Green Atlanta

“In Atlanta they are constructing a giant misbegotten organism that will almost certainly not be able to function far into the future. . . . Atlanta has become such a mess that really nothing can be done to redeem it as a human habitat.”- James Howard Kunstler

“Some places will fare better than others. The suburbs of Atlanta don’t seem to me to be a great place to be living right now.”- Bill McKibben, in response to a question about the best places to live in a warming world asked during a March 23, 2007 interview with Salon.com 

Record drought.  The unbearable heat of the summer of 2007.  The nearly complete absence of snow in the winters this century.  For Atlanta residents, like me, who believe the theory that global warming is happening, and that it is being caused by human activities, these are frightening developments.  And based on the theory, things are only going to get worse.

 Combine the growing feeling of dread with a look at the Downtown Connector, even on weekends, or a glance at another story about our state legislature’s basic resistance to any measure that would threaten the primacy of coal as the source of our energy, and the temptation to throw up one’s hands, to give up, becomes powerful.  And when a writer like Bill McKibben, who has improbably managed to be both clear-eyed and hopeful about the warming crisis for two decades, suggests that the best thing an Atlantan can do is to move, and quickly- well, how should one respond?

Rationally, of course, it is easy to agree with McKibben and Kunstler.  Do we really believe our traffic problems can be “solved”?  Is it possible to get our energy from a source that won’t make our problems worse?  Will we have enough to drink?  If and when the industrial food system begins to break down, can we muster the individual and collective will to plant in the suburbs and the city?  Without even considering the social and economic challenges our city is likely to face (which are by no means separate from our environmental problems), is the best thing we can do just move somewhere else and start over?

For someone with deep roots in the area, however, the response must also be somewhat emotional.  Pride is sometimes justified and sometimes justifiably ridiculed, but it is difficult for this writer to read the statements above without feeling defensive.  Undoubtedly the way that this city has developed has been misguided, certainly it has been very destructive, with that much it is easy to agree.  But the thing to do when a house is messy is not to pack and leave.  It is to clean up the mess.

In any event, there is not another option.  If Atlanta is irremediable, then so are hundreds, if not thousands, of other settlements in this country and others.  Depopulating these areas, as Kunstler mentions, and moving those populations elsewhere is simply not a possibility- what area of the globe today isn’t under severe environmental stress?  The only other way to depopulate Atlanta, of course, is by large numbers of deaths.  While this might be good for the environment, presumably no one wishes it. 

This blog will be an exploration of how we can begin to move (and are already moving) this city in another direction.  I hope to post two or three times a week on topics ranging from energy to transportation to land use to water, food and waste.  Comments on writers and books (McKibben’s Deep Economy certainly among them) that have informed my thinking may also be posted, as well as topics of general application (proposed federal greenhouse legislation, for example) that nevertheless are relevant to Atlanta’s environmental problems.  I will try to assume that readers do not have a lot of knowledge concering the issues I discuss, but hopefully more informed readers will find ideas of value here as well. 

The future, for us, will come with immense, unprecedented challenges.  I hope that this blog will be a way for me (and even you) to remain confident about our ability to overcome those challenges.

A few other notes:

First, solving our environmental problems can contribute to the solution of other problems as well.  One principle that is often discussed in environmental circles, where people are generally concerned with figuring out how to do more with less, is integrated design- the need to look at systems as a whole and to solve multiple problems at once (in contrast to solving a problem in one part of a system but, as a result, creating another problem elsewhere).  I will try to highlight other reasons besides “saving the environment” for pursuing a particular solution.

Second, the fact that the future will come with a lot of challenges necessarily means that there will also be a lot of opportunities.  Jane Jacobs writes persuasively about how urban economies work in The Economy of Cities, and one point she makes is that the enterprises that pursue innovation successfully are often small.  I will try to point out areas that might be opportunities for new businesses. 

Third, as our problems are not purely local, I will necessarily comment from time to time on issues that are national or global in scope but that affect life in Atlanta.

Fourth, if you don’t believe that human-induced global warming is occurring, or if you believe that it isn’t really a problem, then this blog is probably not for you.  This writer firmly believes, and the content on this blog assumes, that climate change and a myriad of other environment problems are realities, in many cases brought about by human activity and in every case demanding a human response.   

Finally, please be aware that the writer of this blog is an amateur.  I do not have a degree in urban planning, ecology, public policy or anything else particularly relevant.  What I seem to have is a concern about these issues and a desire to learn more.  So this blog will be as much an exploration for me as I hope it will be for you.

Maybe I’ve just watched too many movies, but I do believe that there is a future for this city, and that it can be beautiful.  If you believe (or want to believe) this too, please check in from time to time.  Thanks for reading.