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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12/13/2022 Item 7a, SchmidtDecember 10, 2022 – Comment on CAP Work Plan Dear City Council, It is with great disappointment that I read the report to you on implementing climate change actions now to 2030. The report is largely bluster and self-congratulation for alleged good works that will do little to save the earth from climate catastrophe. Further, its presentation is basically picturesque polemics (with great color pictures dripping off its pages) designed, with its overarching declarations and pretty pictures, to propagandize the public into thinking you’re saving the earth when you’re not. This approach to climate salvation unfortunately continues in line with the original Climate Action Plan, which was an undergraduate planning class project whose creators had zero professional qualification for doing such work, a fact that showed prominently in the product, which had no business being adopted as a serious plan. One would hope that by now, after so many years, a city committed to climate salvation would have built a more sound foundation for its work. I could do a detailed critique, but you’d probably just buy into staff’s dismissiveness of that, so I will comment on only a few issues that I feel are essential to get into the pubic record. • A Major Issue. The work plan and CAP both ignore present climate realities. Leading climate science experts tell us that we must reduce today’s GHG emissions quickly, by 2030 – a mere 7 years from now, or we’ll lose our best chance to avert catastrophe. The work before you doesn’t do that – it spends breath on things that are either meaningless (for example, the feel-good genuflection to DEI that has nothing to do with the issue at hand) or are long-term future-decade projects you hope will draw down emissions, but which may never even occur and will not address today’s carbon emissions. Nowhere is there any sense of urgency. Nor is there much sense of reality; all too often instead of a metric by which to measure the progress of an initiative we have the vacuous statement “No quantifiable metric available.” Well, if there’s no quantifiable metric, the scheme is useless even as a “goal.” And meaningless too. If you’re serious in wanting to do what you say you want to do, you need people with actual professional qualifications in carbon mitigation to guide you in how you might make an immediate impact on emission reductions. Unfortunately, you don’t seem to have such people on staff. Continuing down the road you’re on now will just make slocity complicit in the coming climate disaster. Dealing with today’s emissions must become your immediate focus. • A Second Major Issue. The work plan and CAP both ignore present understandings of where to seek immediate GHG emission reductions. Aside from some rather tentative and unconvincing genuflections towards carbon sequester, nearly everything you’re planning deals with cutting operational emissions. By “operational” I mean the emissions from operating buildings, running vehicles, and the like. The problem with this is it only looks at one side of the emission spectrum. And that “one side” involves emissions that accumulate over decades, not today. As a result, effectively dealing with today’s emissions isn’t even on the city’s radar. An important aspect of “today’s carbon” control has to do with embodied carbon, which is the carbon incorporated into physical acts and objects rather than that released by operations. This is the carbon in the concrete used to build downtown bike lanes,1 the carbon in the new electric vehicle fleet,2 the carbon in streets, buildings, and so on. This is a huge amount of carbon, and it’s all today’s carbon, not tomorrow’s. It is the carbon the city actually has within its ability to control today. Yet the city ignores it. The city propaganda machine has been pumping out breathless accounts of progress in the “SLO In Motion – Moving In The Right Direction” eblasts. Just this week we got this bit of bragging about what the city has done to date: • Resealed 4.8 million square feet of paved roads in San Luis Obispo • Poured more than 100,000 linear feet of paint to mark street and bike lanes • Painted nearly 3,500 linear feet of curbs • Added 33 speed humps, 4 large speed tables, 3 traffic circles, and more than 100 new traffic signs to improve safety and reduce vehicle speed • Placed high-visibility crosswalks at 35 intersections • Built 40 new accessible curb ramps for our sidewalks • Installed more than 16,000 feet of new or improved bike lanes and bike paths Very impressive, but every one of those items involves significant embodied carbon. Collectively we’re talking about probably thousands of tons of embodied carbon, all of it being released “today.” I was curious so I inquired whether this work had been subjected to an embodied carbon analysis of any sort. Guess what the answer was? The city doesn’t do that! In other words, the city has no clue if it’s moving in the right direction, or otherwise. Since such carbon analysis (and appropriate implementation of its findings) is at the cutting edge of trying to eliminate as much carbon emission as possible prior to 2030, which experts say must be our immediate carbon focus, its absence from city practice means the city’s claim of carbon leadership, of leading by example, simply isn’t true. (And I also find it offensively pathetic that one city program you’re being asked to approve would involve “branding” lead-by-example projects with “the Sustainable SLO emblem.” Really! We need quantifiable results, not rah-rah propaganda.) 