Threat: Hurricanes
According to NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) website: “a hurricane is an intense low pressure weather system of organized, swirling clouds and thunderstorms that gain energy from warm tropical waters. Hurricanes are also identified as typhoons or cyclones depending on where they originate. Hurricanes originate in the Atlantic and central and eastern Pacific, typhoons originate in the northwestern Pacific and cyclones originate in the Indian Ocean and south Pacific. Hurricanes are furthermore classified by category, which is measured by the hurricane’s strength (the intensity of their sustained wind speeds). A category 1 hurricane produces sustained winds of at least 74-95 mph, a category 2 hurricane has wind speeds of 96-110 mph, a category 3 hurricane has wind speeds of 111-129 mph, a category 4 hurricane has wind speeds of 130-156 mph, and a category 5 hurricane has wind speeds of 157 mph or greater. A category 4 and 5 hurricane are considered to be catastrophic. It is important to note that the category of a hurricane reflects only the wind speed, not the overall potential for damage. The greatest risk associated with hurricanes comes from flooding generated by the storm surge or intense rains the storms.”
According to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions website: “While scientists are uncertain whether climate change will lead to an increase in the number of hurricanes, warmer ocean temperatures and higher sea levels are expected to intensify their impacts. As recent analyses have shown, hurricanes have increased in intensity over the last few decades and it is projected that the Atlantic Basin will see an increase of category 4 and category 5 hurricanes by 45-87 percent, even if the frequency of these storms decreases.” The increase projection in future hurricane categories is due to that fact that, according to NRDC website, “the Earth’s oceans have been absorbing more than 90 percent of the extra heat generated by global warming and hence the surface temperature of the sea surface has fueled hurricanes with more energy. Furthermore, as glaciers and ice sheets melt, sea levels will continue to rise. The increase in sea levels also increase the threat of storm surges which drives powerful winds and ocean waters onto land creating devastating floods to low-lying coastal areas. Finally, it is projected by the IPCC that while there might be a slight decrease in hurricane frequency through 2100, the storms that do make landfall are more likely to be intense - category 4 or 5 - with more rain and wind.”
Threat: Rising Sea Levels
According to the National Ocean Services website: “sea levels have been rising over the past century. In 2014, global sea level was 2.6 inches higher than in 1993. Sea levels continue to rise at a rate of about â…› of an inch per year. Higher sea levels means that deadly and destructive storm surges push farther inland, which also means more frequent flooding. Flooding is estimated to be from 300 percent to 900 percent more frequent within U.S. coastal communities than it was just 50 years ago. The two major causes of global sea level rise are thermal expansion caused by warming of ocean and increased melting of land based iced (glaciers and ice sheets). With continued ocean and atmospheric warming, sea levels will likely rise for many centuries at rates higher than that of the current century. In the United States, almost 40 percent of the population lives in relatively high-population-density coastal areas, where sea level plays a role in flooding, shoreline erosion, and hazards from storms.”
Furthermore, according to NAP (The National Academies Press) website: “while sea level change varies place to place, 10 percent of the world’s approximate 7.5 billion people live within 10 meters of sea level and many more live at higher elevations but close to coastlines. Global sea level rose about 17 centimeters during the 20th century and global measurements from satellites have calculated that it is rising at about 3.2 millimeters per year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has also estimated that sea level could rise between approximately 0.2 and 1 meter by 2100. While the actual amount will depend partly on how much the Earth warms during that period due to greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere, even if emissions stabilize, sea level will continue to rise by 30 to 40 centimeters. Sea level rise has complex impacts including causing higher levels of surging ocean waters and inland flooding. Erosion, sediment supply, flood management, and reclamation can all affect storm surges. Sea level rise can also cause wetland loss and change, saltwater intrusion into surface waters or groundwater, and higher water tables that impede drainage.”
Threat: Heat
According to global population trends and statistics, by the year 2050, approximately 70% of the global population will reside in cities compared to the 50% of the population residing in cities today. With cities accommodating 70% of the world's population and the amount of demand for resources, production of greenhouse gases will increase. The releases of Black Carbon are the components of soot created by burning fossil fuels and biofuels that are highly effective at absorbing sunlight. Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering states that between 2 and 4 percent of the gross global warming since the Industrial Revolution may be due to urban heat island. The temperatures in our cities are likely to increase further because more heat will be stored and re-radiated by expanses of asphalt, concrete and other heat-storing building materials. In this context, it is crucial to understand the possibilities for the transformation of existing urban fabrics towards a more liveable and sustainable future.
