14 Green (and Blue) Infrastructure Examples to Protect and Clean our Cities
The next catastrophic coastal storm is not a question of if, but when.
This article is a playbook of green infrastructure strategies for how we can prepare.
In doing so, we can also transform our coastlines to provide cleaner air and waterways, improve our health, and increase access to nature in cities.
The Kind of Problem Coastal Protection Is: One We’re Bad At Planning For
Even if we know it’s coming, why have we historically struggled to prepare for storms? Of course, there are a lot of reasons. One that I’ll put forth comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
In this book: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbably, he discusses how events that seem unlikely shape our world. Climate change and coastal storms, are the perfect example of that.
As Taleb argues, these “black swan” events are hard to plan for, even if we know they’ll come eventually. Taleb writes, “[The black swan] illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge.”
We can take in Taleb’s lesson now and start preparing today.
The current landscape of green infrastructure projects and the excitement from so many scientists, activists, professors, students, and regular citizens gives me hope.
Right now, lots of people are spending their precious days working on solving this problem. We just jump off of their work and support it.
In this article, I want to take you on a tour of cool examples of green (and blue) infrastructure.
I want to give a special thanks to Paul Galley At Columbia University’s Climate School and their work on the Resilient Coastal Communities Project. I’ve taken from their writing and research. In many ways, I’ve just repackaged it.
So if you want to go further with this, I recommend seeing more of what Columbia’s RCCP is working on.
I also want to thank a former professor of mine at New York University, Karen Holmberg. In our class “NYC Coastlines,” she showed me how important this problem is and how exciting solving it can be.
The Intersectional Benefits of Green Infrastructure
Green infrastructure is not just about the next storm. Let’s go over the benefits.
Save Cities from Serious Flooding and Existential Threats
This is the obvious one. Rising sea levels are an existential threat to cities, at this point the rise is inevitable.
Of course, we need to combat climate change at the root of the problem. But we also must prepare for the reality that we’ve failed to do so. Some cities will be abandoned entirely. By preparing, we can mitigate (not eliminate) the damage.
Cities can not afford not to prepare for these changes. Otherwise, that city will not exist anymore.
(For a cool fiction read on what this might look like, I really enjoy Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140.)
Note: this and other book links are affiliate links to Bookshop.org. This supports independent bookstores and me. Don’t buy from Amazon, as they’re one of the leading contributors to our climate crisis.
Cleaner Air: Fighting Asthma in Vulnerable Communities
With more green infrastructure, we’ll clean the air. That’s what plants do. This is a win for everybody, but especially the most polluted communities. For example, The South Bronx waterfront is currently used for industrial pollution like waste disposal and power plants. It’s inaccessible to residents.
Add the two highways and three bridges, and over 20% of kids in the South Bronx have asthma. Regardless of the rising sea level threat, this is an injustice we must address.
Integrating an accessible waterfront with green infrastructure will do exactly this. For more an exact plan for this region, check out what one community group, South Bronx Unite, has envisioned for their Waterfront.
Cleaner Water: Reducing Sewage Runoff and Reviving Ecosystems
In New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and other coastal cities, when it rains more than one inch, the sewer system risks overflowing. These cities then send raw untreated sewage into their Harbors.
More green infrastructure would absorb water into the soil and keep it out of the sewer system. It would clean the water on a regular basis.
Second, various living coastline ideas directly involve cleaning the water, like oysters and mussels, which I’ll talk about later. It will directly revive waterfront ecosystems.
Cooler Temperatures: Mitigating Urban Heat Islands
Cities suffer from the “urban heat island” effect that makes them extra hot. That’s because cities have lots of concrete and asphalt, which absorb heat, and lack tree cover which provide shade and cool the air through water evaporation.
Green infrastructure combats all of these city-heating problems.
Carbon Sequestration: A Natural Climate Solution
By definition, green infrastructure involves living plants, which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. While no single solution can solve the climate crisis, carbon sequestration through green infrastructure plays a crucial role.
More Green Space: Improved Physical and Mental Health
As in the South Bronx example, building green infrastructure often means creating waterfront parks. Access both to green space and to waterfronts has been shown to improve mental well-being.
All kinds of green infrastructure projects provide spaces for recreation, relaxation, and community-building.
Economic Benefits: Saving Money and Creating Jobs
As I write this, the United States is reeling from the devastating consequences of hurricanes Helene and Milton. Some reports put the economic costs at $50 billion each. This is a staggering amount of money.
There’s no doubt that green infrastructure for big cities — if done right — will require investments in the billions. However, it will cost us much less to prepare than to repair.
As one example New Rochelle has put the entire cost of their 2024 storm mitigation at $350 million. This won’t be the full cost, I’m sure. But less than a billion compared to $50 billion is pennies.
These projects can also create jobs in design, construction, and ongoing maintenance, boosting local economies while protecting communities.
