Planning
Report: Local Planners Key to The Intermountain West Coping With Climate Change
A new study from the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute details tools local planners, especially those in the rural parts of the Intermountain West, can use to plan for a changing climate in the region.By Courtney Lowery, 2-10-10
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| A subdivision. Photo by Justin Cozart and used here under Creative Commons license. See more of Justin's work here. | |
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Local planners in the Intermountain West are the ones who could ultimately shape the way climate change effects the region, say the authors of a new report released this week by the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute.
State, regional and federal policies can still make an impact, yes, but the real impact happens on the ground, particularly in how our communities grow and especially how they use water, say the report’s authors, Rebecca Carter and Susan Culp.
“While policies at the federal, regional, and state levels serve as important guideposts for reaching sustainability, they require local implementation to be successful. In most communities, land use and transportation policies potentially reap the greatest rewards,” the authors write in the executive summary.
The report defines the Intermountain West as an 11-state region that includes Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and parts of California, Oregon, and Washington.
And, while the authors see great potential for local planners in helping Western communities cope with climate change, they acknowledge that they also face significant and unique challenges in doing so.
They write, “...these barriers may be more difficult to overcome in the Intermountain West where local planners must deal with political, demographic, economic, and geographic factors that can hinder innovative and potentially effective measures to offset climate change impacts. Such challenges may include a lack of political will, disbelief that local action can affect the big picture, perceived lack of peer communities in the region, lack of resources and options, and lack of appropriate climate science for planners.”
Susan Culp, of the Sonoran Institute, surveyed 50 government staff and elected officials in the region as part of the report and she found that in many places, planners are coming up against skepticism about climate change and a “significant” number of residents do not believe that climate change is human-caused.
So, local planners are finding other ways to talk about it.
“Western planners are emphasizing sustainability or economic efficiency, rather than climate change, in their decisions to manage water supplies, reduce energy consumption, increase transportation efficiency, and protect open space,” Culp said in a press release announcing the report.
In summary, the authors suggest the following to planners to help navigate the challenges:
- Mobilize the political will. Focus on sustainability, economic and energy efficiency, and the co-benefits of local actions, rather than politically controversial policies and goals.
- Recognize local action and citizen participation. Coordinate state and local activities to address climate change, and use public education about climate change impacts to foster citizen participation and buy-in for local programs.
- Establish peer community networks on a regional scale. Develop peer learning networks with guidance from state climate action plans and regional initiatives to help smaller communities share ideas and learn from each other.
- Identify resources and a variety of options. Refer to state climate action plans regionwide for a variety of strategies and ideas that communities can select and apply to their own needs and circumstances.
- Adapt climate science to local planning needs. Seek out current information and tools in reports, Web sites, and other resources that can help planners translate climate science for local use, and develop a baseline level of GHGs as a first step in measuring climate strategies and results.
Read the whole report, which includes case studies, here. (File downloads as a PDF)
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Comments
I suggest a "water cap", where if you use more water than "the nuclear family" of 2.2 kids, then you will have to pay a "big water user" tax on every gallon over the limit. So, if you are rich enough to have 9 kids, go ahead and "get busy". Industrial water users would have to conserve water, as well. Golf courses in Phoenix would get much fewer and much more expensive. Urban water parks will become more expensive than Sun Valley Ski Area. (I'm just rambling here...lol)
These water issues will be taking force MUCH sooner than anyone really thinks. Water shortages in the fall will become the norm, and car washing will be as regulated as woodstove use or lawn sprinklers. 30 million water users in the southwest will be feeling the severe impacts of dwindling water flows, due to catastrophic wildfires and barkbeetle attacks. Agriculture will suffer and prices will skyrocket. Wildlife will find more and more springs drying up. Perennial streams are turning into intermittants.
We'd better be planning well for these coming water emergencies. Some are starting to look into monstrous plans to build canals that would bring water from the east to supply the voracious thirst of "western civilization". Quite a few cities are mandating that drought-tolerant native plants be used for landscaping. Computerized watering systems with high-tech sprayers can save a lot of water. There is a lot we can do to conserve water.
It will be an interesting battle when limits on water do get imposed, household by household, regardless of how many people live there. Peak-hour water rates? "Smart-pipe" water grids? Aqua-Police? There WILL be unrest, if we don't plan for it.
A good start would be to eliminate swimming pools, fountains, things like that. The problem is we are always going to have the rich who feel only other people have to cut back. Look how ridiculous Gore is, flying around in a private jet telling folks they have to cut back on fuel consumption to the point of almost living in a cave, so he can have more I guess. I have read that the carbon footprint of Rajendra Pachauri is nearly equal to small towns because of his jet travel, but no one worries about his usage, including him obviously. Yet they want fuel prices out of the reach of ordinary folks instead of limiting themselves.
;^)