This can be implemented from a smart and small-scale spatial transformation of existing urban spaces. Urban geometry alters the heat exchange balance in the built environment by affecting shadow and wind patterns. It affects the exposure of materials to sunlight and the consequent heat storage in thermal mass. This complex heat radiation exchange between building mass and adjacent atmosphere can also change the intensity and patterns of airflow in urban canyons. Urban cover and surface materials, which affects heat absorption and reflection time-rate in the built environment. Thermodynamic specification, color, texture, and density of materials and their exposure to sunlight can alter the heat flux in outdoor spaces in complex procedures. Urban landscape, can affect water and heat exchange balance in a built environment, compared to natural surroundings because of natural processes plant provide. Photosynthesis and evaporation processes in urban greenery contribute to decreasing the ambient temperature. Urban greenery typology, distribution, and intensity also affect lower atmospheric air turbulence. Urban metabolism and anthropogenic waste has increased heat within cities. This process is mainly related to mass-energy consumption for indoor air-conditioning and motorized transportation.
Threat: Reduction of natural space
Ordinary single-purpose grey infrastructure such as conventional drainage pipes and water treatment systems are designed to funnel stormwater away from the problem source, while green infrastructure reduces and treats stormwater at its source being multi-functional and serving many environmental, social, and economic roles. Adding to the devastation of storms is the long term damage that stormwater runoff can result in, especially in dense urban cities. While in more rural and suburban areas where there is more space and more soil to absorb a lot of runoff from storms, urban cities or so called “concrete jungles” lack natural absorbers to soak up the excess water. Instead, “Stormwater drains through gutters, storm sewers, and other engineered collection systems and is discharged into nearby water bodies.” (EPA - Green Infrastructure) This discharge can include trash, bacteria, heavy metals, and a plethora of other pollutants picked up along the way. Severe storms with high wind and flow speeds caused by heavy rains can also lead to “erosion and flooding in urban streams, damaging habitat, property, and infrastructure.” This is a large problem for urban areas that don’t have porous soil and the open land of less developed areas. In these areas, water is absorbed and filtered through the soil and natural vegetation so stormwater runoff is less of an issue, and the amount that is discharged into local lakes and streams is much cleaner. Green infrastructure is a natural solution, using vegetation to manage stormwater and through filtering pollutants, helps to create a healthier urban environment. “At the city or county scale, green infrastructure is a patchwork of natural areas that provides habitat, flood protection, cleaner air, and cleaner water. At the neighborhood or site scale, stormwater management systems that mimic nature soak up and store water.” (EPA - Green Infrastructure)
“The water quality and flooding impacts of urban stormwater also can be addressed by protecting open spaces and sensitive natural areas within and adjacent to a city while providing recreational opportunities for city residents. Natural areas that should be a focus of this effort include riparian areas, wetlands, and steep hillsides.”Green spaces offer a lot of benefits and come in a variety of forms. Adding more green spaces within cities can help improve the urban environment as they play a role in regulating air and water quality, reducing energy consumption by reflecting heat that would have been absorbed by concrete or asphalt, and they can even aid in filtering pollutants from groundwater and protecting lakes and local streams from pollutants. Including green spaces and or expanding on those already established can reduce nitrate leakage from the soil from entering into a cities water supply, as well as green spaces like water retention ponds or parks which can hold flood water/”reduce surface water runoff” and further prevent contamination of waterways and “preventing septic system overloads.” (Project Evergreen)
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Conventional “gray” infrastructure utilized by cities and other urban areas are designed to direct stormwater away from city structures and other elements of the “built environment” including “curbs, gutters, drains, piping and collection systems.” Gray infrastructure typically involves the collection and transportation of stormwater by impervious, non-absorbent materials “such as roadways, parking lots and rooftops” funneling it all into sewer piping ultimately discharging unfiltered contaminated water into local waterways, which can spell all sorts of trouble for the environment, animals, and humans that drink and or use said waterways. Green infrastructure on the other hand incorporates a degree of biomimicry to absorb or capture rainwater at its source, while also reducing potential flood water and treating collected water through natural mechanism. Green infrastructure can have a diverse set of benefits, far exceeding that of gray infrastructure due to its versatility including “reducing localized flooding, improving community aesthetics, encouraging more neighborhood socialization, improving economic health through increasing property values and providing job opportunities, and decreasing the economic and community impacts of flooding,” in addition to environmental, social, and economic benefits. (EPA Green the Gray)“Communities should look for and evaluate opportunities to "green the gray", especially when infrastructure projects will involve stormwater management. Green infrastructure practices can be a viable option for managing stormwater in highly urbanized areas where development density is desired and off site mitigation of stormwater runoff is not a preferred alternative.
