[Massplanners] The United States and Climate Change

[Carolyn Britt]

Thank you for sending this to us all.

I find it easier as a Planning Board member than as a planner to address 
issues about planning for a climate emergency. I am also Vice Chair of 
our local Climate Resiliency Committee, which has been successful in 
moving the town toward a Zero Carbon Resolution by 2040. The Planning 
Board in Ipswich has added provisions to our SP regulations and SPR 
requirements to present feasibility information on solar installations 
on site, have required EV hook-ups, and have encouraged every applicant 
for SP and SPR to consider fully electric buildings. We are having some 
success here. Having an active Electric Light Department helps. Perhaps 
it is easier also when the roads to both our beaches regularly flood at 
king tides.

If the content of this listserve is any indicator, the "planning 
community" has taken no position on the proposed changes to the building 
code (including a "net zero stretch code"), nor taken a position on or 
discussion of the energy bill currently in the final stages of its 
legislative consideration (or death throes?). This bill includes the 
option for only 10 communities to proceed to prohibiting fossil fuel 
hook-ups in new construction and major rehabilitation projects. The 10 
communities are those that have already passed home rule petitions on 
the matter.  Builders and developers have been actively working against 
it, seeing even 10 communities as a big problem. Those aware of the deep 
hole we are in originally pushed for a fully net zero building code that 
was required for all.

Please let me know if I am incorrect on the lack of planner involvement. 
I would also like to know what position other planners have been taking 
on the matters. I have participated as an advocate, and not as a 
professional planner.

I, like Mark and Christopher, look forward to a thought-provoking and 
lively discussion of the role of planners in reducing GHG emissions. I 
look forward to your considered replies.

Carolyn Britt, AICP

Ipswich Planning Board

PO Box 235, Ipswich MA 01938

978-356-9881

On 7/19/2022 9:48 AM, Mark Archambault via MassPlanners wrote:
>
> To Massplanners,
>
> The letter to the editor I post below, which I sent to the Boston 
> Globe recently, was prompted by my realization, recently reinforced by 
> the Supreme Court decision gutting the EPA’s authority to regulate 
> power plant emissions - that nothing will be done about climate change 
> in time to prevent the worst-case scenarios as modeled by climate 
> scientists.  I believe it’s pertinent because it has a bearing on what 
> we as Planners do every day.  If the economic growth we promote leads 
> to warming that contributes to societal collapse and ecological 
> meltdown in several decades, shouldn’t we be doing more to sound the 
> alarm and perhaps even, gasp, get political to a degree? Shouldn’t we 
> be advocating for a steady-state economy? It doesn’t seem to me that 
> we can decouple economic growth from intensive reliance on fossil 
> fuels, without a World War II type global mobilization to change the 
> way our economy is structured.  These thoughts prompted me to write 
> the following.  I sent it as a private citizen and didn’t mention my 
> profession.
>
> *Let’s Face It*:
>
> Let’s face it, the United States isn’t going to address the causes of 
> climate change in a timeframe that will matter. Between the Supreme 
> Court, all Senate Republicans and Senator Joe Manchin, the USA has 
> lost the last best opportunities to transition its economy from 
> over-reliance on fossil fuels (Build Back Better, the EPA Clean Power 
> Plan).  If the United States doesn’t take the lead on seriously 
> cutting its emissions, can we expect other countries to do better? 
> Consider that the extreme heat waves, wildfires, superstorms and 
> flooding we’re now seeing are with an increase of only 1.2 C in global 
> average temperatures over the pre-industrial climate. What will 
> conditions be like in two to three decades when the world hits the 
> ominous 2.0 C degree threshold, with an increase of at least 3.0 C 
> being likely by the end of the century?  Warming past 2.5 - 3 C will 
> likely feed on itself no matter the level of human emissions. The 
> World Bank has stated that warming of 4.0 C is ‘incompatible with 
> global civilization’.  Will humanity rise to the challenge or keep on 
> with a business as usual that will bring civilization and Nature to 
> its knees?
>
> Mark Archambault
>
> (Ayer Town Planner
>
> Town Hall, One Main Street
>
> Ayer, MA 01432)
>
>
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