Framing the Problem | Nov 7th at 9:58am

Posted by Lloyd Alter | Tags: | 0

Elizabeth Kolbert asks the question: How large and daunting is the problem we face? Being the great journalist that she is, she capably summarized the problem of climate change and carbon dioxide.

David Orr of Oberlin College knows his stuff too; he gave Elizabeth’s speech in greater detail. He reminded us how our cities were designed to run on cheap gas, and our cities will rise and fall on what we do with transportation.

It is the introductory session and the title is “Framing the Problem” but I begin to worry that this seminar was going to be two days of hockey sticks and wedges instead of urban design. We have heard the problem framed many times.

Then Adil Najam of Boston University framed the problem in a completely different way.

Najam said “facts, anyone can make up, but stories have meaning”. And he started telling stories. He asked us to imagine that we were from another planet, coming to write a report evaluating the earth. How would we describe the planet as a whole?

-an extremely poor country
-it would be a very divided country.
-it would be a very degraded country.
-it would be a very insecure country.
-it would be a poorly governed country.
-it would be an unsafe country.

“If there is as an interplanetary travel advisory it would be to stay away from planet earth. Our world is a third world country. I wish the world was Sweden but it isn’t. The connectedness of environmental challenges forces us to confront otherwise neglected aspects of our global connectedness.”

“What started as an emission problem became an efficiency problem, then a policy problem and ultimately an equity problem. Which is the more moral molecule? the CO2 from powering the fridge in the Gobi Desert or the beer fridge in Maine? The molecule from burning gas in your SUV or for the cooking stove in India? It is no longer a debate about molecules or money, it is about people.”

Lloyd Alter has been an architect, developer, inventor, and builder of prefab housing. He now writes for TreeHugger and Planet Green, is an Associate Professor at Ryerson University teaching sustainable design, and has written for Azure and Ontario Nature magazines.

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