Introduction
Policy Innovations
Policy Innovations
Hurricane Protection
As pointed out by NRDC website, with regards to policy innovations that can “lead to the prevention of severe hurricanes, hurricanes are a natural disaster; therefore, the force, strength and impact a hurricane has is completely dependent on society’s past choices. Our dependency on fossil fuels has lead our environment into a state of global climate change, which has made for more severe weather events, such as hurricanes. There is nothing that we can do to stop a natural phenomenon, like a hurricane; therefore, our prevention of severe weather events lies in our commitment of burning less carbon-emitting oil, coal, and gas and relying on more efficient renewable energies, such as wind and solar. The Paris Agreement is a good example of a policy aiming to achieve these goals.” The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions also suggests innovative ideas, such as: “preservations of coastal wetlands, dunes, and reefs to absorb storm surges; replenishing beaches and improving infrastructure that affords coastal protection, such as seawalls; elevating vulnerable buildings to reduce flood damage; designing structures to be resilient to high winds and flying debris; enacting policies that discourage development in vulnerable areas; and preparing prior to a storm’s arrival by boarding windows, clearing property of potential flying debris, and having an evacuation plan”.
With regards to the Paris Agreement, “the Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the agreement aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change. To reach these ambitious goals, appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework will be put into place. In order to achieve this central aim, the Paris Agreement requires all Parties to put forth their best efforts through nationally determined contributions and requires all Parties to report regularly on their emissions and on their implementation efforts.”
With regards to coral reefs, according to an article by Bjorn Carey, Stanford research finds that “reefs play an important role in protecting hundreds of millions of people from rising sea levels and damaging wave action. After performing a meta-analysis of 27 previous studies of how coral reefs around the world dissipate wave energy, it was found that coral reefs reduce wave energy by an average of 97 percent, dissipating disproportionately more wave energy as wave energy increased. Furthermore, restoring and recovering reefs could provide a less expensive means of reducing the impacts of waves on the shore than artificial seawalls. It is stated that the median cost for building artificial breakwaters is $19,791 per meter, compared to $1,290 per meter for coral restoration projects. Resorted reefs could reduce wave energy immediately, becoming more valuable through the years as they grow, keeping pace with rising sea levels.”
Managing Rising Sea Levels
SPUR offers an article called Strategies for Managing Sea Level Rise, which seven strategies and their advantages and disadvantages with regards to managing sea level rise.
According to the article the first strategy is the Barrier. The Barrier is “a large dam, gate or lock that manages tide flows. The article states that this strategy could be used at the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. An example of the Barrier strategy being used outside the United States is Thames Barrier in London. The barrier is a series of river gates that was built in the 1970s to protect the city of London against storm surges. The advantage of barriers is that they can protect a large area of land from a surge. This would be good for the Golden Gate bridge as it would protect the San Francisco bay from flooding. The disadvantage of barriers is that the construction of them can be expensive”, it is said that the Thames Barrier cost over 535 Euros. It is further unknown that how effective barriers would be.
The second strategy according to the article is coastal arming. Coastal arming is “a series of levees and seawalls that protect not only coastal shorelines but also bay wetlands. Seawalls protect the coastline against strong waves and levees protect low-lying lands against river flooding. An example of coastal arming being used outside the United States is Japan’s “super levees” which is built up dry land side of a high levee to be as much as 30 times wider than it is tall. It is said that these types of levees are unbreachable, are seismically safe, and can accommodate many types of land uses on top. Advantages to coastal armoring is that it is the oldest flood protection tool and it can be used in combination with other strategies to protect against rising sea levels. The disadvantages include it is a short-term solution and can only be engineered to accommodate a certain storm size or rise in sea level. Coastal armoring is also costly to maintain and monitor in order to ensure it remains safe.”
The fifth strategy according to the article is floodable development. Floodable Development is “structures that are designed to withstand flooding or to retain stormwater. The concept of this strategy is that buildings and infrastructure can be designed to be resistant to occasional or periodic flood damage, it can be used as a backup strategy to shoreline armoring, or it can create a retention area for ocean surges or heavy rainfall. Examples of floodable development being used outside the United States the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It is stated that floodable development is still being experimented so the advantages are still mostly unknown, but it could be a effective on a small scale depending on the site. It is also stated that floodable development could be hazardous as stormwater is usually polluted with heavy metals an, organic chemicals, sediment and bacteria. Large quantities of stormwater could leave behind contamination.”
