INFRASTRUCTURE AND BUILDINGS
Infrastructure and buildings are vulnerable to climate change and play a vital role in global heating, human health, and pollution.
Climate touches everything. These resources will help you understand how climate touches your profession and your role for climate action.
"I think that once people understand the great risks that climate change poses, they will naturally want to choose products and services that cause little or no emissions of greenhouse gases, which means 'low-carbon consumption.' This will apply across the board, including electricity, heating, transport and food." - Nicholas Stern
climate justice organizations
Articles
Buildings, Housing, and Health Articles
The sustainable future town of your imagination (Yes! Solutions Journalism, 2021)
Black-owned ‘Climate Tech’ startup making inner cities greener raises 63 million (Atlanta Black Star, 2021)
WA lawmakers looking to fix climate while solving the housing crisis (Crosscut, 2021)
Buildings and climate change adaptation: A call to action (Build Up, 2021)
Bullitt Prize winner uses affordable housing to fight climate change (Crosscut, 2021)
Energy efficiency no longer enough: Next big challenge for green building (Fast Company, 2021)
What do new climate action plans say about buildings (Medium, 2020)
Architectures carbon problem (Blueprint for Better)
Clean Energy Articles
A roadmap to 100% clean electricity by 2035 (Evergreen Collaborative)
Powerhouse: startup making solar the most accessible energy in the world (Guardian, 2021)
Why covering canals with solar panels is a power move (Wired, 2021)
Why major unions are wary of the move to wind and solar jobs (Vox, 2021)
Ignoring pandemic, Americans installed record solar and wind energy (CBS News, 2021)
Detroit affordable housing project will give renters benefit of solar ownership (Bloomberg, 2021)
Solving America’s solar inequality starts in the neighborhood (Bloomberg, 2021)
Inside clean energy: Racial inequity in clean energy and how to fight it (Inside Climate News, 2020)
DC spreads solar benefits through ‘Solar for All’ (Bay Journal, 2020)
Emissions and Pollution Articles
Lights Out Philly program seeks to limit night lighting to support bird migration (Guardian, 2021)
American cities are seriously underreporting their carbon footprints (Mother Jones, 2021)
Ironbound unyielding: Newark neighborhood takes on a toxic trash incinerator (Earthjustice, 2021)
The case against gas in our homes (Sightline Institute, 2021)
How the fossil fuel industry convinced Americans to love the gas stove (Mother Jones, 2021)
Fighting clean air in one of Seattle’s most polluted neighborhoods (Crosscut, 2019)
Energy Politics and Infrastructure Articles
After championing greener building codes, local governments lose right to vote (Huffpost, 2021)
Blackouts show US deeply unprepared for the climate crisis (Guardian, 2021)
Black households spend almost 50% more on utilities than white households (Grist, 2020)
San Francisco latest city to ban natural gas in new buildings (Inside Climate News, 2020)
Fearing for its future, a big utility pushes ‘renewable gas,’ urges cities to reject electrification (Inside Cilmate News, 2019)
Mobility and Transportation Articles
Plan to expand Texas highway stalled over environmental racism concerns (Guardian, 2021)
Stacy Abrams helped Georgia go Blue. Now she wants to help it go Green (Grist, 2021)
Experts identify ‘super plant’ that absorbs roadside air pollution (Guardian, 2021)
‘People should be alarmed’: Air pollution in US subway systems (Guardian, 2021)
Verified: More parking puts more cars on the road (Sightline Institute, 2021)
How SUV’s conquered the world - and ruined the environment (Mother Jones, 2020)
Uber and Lyft: convenient, competitive, and highly carbon intensive (Inside Climate News, 2020)
Need a school bus? There’s an electric vehicle for that (Grist, 2020)
Parks and Green Infrastructure Articles
Measuring equity through city trees (Yes! Solutions Journalism, 2021)
Parks combat summer heat, But not everyone has equal access. (Grist, 2020)
Tree deaths in urban settings are linked to leaks from natural gas pipelines below streets (Inside Climate News, 2020)
Urban Planning Articles
Three cities switch to life affirming economies (Yes! Solutions Journalism, 2021)
Cities across Europe are making space for nature (Yes! Solutions Journalism, 2021)
How Cascadia has faltered in addressing climate change (Crosscut, 2021)
Climate change is slowly turning our cities into saunas (Mother Jones, 2021)
You can’t take on climate change without tackling sprawl (Grist, 2019)
Water and Sewer Articles
Why Hawaii's seawalls are doing more harm than good (Grist, 2021)
More than 25m drink from the worst US water systems,Latinos most exposed (Guardian, 2021)
‘If white people were still here, this wouldn’t happen’: the majority-Black town flooded with sewage (Guardian, 2021)
Poor living amid sewage is ‘the final monument of the Confederacy’ (Guardian, 2021)
People of color more likely to live without piped water in richest US cities (Guardian, 2020)
NJ's living in public housing confront financial hardship and rising tides (NJ Advance Media, 2020)
Podcasts
Access to Nature Podcasts
National Parks Adapt to Climate Change (America Adapts)
Abolition and the outdoors (Raíces Verdes, 2020)
Adaptation and Planning Podcasts
It’s not inevitable this will be unjust: Q & A with Shalanda Baker on energy justice (WBUR, 2021)
Remarkable cities and the fight against climate change (People Places Planet Podcast, 2020)
Cool cities: A/C ordinances, the hot new trend in fighting extreme heat? (People Place Planet Podcast, 2020)
Building a resilient tomorrow (Climate One, 2020)
Zero Emissions Cities (Climate One, 2020)
Architecture and Design Podcasts
Landscape Architects Adapt to Climate Change (America Adapts, 2017)
Where life meets design (Climate One, 2019)
Redesigning built environments for life rather than machines (Green Dreamer)
Using biomimicry for more bioregionally appropriate architectural design (Green Dreamer)
How living walls and biophilic design improve productivity and wellbeing (Green Dreamer)
Transportation Podcasts
Gas stations and the transition away from gasoline (People Places Planet Podcast, 2021)
What’s holding back electric vehicle adoption in the US? (Esri and the Science of Where, 2020)
Transportation for communities (Climate Conversations, 2017)
Realizing the future of green roads and transport infrastructure (Green Dreamer)
Water and Sanitation Podcasts
Turning a blind eye to small drinking water systems (People Places Planet Podcast, 2020)
On the sanitation inequality at the heart of “waste” (Climate Pod, 2020)
Workin’ at the waterless carwash (People Place Planet Podcast, 2019)
Videos
How 100% clean energy could power our towns and cities (Grist, 2021)
Extreme heat is worse in redlined communities (Grist, 2020)
The case for wooden skyscrapers (Grist, 2019)
America’s largest irrigated crop is in your yard (Grist, 2019)
After Sandy, Hoboken rebuilt itself for climate change (Grist, 2019)
My house is a superfund site (Grist, 2017)
Detroit’s unaffordable water hints at a crisis to come (Grist, 2017)
The key to fighting climate change and mortality? Walkable cities (Grist, 2016)
US public transportation sucks and this is why (Grist, 2015)
Sustainable community development: From what’s wrong to what’s strong (Cormac Russell, 2015)
Websites
American Cities Climate Challenge (Bloomberg Philanthropies)
Antioch University Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience
Building Electrification Institute
Buildings and climate change adaptation: A call to action (Build Up, 2021)
Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network