1 Concrete is a special climate villain, accounting for between 6 and 10% of global current emissions. It’s climate- unethical to use it carelessly or casually. It should be used only when it is necessary and when its anticipated life approximates the time it will take nature to undo its emissions, probably about a century. Does anyone seriously think the concrete bicycle constructions downtown have that sort of life expectancy? 2 Electric vehicles are held to be a panacea that will save the earth, but that view typically looks only at operational carbon and ignores embodied carbon in the vehicle and its related paraphernalia. Looking at both suggests the lifetime carbon impacts of electric vehicles are still huge – about half those of fossil fuel vehicles – and most of that carbon is today’s carbon. So, embodied carbon is a big deal, and as of today the city’s not on the boat. That makes it hard for the city to be part of the solution. The methodology is out there, available for use; the city just needs to start using it – immediately, not after years of “study.” The architectural profession has been wrestling with the dichotomy between operational and embodied energy (energy being a pretty good stand-in for carbon emissions, carbon being today’s more fashionable way of talking about this) for decades, but of late, with the agreement among experts that “today’s” emissions must be our immediate focus, embodied energy/embodied carbon is getting more emphasis. (Of course, emphasis has also shifted because architects long ago began designing “net zero” on the operational side, and with the ability to so significantly reduce operational carbon emissions, that left the embodied side crying out for corresponding solution.) As a result there are currently some fascinating discussions taking place. One involves the discovery that over-building energy conservation into a building, which at first glance one might suppose a good thing, might actually over the building’s lifespan cause more carbon emissions than a somewhat less stringent design with slightly higher operational carbon. This concerns the Passive House certification by which a house is built so tightly built and so insulated that in icy winter it can be heated by a light bulb (OK, I exaggerate slightly, but not much). I’ve always regarded Passive House as overbuilding (thus being wasteful of materials, which means of carbon as well general exploitation of the earth), but now some of its advocates are saying as much themselves. This is the type of progress we could make by looking carefully at the embodied carbon of city projects, and designing them to release no more carbon than essential, or perhaps just not to do the project at all. Progress follows from asking good questions, and at present the proper questions aren’t being asked. So, to recapitulate, the city must pay attention to and control its embodied carbon emissions because these are the “today emissions” that must be cut as quickly as possible to avert climate disaster’s point of no return. And this must be done quickly, not put off for years of unnecessary leisurely study. • A Third Major Issue: Lack of holistic carbon viewpoint. Implicit in what’s stated above, but in need of being pointed out, is the CAP and related planning fail to look at carbon holistically. So the city, for example, states that bicycles will eliminate carboniferous use of automobiles, and that’s the end of it. This supposition is furthered by claiming a massive modal shift unachieved by any American city3 and using that unrealistic number as the basis for a carbon reduction claim. The problem is this is not a holistic view of carbon impacts of the city’s bicycle program. Missing, for example, is all the embodied carbon being poured into bike facilities (today’s carbon) and all the extra operational carbon these facilities require (for example, more frequent street sweeping and additional sweeper machines). Given the actual small usage of bike facilities and the large carbon cost of their construction, it’s 3 20% of all trips is a very high figure. Most cities use commuter trip percentages, not total trips – Davis, for example. Even so, despite its century-long bike tradition and the fact it’s flat as a pancake, Davis has had a hard time maintaining its