The sixth strategy according to the article is living shorelines. Living shorelines are “wetlands that form naturally on shorelines and absorb floods, slow erosion and provide habitat. The article did not provide any examples of living shorelines being used outside of the United States. It is stated that living shorelines benefit society by filtering pollutants out of water, providing recreational open space and creating habitats for fish, wildlife and millions of organisms. The disadvantage of living shorelines is that it requires space, time to work and they require management and monitoring. It is furthermore stated that living shorelines are naturally adaptive to sea level rise, as long it has space to migrate landward and it must be sufficiently supplied with sediment to be able to “keep up” with sea level rise.”
The best example of policy innovation with regards to rising sea levels was put forth in an article in the New York Times “The Dutch Have Solutions to Rising Sea Levels”. The article states that “most of Denmark sits below sea level and as such has devised a plan for solutions to future rising sea levels. As it has become evident that building up seawalls may not necessarily be the most effective strategy for Denmark. Plans have been devised for lakes, garages, parks and plazas that will double as recreation and enormous reservoirs for when sea and river waters rise. Examples of this are parking garages that have become emergency reservoirs, plazas installed with fountains, gardens and basketball courts in underserved neighborhoods that can act as retention ponds and an area called the Eendragtspolder, which is a 22 acre patchwork of reclaimed fields and canals which doubles as a public amenity that can collect floodwater from the Rotte River Basin and the Rhine river in emergencies. The article also talks about plans for immense wind farms in the North Sea and strategies to capture heat from fuel-burning factories to warm the greenhouses that supply the county’s agricultural fields. Furthermore, it is stated that little things like getting people to remove the concrete pavement from their gardens can also help as it allows the soil underneath to absorb rainwater. Finally, the point was also brought up that there is a cyber safety concern with regards to climate. The concern is that systems that control sea gates, bridges and sewers are vulnerable to cyber attacks and this is also a concern going forward with the threat of climate change.”
Heat Islands
Changing the approach to green infrastructure is increasing the space for cities and towns to incorporate more parks and community gardens, providing access to more exercise and outside actives, and creating a reduction of fossil fuels and car usage. These changes alter the interaction between the people of the community and the natural environment. Changing local city landscapes while including more shading trees along roadways and driveways, adds more green space within the city. Understanding the materials used for these process and construction all add to the heat island effect. The urban heat island effect occurs because of the dark surfaces such as roads and building materials used in cities that accumulate and store heat and then release it at night. One of the policies and project innovations undertaken by local and city government are implementing the use of physical structures of the city to incorporate more natural vegetation. One such structure is a green roof. A green roof is a vegetative layer grown on top of the physical roof structure. Green roofs are proven to reduce the heat from surface air and reduction of temperature of the structure. The EPA states that green roof temperatures can be 30-40 degrees lower than conventional. In addition, green roofs can lower the building energy use by 1%, which results in $0.25 per square foot. As heat waves bake cities to crisps, we must do something to protect the people that live and visit cities. Another green infrastructure is the creation of more open green spaces. By adding a change in vegetation within the city is how Copenhagen is researching the potential green infrastructure. This also applies to the change in materials that cities use for producing products to change the thermal property. One of the cheapest ways to reduce urban heat island effect is through the use of different materials. used is natural vegetation and a color change.
The reduction of the production of fossil fuels for energy usage within cities is a must to achieve environmental progress. Some of the ways that cities are producing more environmentally friendly infrastructure. The ICEC or the International Conference on Energy and Cities is an organization that propels cities towards low carbon pathways through renewable energy, better energy management by building and efficient energy development. One of these is the solar canopy, which brings shade and energy to your local parking lot. The solar canopy allows for heat deflection, local electricity for charging cars and energy for the local business. It is said that 40% of all the pavement in cities is used as parking lots. Latin America leads the way with renewable energy supplies to fuel its cities. As of Feb 2018, Latin America cities get at least 70% of their power from renewable energy resources. "Cities are responsible for 70 percent of energy-related CO2 emissions, and there is immense potential for them to lead on building a sustainable economy," Kyra Appleby. Changing the way we see areas can also a change in new technology, dead space and open head space have created areas for new green technologies. One of theses new concepts is how people see solar technology and open space. Energysage shows the solar power locations for residential locations, and other projects that take aim at the energy demand at a local level.