Energy Savings: Cooling Buildings, Reducing Costs, Reducing Fossil Fuel Use
Green roofs, trees, and other green infrastructure can also lead to energy savings. By naturally cooling buildings in the summer, green infrastructure reduces the need for air conditioning. This saves all of us money on our energy bills.
It also reduces our fossil fuel use. For example, in New York City, there are several fossil fuel power plants that only get turned on during days of “high demand.” These are the hottest days of the summer, when everybody who can uses air conditioning. These high-demand plants are often the most polluting.
Environmental Justice: Addressing Inequities in Vulnerable Communities
Green infrastructure is also a tool for addressing environmental justice.
Again I’ll turn to the South Bronx. Low-income and marginalized communities are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including flooding, poor air quality, and extreme heat.
Let’s Go Through Real-World Examples of Green Infrastructure
Here are examples that are actually happening and how you can help out. Join me on a tour around the New York City Harbor (and the world) to check these out.
Across these examples, there’s really one overarching theme: We need more green space and living creatures, and less concrete and dead space.
1. Rain Gardens & Bioswales
Bioswales are shallow, vegetated channels built along streets or other urban areas. They’re built to capture, filter, and absorb rainwater.
They’re most commonly a landscaped trench, but they take many forms.
The plants in bioswales are often selected for their ability to thrive in wet conditions and assist in the filtration process.
Here’s one I saw walking around New York.
You may also see them called “rain gardens.” In particular, I want to call out these curbside rain gardens.
Normally, when rain hits the concrete, it gets channeled toward the sewer drain. On rainy days, this risks overflowing so the city discharges it along with our waste (yuck). On flood risk days, the sewer tops out.
A curbside rain garden instead channels that water into a garden and into the soil. This keeps it out of the sewer system entirely, therefore helping water drain more effectively on rainy days.
Regardless of the form, the key characteristic is they’re designed to capture and absorb as much rainwater as they can, combatting flooding.
How to Make it Happen
Bioswales are basically a trench with plants, so this is one where you can do it as a community project. Community gardens could consider making a bioswale, if they have enough space.
There’s also popular to implement when redesigning parks. So if you know your community has plans to add or improve parks, bring up bioswales.
Similarly, if you’re repaving a sidewalk, or even if you’re not, bring up the idea of curbside rain gardens. At scale, they can absorb a lot of rain. You could retrofit existing sidewalk gardens, or better yet, turn existing concrete sidewalk into a curbside rain garden.
2. Porous Pavements
Porous pavements, also known as permeable or pervious pavements, are a type of hard surface that allows water to pass through rather than running off into storm drains. This technology is designed to mimic natural ground surfaces, such as soil or gravel, which naturally absorb rainwater.
Of course, this helps during flood events, but it also keeps ordinary rainwater out of the sewer system, preventing sewage discharge and improving the water quality.
They can also reduce runoff and therefore erosion of other green spaces.
Like pavement, you can still drive over them.
Similar: Pourous Turf
A similar version of this is porous turf. You have the turf on top soil, rocks, or whatever else underneath to allow the rain to filter easily into the ground.
How To Make it Happen
Getting porous pavements installed will likely happen on a local political level. New York City is installing them as part of their green infrastructure program.
From a political strategy lens, these are a lighter political lift than other measures because they don’t take away space for cars, but still provide rainwater management benefits. The downsides are cost and maintanence, as they can get clogged by debris.
If you want these in your neighborhood, it’s a great idea to bring up at your next local community board meeting.
3. Bluebelts
This one you may call “blue infrastructure,” but there’s lots of green in it too.
Many coastal cities used to be filled with marshes and wetlands.
Bluebelts you can think of as functioning like a rain garden does, but on a bigger scale. Bluebelts are big, park-like spaces designed to capture, filter, and direct stormwater through a series of wetlands, streams, and ponds that closely mimic natural wetlands.
Rather than just a little garden, a bluebelt involves engineering wetlands and streams. They’re made in a way that, when it rains, the water is channeled so that it connects to the bluebelt.
They are also great habitats for all kinds of life. Many bluebelts focus on restoring and preserving native wetlands, which support a variety of plant and animal species.
Staten Island gets a point over the other boroughs for this one. They began instituting bluebelts in the 1990s.
How to Make This Happen
This one is going to be a bigger infrastructure project, for sure. These are the types of projects that will take local government support and several years of planning and construction.
But, as our sewer systems continue to prove to be insufficient, they’re an important idea to keep in mind for big projects that restore wildlife and mitigate flood risks. If you’re interested in this, talk to the folks out in Staten Island.
If you’re intrigued by this one, I’d ask what yourc costal city used to be. Did it have wetlands and streams before? If so, it’s a great candidate for adding bluebelts.
4. Green Roofs
Cities have lots of buildings. And those buildings have roofs. Those roofs should be filled with green spaces. They could be flower gardens, vegetable gardens, or a combination.