bike percentage as the city has grown. Is sprawling SLO with all its hills and old narrow streets really going to do better than America’s bicycle Mecca? pretty clear the bike program is a carbon emitter rather than a carbon saver. But this goes against the rah-rah pro-bike propaganda of the CAP, so it’s ignored. If the city is to be a climate leader, it must engage in honest holistic carbon analysis of all its programs, and not cherry-pick its facts to buttress the opinions of those in charge.4 Other Issues. There are many, but here are several I feel are most important. • Carbon Sequestration. This is mentioned in the CAP and workplan, but it’s very weak and needs strengthening. Sequestration refers to locking up atmospheric carbon and thus sequestering it from the atmosphere. Nature does this well, and for free (if we let it!). In fact our current atmospheric carbon crisis has resulted from humans removing millions of years of naturally sequestered carbon from the earth and releasing it into the atmosphere in a mere 2.6 centuries. The programs in the CAP involve soil sequestration through compost spreading, and planting 10,000 new trees. Under the current playbook, neither is likely to make any difference. • Compost spreading. This is dubious as a significant sequestration measure. It is also a hypothetical and unproven sequestration practice. It should never have been put into the CAP with expectations of the large contribution which the CAP claims it will provide.5 Although it has been in the CAP for years, to date compost has been applied to a mere 1.2 acres of city land, and we still don’t know if wider application will accomplish anything significant. On the other hand, there are proven methods for carbon sequestration in soil. If the city’s serious about this, use proven methods and don’t claim an experimental hypothetical methodology has unproven major benefits. • Tree planting and the urban forest. It is claimed the city will plant 10,000 new trees and that this will have hugely beneficial sequestration impacts. The program, however, is off to a slow start, and seems to be mainly used for propaganda (i.e., “trees for keys” press releases). I’ve written before about the program’s poor tree species selection (exotics of dubious ecological value), and about gene-pool trashing by using non-local “natives” from the commercial nursery trade instead of growing trees from local genetic stock. But more important in the current discussion is the simple fact these new trees, if they do get planted and if they survive – two big ifs -- , will sequester very little carbon for the next 50 years. And therein lies the big problem: tree planting over the next decade will do little to sequester “today’s carbon.” 4 And one must note that the hard-core bicycling minority is over-represented both on the council and staff, which distorts all decisions/discussions having to do with bicycles. 5 The CAP policy was copied from cow manure spreading in Marin County. It seems some dairy farmers had a poop disposal problem, so they spread their cow poop on rangeland, then claimed it increased soil carbon significantly, giving their convenient poop disposal method green cachet. A non-peer-reviewed publication of this enterprise was the origin of the CAP Policy. To sequester today’s carbon we must cherish and protect ALL the existing mature trees in the urban forest. The city MUST IMMEDIATELY SHIFT ITS POLICIES TO PROHIBIT REMOVAL OF MATURE TREES ON DEVELOPMENT SITES.6 Thousands of mature carbon sequestering trees have been chopped down in the last few years even as the city talks about protecting the urban forest. The impact of cutting trees and chipping them is the immediate release of the carbon sequestered by the trees into the atmosphere. Even when there has been no need to cut trees, when a project could have been designed to save and incorporate them (like 71 Palomar, Meinhold Subdivision, HASLO project at Monterey/California, among others) the city has bent over backwards to accommodate sloppy carbon-careless environmentally-feckless design schemes by nonchalantly allowing trees to be cut. And the city is not leading by example even with is own projects. Even a simple city project like the dreadful new “neighborhood park” on the Broad Street freeway ramp involved the city’s needlessly removing a large percentage of the site’s mature tree canopy to accommodate a lazy park design that refused to accommodate the trees. Cutting trees for a park! And the canopy butchery downtown has removed much sequestered carbon and the potential for near-term continued sequestration at the rate of the immediate past. The cumulative impact of all this tree butchery is like multiplying emissions from gas stoves by many magnitudes. It undercuts any hope we have of adequately sequestering near- term “today” carbon with trees. To me, here’s how the city’s carbon-sequestration-via-trees program looks. 