Creating a system for cities to produce infrastructure that can sustain growth, address important environmental issues and allow for management of runoff on a regional and local basis to a more sustainable city. As cities develop, they must produce a system to manage the stormwater and chemical runoff. Stormwater runoff has multiple negative implications in urban settings. Impermeable materials create flooding risks in urban areas. Stormwater runoff in urban areas is greatly affected by impervious surfaces. Issues that are associated with impervious surfaces and stormwater runoff include the following: chemical pollution, wetland contamination, biodiversity loss, and flooding. Chemical pollution of the local waterways happens from metals that come from vehicles using the roads and parking lots. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PAHs, are found from fossil-based fuels and in coal tar sealant that is placed on top of parking lots. Having impervious surfaces in urban areas increases the risk of flooding. Flood damage can affect homes, streets and other structures. Buildings along rivers or wetlands are more at risk for flood damage if the runoff is not handled appropriately. Flood repairs are costly to the individuals living in the area and should be dealt with properly. Soil erosion from flooding can happen as the stormwater runoff will move chemicals and sediments into certain areas.
The final project is that cities are implementing development that captures the concept as green and smart aspects of a city to create an eco-city. These cities are created for the potential niche of environmental and economic restraints to allow a better understanding of the city's goals, relevant policies and key factors that take place at ground level. The key for these cities is to drive future economic growth while promoting healthy and resilient urban infrastructure. We can see that these cities are being rebuilt to suit the needs of the environment in the case of sea level rise, change in open city space, energy, public health/ safety. Eco-cities are the project that ties in every aspect of this class project that promotes a world free of fossil fuel production and carbon emissions. This is the way that humans and nature can live with one another again within a system that benefits all three pillars of sustainability.
Green space
Rainwater Harvesting: Related to downspout disconnection is rainwater harvesting, which is the collecting and storage of rainfall for later use. When utilized effectively, rainwater harvesting systems like simple rain barrels can slow and reduce runoff with the added benefit of storing clean, usable water. These would likely be most useful in arid regions like Arizona or California, where water could be collected and held to reduce demands on the manufactured water supply and/or be used in times of draught. Rain Gardens:“Rain gardens are versatile features that can be installed in almost any unpaved space. Also known as bioretention, or bioinfiltration, cells, they are shallow, vegetated basins that collect and absorb runoff from rooftops, sidewalks, and streets. This practice mimics natural hydrology by infiltrating, and evaporating and transpiring—or “evapotranspiring”—stormwater runoff.” When planted with flowers and grasses rain gardens also act as part of the ecosystem for birds, butterflies, bees or other wildlife. Rain gardens offer a beautiful and cost effective way to reduce stormwater runoff. (EPA) Planter Boxes:“Planter boxes are urban rain gardens with vertical walls and either open or closed bottoms. They collect and absorb runoff from sidewalks, parking lots, and streets and are ideal for space-limited sites in dense urban areas and as a streetscaping element.”Bioswales:“Bioswales are vegetated, mulched, or xeriscaped channels that provide treatment and retention as they move stormwater from one place to another. Vegetated swales slow, infiltrate, and filter stormwater flows. As linear features, they are particularly well suited to being placed along streets and parking lots..”Green Streets and Alleys:“Green streets and alleys are created by integrating green infrastructure elements into their design to store, infiltrate, and evapotranspire stormwater. Permeable pavement, bioswales, planter boxes, and trees are.”Urban Tree Canopy:“Trees reduce and slow stormwater by intercepting precipitation in their leaves and branches. Many cities have set tree canopy goals to restore some of the benefits of trees that were lost when the areas were developed. Homeowners, businesses, and community groups can participate in planting and maintaining trees throughout the urban environment.”
Lastly, investing in green infrastructure and green spaces reduces mitigation costs. Due to their versatility, greenspace provides more positive impacts and reductions in adverse conditions including noise, pollution, traffic congestion, and infrastructure deterioration than direct investment in these excluding the use of greenspace. Other than reducing mitigation costs, the addition of green spaces have the potential to increase tourism. Outdoor recreation being a large element of the tourism industry, parks, trails, and open spaces enhance the aesthetics of a community, making a community more appealing for tourists. Creating green space and utilizing the existing environment can draw in tourists who could be charged a visitation fee to green spaces similar to how they would pay to enter into national parks. Tourism has great potential to draw in more and more visitors and therefore yield more and more funding for local communities and the state to further invest in green projects.
