The City and the Coming Climate Climate Change in the Places We Live

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1 The City and the Coming Climate Climate Change in the Places We Live In the first decade of this century, for the first time in history, the majority of the planet s population resided in cities. We are an urban planet. If ongoing changes in climate are to have an impact on the human species, most of these impacts will play out in cities. This fact was brought into full relief in the summer of 2003, when more than 70,000 residents of Europe perished in one of the most prolonged and intense heat waves in human history. The final death toll would exceed that associated with any Western European or American conflict since World War II or any other natural disaster to have ever struck a region of the developed world, and the vast majority of these deaths occurred in cities. Studies in the aftermath of the heat wave would show that not only had climate change increased the likelihood of such an extreme event but also that the intensity of the heat had been greatly enhanced by the physical design of the cities themselves, exposing residents of cities to a much greater risk of illness or death than others. This book is the first to explore the dramatic amplification of global warming under way in cities and the range of actions that can be taken to slow the pace of warming. A core thesis of the book is that the principal strategy adopted to mitigate climate change the reduction of greenhouse gases will not prove sufficient to measurably slow the rapid pace of warming in cities. The reason for this is that the primary driver of warming in cities is not the global greenhouse effect but rather the loss of trees and other vegetative cover to development and the emission of waste heat from industries, vehicles, and buildings. Rising levels of heat constitute the single greatest climate-related threat to human health, now accounting for more deaths per year than all other forms of extreme weather combined, and are contributing to the loss of life and unprecedented infrastructure disruptions in the present time period not decades in the future. explains the science of climate change in terms accessible to the nonscientist and with compelling anecdotes drawn from history and current events. The book is an ideal introduction to climate change at the urban scale for students, policy makers, and anyone who wishes to gain insight into an issue critical to the future of our cities and the people who live in them. BRIAN ST O N E, JR., is an Associate Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he teaches in the area of urban environmental planning and design. His program of research is focused on climate change at the urban scale and is supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Forest Service. Stone s work on urbanization and climate change has been featured on CNN and National Public Radio and in print media outlets such as Forbes and USA Today. Stone holds degrees in environmental management and planning from Duke University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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3 TheCityandthe Coming Climate Climate Change in the Places We Live BRIAN STONE, JR. Georgia Institute of Technology

4 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY , USA Information on this title: / C, Jr., 2012 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2012 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Stone, Brian, Jr. The city and the coming climate : climate change in the places we live /, Jr. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN ISBN (pbk.) 1. Climatic changes Economic aspects. 2. Climate change mitigation. 3. Urbanization. 4. Cities and towns. I. Title. QC903.S dc ISBN Hardback ISBN Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

5 To my father,, Sr. Defender of the undefended, Mayor of Peachtree Street, and still-shining light to his family.

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7 Contents Acknowledgments page ix Prologue: La Canicule 1 1 Keeling s Curve 16 2 The Climate Barrier 46 3 Islands of Heat 68 4 The Green Factor 97 5 Leveraging Canopy for Carbon 127 Postscript 171 References 175 Index 183 The color plate section follows page 86. vii

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9 Acknowledgments The origins of this book lie not in a large city but in a small one. I first learned that cities could influence their own climates in Durham, North Carolina, in a course taught by John Vandenberg in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Since that time, more than 15 years ago, I have remained fascinated by the idea and am greatly indebted to John for his early and continuing support of this work. Over the years, many other teachers and colleagues have enabled and inspired this work. Thanks to Michael Rodgers at Georgia Tech and John Norman at the University of Wisconsin Madison for their great patience in assisting a humanities major in tackling the complexities of urban climatology and for their direct collaboration on papers that have informed the book. Thanks to Michael Elliott at Georgia Tech for guiding this work in its earliest stages, helping to ground it in the realm of policy, and reviewing portions of the book. I am greatly indebted to Matt Lloyd at Cambridge University Press for recognizing the value of this project from its inception and for serving as the book s editor. Thanks to Jeremy Hess and Daniel Rochberg, both at Emory University, for reviewing portions of the book and providing critical feedback. A debt of gratitude is also owed the book s several anonymous peer reviewers. The book draws on a number of studies undertaken at the Urban Climate Lab at Georgia Tech and in collaboration with colleagues elsewhere. My profound thanks to Jason Vargo for his work in maintaining our database of urban climate trends, his expertise in graphic design, and his countless hours devoted to checking and rechecking the innumerable bits of data incorporated into the book. I am likewise appreciative of Dana Habeeb s assistance in compiling data and relevant studies for inclusion in the book. Thanks to Howard Frumkin at the University of Washington and Jeremy Hess for their valued collaboration on the extreme heat ix

10 x Acknowledgments research highlighted in Chapter 3. Thanks to Claire Thompson for her assistance in gathering materials on the European heat wave for the book s prologue. I am furthermore indebted to the authors of the many studies cited throughout the book who have contributed to a vitally important and growing literature on climate change at the urban and regional scales. Last, I am grateful for family and friends, who have supported and encouraged this sometimes all-consuming endeavor over the past several years. Above all, I am greatly appreciative of my wonderful wife, Elizabeth, for her willingness to provide whatever time and resources the project demanded; for her gifted editorial skills, often rendered in lieu of much-needed sleep; and for her endless patience in entertaining daily updates on the book s progress and impediments. I am likewise indebted to my sons for sharing their father with the unseen sibling of a book project that sometimes encroached on weekends and evenings. They have remained, above all else, the chief inspiration for the work.