6 The city’s planning policies actually already state projects should be designed to preserve existing site trees, but staff – with council support – ignores that directive and facilitates tree cutting. • Building Conservation. “The greenest building is the one already built.” This is because existing buildings embody a huge wealth of materials, which are lost with demolition, and huge quantities of embodied carbon, which is also lost with demolition. Even an extensively remodeled older building is greener than a new building. A new building is the least green option available, no matter how “green” its features may be, because it stresses the ecosystem to supply its materials and its construction causes a lot of carbon to be spewed into the atmosphere today. I suspect the council is generally unaware of the embodied carbon loss aspect of building demolition. So here’s an example. I once did a project involving hypothetical adaptation of the little wooden trackside railroad building near the end of Osos Street. Using a simple embodied energy calculation method developed decades ago by the federal Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation, we found the embodied energy/carbon in that little building was enough, if translated into gasoline equivalents, to drive a Prius to the moon and back, with some left over. That is a shocking quantification of energy loss through demolition for such a simple small building. Yet we are facing even greater demolitions of perfectly useful buildings – the HASLO site on Monterey, the old Riley’s store, to mention but two. A city that condones carting perfectly useable buildings off to the landfill is not a sustainable city. It is also not a carbon-conscious city. If the city is serious about carbon control, it must add to its CAP sequestration section a policy noting the contribution of building conservation vs. new construction, and rules, incentives or other inducement for this sensible practice’s becoming the development norm. • Capture of Natural Energy. One fallacy of the conventional approach to climate mitigation is the notion that we don’t need to worry about overall energy use if it’s green energy; that we can keep demanding and using more and more of it for our homes, various gadgets, and that will be good for the earth. Unlikely outcome. For one thing, if everyone on earth lived the way we do, it would take 4 or more earths to supply our needs, and that’s impossible. As economists say, “What can’t go on forever doesn’t.” For another thing, there are ready ways to eliminate the need for much of the energy we currently use. Our buildings demand more and more energy (remember energy=carbon) because we choose to build them that way. We ignore – and are likely ignorant of the fact as well -- that a well-sited and properly designed building can passively capture much of the energy it needs from the sun and air, and that every bit of passive energy gathered this way reduces the need for active electric or gas inputs. This isn’t rocket science. We find people praising houses that heat themselves with winter sun, and exclude summer sun to provide cool comfort – in 5th century BC Greece!7 If the city’s serious about climate success, it must encourage this approach to design, yet it doesn’t. The pathetic little houses along Prado Road, built on raw land that could have been planned to maximize solar access for winter heat were designed in every way backwards, and don’t even have properly-oriented roofs for PV panels, the only “green” feature of these sad little houses. Building this way locks us into high energy consumption buildings for a century or more. The city needs to adopt policies that encourage or even require projects to be designed to use natural passive energies in place of active energies, and it needs to train staff so they understand what this means and can provide both guidance and oversight. Building this way needs to become the new norm. 7 For many years I had the opportunity to teach building design to beginning architecture students. In those courses, my requirements were simple: In addition to a design that was beautiful and programmatically functional, the design must plausibly produce a building that can heat itself, cool itself, ventilate itself and light itself with free natural passive energies and no conventional energy inputs. The kids got it, and loved it. Conclusion. Unfortunately, in many ways the city is moving in the wrong direction on climate change, and its few forward steps are undercut by its failure to see the big picture. It is time, if the city is serious about this, to end the bluster and self-congratulation about its plans, and get down to accomplishing things unlikely to be possible to accomplish using the present program’s flawed conceptual format. Above all, the city’s focus must shift to dealing with today’s carbon, or the city will have forfeited its chance to be an actual climate leader and will instead become just one more institutional drag on progress. Sincerely, Richard Schmidt