Assessment
Hurricanes
With regards to the likelihood of the presented policy innovations working in the United States, as outlined by the Natural Resources Defence Council site, hurricanes are a natural disaster, one of which we have no control over. However, due to the fact that hurricanes are driven by such things as, warming sea surface temperatures and rising sea levels, these are things that we could potentially take control over with hard work, dedication and involvement in the Paris Agreement. While issues like, finances can be a deturance, the cost of not doing anything or not even seeing where the benefits of the Paris Agreement might take us, is a greater cost than actually putting in the effort. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, I do not see the prospect of any effort going into embracing the Paris Agreement. Things could change depending on the next election cycle, but once again, creating policy and seeing things through only happens when legislatures are on the same page and willing to work together for the betterment of society.
Rising sea level
With regards to the likelihood of the presented policy innovations working in the United States, as outlined in the Strategies for Managing Sea Level Rise, these strategies could be used in the United States, the problem that would come into question would be the cost. All of these strategies come with a costly price tag and massive amounts of time devoted to planning and attention to detail. As the current political climate is one not focused on climate change as apparent in the withdrawal of the Paris Agreement by the current administration, mostly due to climate change denial and the cost associate with ideas of dealing with climate change, these innovations have zero chance at being discussed or being modified to suit the needs here in the United States in respect to protection against rising sea levels.
City Heat Management
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CSIC, the Cambridge Center for Smart Infrastructure and Construction aims to create future cities that are high quality and well-managed infrastructure so that they can provide the best services, quality of life, economics and jobs. The challenges facing us are enormous and pressing: many cities are predominantly located on the coast, so how can we protect them from rises in sea levels? How will we provide infrastructure for future cities as resources become increasingly scarce and energy more expensive? What will future cities look like in the coming decades? Will car ownership disappear with the likely arrival of autonomous vehicles? How will social behavior change? For our future cities, our society needs urgently to address the needs for smart infrastructure, the most modern communications, information systems in our digital era, the provision of clean water, and sanitation and healthcare – all vital for our social well-being. Smart cities will be need to be able to adapt, be resilient and be technological first to increase the health of the city. The Landscape Institute’s Five Principles of Healthy Places contains, Principle 1: Healthy places improve air, water, and soil quality, incorporating measures that help us adapt to, and where possible mitigate climate change. Principle 2: Healthy places help us overcome health inequalities and can promote healthy lifestyles. Principle 3: Healthy places make people feel comfortable and at ease, increasing social interaction and reducing antisocial behavior, isolation and stress. Principle 4: Healthy places optimize opportunities for working, learning and development. Principle 5: Healthy places are restorative, uplifting and healing for both physical and mental health conditions. The UK is one of the most environmentally progressive countries forcing regulations to be more environmentally friendly while forcing non-renewable sectors to become stricter. Their government allows for the advancement of ecological sustainability compared to the United States. In America we have policies that favor coal and oil sectors of the economy that the current president sees as “green coal” and we must save these jobs to become a great country again. There is no such thing as green coal and this ideology will create a world system where we fall behind every country, ultimately destroying the world.
The United States stance on the environmental policy under the Trump administration has brought a mass amount of change from the Obama era. Policies that were used to limit climate change and environmental pollution, and funding environmental science to verbally withdrawing from the Paris agreement, signing green coal bill, and signed the pipeline order. National Geographic has a running list of all environmental policies that are changing under the Trump administration. Therefore, I think that with the current administration there will be no progress towards environmental justice at a federal level. At the state and local levels of government, there is more environmental progress being made. We can see that throughout the world the city government has more power to change infrastructure to combat climate change. When it comes to environmental policies, most countries around the world have come to terms about climate change and the effects that it has been creating. The United States stance on how to act when it comes to environmental issues is a reactive state allows for disasters to happen, time to pass to allow the policy window to close. European countries are built to be proactive; they will change policies to better the environment in terms of environmental justice. The structure of the European Union is better equipped to allow for these environmental changes. EU citizens “benefit from some of the highest environmental standards in the world. The EU and national governments have set clear objectives to guide European environment policy until 2020 and a vision beyond that of where to be environmentally by 2050, with the support of dedicated research programmers, legislation and funding. The goal is to protect, conserve and enhance the EU’s natural capital, turn the EU into a resource-efficient, green, and competitive low-carbon economy, and safeguard EU citizens from environment-related pressures and risks to health and well being.” Green growth is at the center of the European Union policies to ensure that progress in economic and environmental sustainability at a global level is reached.