Hurricanes show Calgarians danger of short-term thinking

First published in the Calgary Herald on Sunday, September 25, 2005 page A14

The world is on sustainability overload.  It is everywhere.  In all realms of society it is a virtue that is constantly and endlessly proclaimed.  Because of its universal appeal as a desirable state of existence, politicians, activists, businesses and organizations of all types, operating at local, national, international, and global scales, all utter the word at every possible opportunity as if its mere mention endows credibility to a particular interest.  On one hand the widespread realization of the desirability of sustainable systems is a good thing.  However, on the other hand, its omnipresence dilutes the serious consequences of present-day development decisions.  

A problem that makes the overload worse is misuse, often used as a deliberate tactic of associating an endeavor with sustainability’s desirable connotations, whether apt or not.  Agribusiness and logging interests have been using this tactic as part of a goodwill advertising campaigns for decades.  This ‘greenwashing’ creates uncertainty (or false certainty) in the minds of people not intimately familiar with the system of interest.  For example, what long term effects on the ecosystem will genetically modified crops have, if any?  Does “sustainable forestry” mean that the forests should be sustainable, which is one thing, or that the ability to extract trees for profit from the forest should be sustainable, which is quite another?  It is easy to see how equating the importance of the two could benefit certain interests.  In an age where image is everything, being thought of as sustainable has invaluable marketing appeal.

Adding to our weariness with sustainability is the fact that that there is no direct measurement of it.  As such its cachet can be hijacked as a ploy to create legitimacy or for purposeful misdirection.  As the sustainability of a particular system is dependent on its individual characteristics, there is no universal measurement of it.  This is why it is so easy to be confused as to what is actually at issue when the term is employed.  The kind of sustainability required by sustainable forestry, for example, is different than that required for sustainable forests.  The lack of agreed-upon criteria that can be empirically verified makes it practically impossible, especially for non-insiders, to discern between important and frivolous usages.  As such, intense political battles rage between opposing factions trying to claim the sustainability mantle and with it the legitimacy it evokes in the minds of the public.  Clearly, it is in the specific interest of the faux-sustainability crowd to keep the concept as fuzzy as possible so its impact can be easily diffused into the background noise of our frenetic world.  

Another reason for sustainability tedium is that the benefits of sustainable planning accrue not to the current rate payers who have to foot the bill for the up-front implementation costs and who already feel overtaxed, but by some faceless future generation, probably not even born yet.  Since the appearance of fiscal prudence is always attractive to politicians, especially those seeking re-election, the temptation to vote against projects whose initial costs are high and whose payoff is neither immediate nor tangible, is great.  So sustainability talk is not always followed by sustainability walk.  But despite the overuse, abuse, misuse, and indeterminacy inherent in sustainability discourse, it is crucially important to not lose sight of the true consequences of unsustainable planning at the scale of the city.  The tragic events precipitated by hurricane Katrina prove that to do so is perilous.  

The definition of sustainable is the ability of a system to persist, intact (or mostly so), indefinitely into the future.  Given the geographic circumstances of New Orleans – it is below sea level, it is surrounded on three sides by water, two of which are artificially constrained by man-made levees, and it is situated in hurricane alley – it has always been a certainty that sooner or later the city would be devastated in a natural catastrophe.  (Note how this is the very opposite of sustainable.)  

Despite this being common knowledge, development in New Orleans continued unabated.  Succeeding generations of investors, politicians, and citizens gambled with their money, reputation and their lives knowing that someday, someone was going to have to pay up.  This is the crux of the issue and the link to contemporary urban planning issues here and elsewhere.  Also, importantly, it is why we must see through the haze created by sustainability overload.  In the same way New Orleans continued to develop in the face of environmental reality, we continue to plan our cities without regard to our own future in which at least two vital resources, water (locally) and oil (globally), will be much scarcer and much more expensive. 
 

Exactly when the negative effects of scarce water and expensive oil (or other, unforeseen problems) will hit is unknown, but that they will is certain.  If our current trajectory of sprawl and low density development continues the consequences of being unprepared will be very painful.  If the aftermath of the hurricane proved anything it was how vulnerable we in cities are to disruptions in the transportation and communication lines that supply our vital needs, a realistic scenario at $200-a-barrel oil.  As we witnessed after Katrina scarce supplies of food, water, shelter, and sanitation caused the social situation among the stranded survivors to degenerate in a frightening way.  Without adequate preparation the same sorts of circumstances will again arise as the transition away from a fossil-fuel economy imposes itself on our lives.  In Calgary it will be made worse by what may be severe water shortages.  The point of sustainability planning is to avoid if possible and otherwise mitigate these appalling scenarios before they unfold.  

A second important point relating to disaster avoidance is cost.  As expensive as it may seem to implement sustainable design, it is always less costly to do this rather than to rehabilitate after a disaster.  Costs to clean up after Katrina are already estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars and it would not be surprising to find, when all is said and done, the final costs to be even higher.  From an economic perspective then sustainable planning is a winner.  For an investment of, say, 25 or 50 billion dollars, a substantial portion of the 250 or 500 billion dollars it is going to cost to rebuild could have been avoided and many lives and much property saved.  Problem avoidance by design is a much more cost-effective strategy than is problem-solving after the fact.  

Next, but not least, it is well known that natural coastal wetlands help mitigate the effects of extreme weather, however in Louisiana and, not coincidentally, in many of the countries affected by last December’s typhoon, most of these wetlands had been removed to make way for human development, beach front property or shrimp farms, or lost to pollution.  This brings about the realization that the preservation of natural systems need not be only for their sake, but for the sake of human beings as well – even though there may not be an immediate economic benefit realized from not cutting down a forest.  While we will never know what precise difference the retention of coastal wetlands may have made in any particular case, Gulf of Mexico or Indian Ocean, the savings in costs not paid would likely exceed by an order of magnitude the profit that forgone had the wetlands remained intact.

Around here we treat the agricultural and natural lands adjacent to the city in a similar way.  Arable farmland and productive range land, so vital to our economy, our environment, our food supply, and our traditions are considered in the urban development process as a cheap and endless resource.  As in the case of coastal wetland loss there is a double whammy.  As every hectare of green-field is developed not only is it taken out of production it also gets added to the inventory of expensive-to-maintain urban infrastructure.  And once the land has been converted it is gone forever.

Finally, the importance of not misplacing the sustainability debate is that we may be at the last moment in history when we can make an effective intervention to avoid the assured consequences of unsustainable planning and development.  As time passes, both the cost to fix problems and the number of problems needing fixing will increase a combination that will resign us to the status of victim as we wait, like they did in New Orleans, for a reckoning.  The time to act is now, because later may be too late. 

The question is will Calgarians of the future praise us, or curse us?  The answer depends on how we respond to the challenge of sustainable development today.