are green in other ways, right? Lots of trees: must be green!
Actually, the lands within growth boundary are already pretty compromised. If we want
to preserve ecosystem services, we largely need to look to systems outside the
suburbs, and redevelop the suburbs as densely as possible…A whole bunch of things
we’re used to are just not going to be continuing anymore. Sprawl is our Trabant.

44. Revival of the inner-ring. Older suburbs, the kinds of small suburban towns built after
World War Two.
52 million people in U.S. says Brookings, "a fifth of America,” living w/ aging
infrastructure and housing stock.
There is an emerging political force of “metropolitan coalitions” -- central cities and
inner-ring suburbs banding together to fight for smart growth, better transportation and
regional infrastructure, inclusive housing and fair tax policies.

45. What makes us happy?
There’s been a acceleration of hyper-consumerism in the culture around us. Vertical
emulation has robbed our prosperity of many of its pleasures.
At some point it became no longer enough to own a TV…
And we need to change our relationship to stuff…

46. Now we’ve got to have a home theater…

47. It’s no longer enough to fly first class…

48. Now we have to fly in a private jet…

49. We are being told:
Prosperity is a private flying home theater.

50. Post-ownership: The biggest shift is away from owning stuff as the measure of
prosperity. What really matters? Free your mind, and your ass will follow.
Intangibles - relationships, experiences, meaning - and possibilities.
A city full of things you can use and do beats a McMansion full of things you have
to make payments on, any day of the week.
Image:

51. If you have a city that works well, you can get
better living in smaller spaces… and that is
radically more efficient.

52. Density, efficiency and post-
ownership reinforce each other.
The most sustainable trip is the one
you never have to make, because
what you want is already close by.
Already, the denser the community,
the lower its greenhouse gas
emissions.

53. Compact development is the closest thing we
have to a simple answer on climate change.

54. Add green building into the mix and the numbers get better still.
Density and passive solar orientation: Bjarke Ingalls’ “Mountain” in Copenhagen.
Locally, the “Living Building Challenge” is worth watching.

55. Our climate is not that much of a barrier. Bill Dunster: Zero-energy
homes in the north of England (one of the few parts of the inhabited
world with less sunshine than Seattle…)

57. Image: Weber Thompson, EcoLaboratory
Our utilities are doing an outstanding job, but we can go farther. In theory, we
can recycle much of our water, and reflow our urban hydrology…

58. 1,000s of other innovations emerging that remake the systems we
depend on, and help us live wealthier, healthier and greener lives.
If it makes you money, it’s not a cost, it’s an investment.
Image: Project Green Austin

59. We end up with bright green cities that work differently, use a tiny
fraction of the energy and materials, but deliver more of what
makes city life wonderful: friends, family, great culture, strong
neighborhoods…
(if you think a low-material life is boring, go to Barcelona)

60. Concept: Daisuke + Jan
This new way of life will look
and feel strange. And
sometimes we’ll get it
wrong.
But it’s the way to avoid
being Albania.
When we get it right, the
expertise we gain is a
marketable commodity.

61. There’s a fierce competition brewing,
because there’s enormous “first mover
advantage” here.
Thank Mayor Nickels for putting the
issue forward and raising our profile!

62. Problem is, we’re not as good as we think we are. Ratings tend to
rate things that we’ve done a pretty good job on, rather than the
ones we’re failing on: yay, haphazard rankings!

63. How the rest of the world sees us…

64. That gives us an enormous advantage in marketing
expertise and products in a bright green economy, if we
transform the way we do things. We can propel ourselves
into the forefront of global competitiveness by being bold.

65. This is the Seattle Moment. At a critical time, we
are a critical place. Our success means something.
We can lead the world, help redefine the possible,
ready ourselves for change and be at the forefront
of the next great economic revolution.
But we need a big goal, and we need to move fast.
Image: Craig Allen, CC

66. That goal should be simple: to become the first
carbon-neutral city in North America.
Drop our net per capita greenhouse gas emissions
to nothing, by 2030. No other goal is good enough.
Seattle can become a place where humanity lives
with nature, not off it. Seattle can become the future.
Image: Craig Allen, CC