Right now, only a tiny amount do of our city roofs have any kind of green space. This means there’s a huge opportunity for this.
Green roofs can absorb rainwater, help create more high quality soil, grow plants that clean the air and sequester, provide habitats for pollinators and microrganisms, and even feed the people who live in those very buildings.
How to Make Green Roofs
There are several ways to do this one.
Ask Your Landlord
Maybe you live in a situation where you can ask your landlord about implementing one, or if you can implement one.
You could make your own garden on the roof, even. Today, as we speak, there are city dwellers growing their own food that they eat on their own roof.
On the big side, get some inspo from Brooklyn Grange, who have a full-on community-supported agriculture program on their large roof gardens.
But on a small scale, it could be you. Set up a few raised beds on your concrete roof and grow some vegetables or other plants.
Push For Laws That Make Them Required
If you go on any building in New York City made since late 2019, you’ll see lots of plants. That’s because it’s a law for new developments to include green roofs. It’s part of the city’s Climate Mobilization Act.
I live in a new building, and we have lots of vegetation. We get lots of bees and a few butterflies too. This wouldn’t exist without this legislation.
For more on green roofs, you can check out my article on them.
5. Parks and Gardens
Up until now, I’ve talked about the solutions that will make local news headlines. But green infrastructure can be as simple as replacing any asphalt or concrete with green space. We need more parks and gardens. Period.
The history of community gardens in New York, which I talk about in this article on the benefits of community gardens, was about residents taking control of the neighborhood for themselves. The city had left empty lots abandoned, often on fire. The people cleaned up the rubble and turned them into gardens.
Many U.S. cities just don’t have enough parks. And if real estate values around New York’s Central Park are any indication, people want parks.
How Do We Get More Parks and Gardens?
The principle is we need to take away space from concrete covered spaces and give them back to the earth.
Take Back Space From Car Infrastructure
Cars are huge and don’t move very many people, so in cities they’re a disastrous use of valuable land. In New York, the least car-dependent city in the U.S., it’s 75% of all public space.
From parking lots, to wide roads, we should think about how we can take back city spaces from cars and give it back to people. For a model of this in action, Transportation Alternatives has what they call the 25×25 plan.
They want to give 25% of this space back for people, the equivalent of size of more than 13 Central Parks.
This is one more reason why things like investing in better public transit, safer sidewalks, and better bike infrastructure are important: they move more people with much less space, and without polluting the air we all breathe in cities. This would free up space for all kinds of sidewalk gardens and even entire parks if we’re able to rethink highway interchanges.
It would also decrease the need for parking. Any surface parking lot, with less of a need for cars, could become a garden.
The amount of space cars take up is just one more problem with them, as I discuss in this article.
Guerrilla Gardening
Another strategy is to just go add green space yourself. I’ve done some guerrilla gardening. See an empty sidewalk bed? Plant something. Go start a community garden on a vacant lot. Just plant stuff. More plants will improve the soil quality, making it better at absorbing rainwater, clean the air, and maybe feed yourself.
6. Rain Barrels!
Rain barrels are one of the simplest forms of green infrastructure. They’re barrel-shaped containers that collect and store rainwater, preventing it from flowing directly into storm drains and overwhelming the sewer system.
By capturing runoff, rain barrels help reduce the amount of untreated water that ends up in rivers and bays, improving overall water quality.
New York doesn’t have a drought problem, so we don’t use it to water the garden. However, in theory you could use it for that. In places that are drought-prone, a few rain barrels could help with this.
Using rain barrels is among the simplest green infrastructure ideas that just about anyone can implement. Bring it up to your green roof. Add them around outdoor dining spaces. Put one in your driveway.
7. Stormwater Planters
Compared to a rain garden, think of these like a below-ground pool (a rain garden) compared to an above ground pool (a stormwater planter.) They could be giant pots or made from any reused metal container.
Like a rain barrel, they’re easier to make and don’t require advanced planning and permits. Yet, they’re still mini gardens that make healthy soil, sequester carbon, and collect rainwater.
You can make them out of anything, as long as they’ll hold soil and water.
How to Make it Happen
There’s a lot I could say about this. But one way, as we’ve seen is to advocate for street “daylighting,” where you take away the last parking spot at intersections and put planters there. That’s the case with this photo.
Another way at scale is to advocate for car-free streets. For example, the 14th St busway has lots of planters. You can read about this case study here.
8. Spreading Grounds
Think of a spreading ground like a giant rain barrel. The main idea is to capture the water to use it later. For that reason, it’s a flood mitigation strategy suited to places prone to droughts.
Due to climate change, places that once got more consistent rain now get more of the extremes: droughts followed by storms. Spreading grounds capture this rain from storms and stores it.
You won’t find spreading grounds in NYC, but you will find 30 of these in LA county.
The bigger the better, so they’re not as suited for dense city neighborhoods.
The idea is to send the rainwater to areas where it can sift layers of soil and gravel, filtering out pollutants naturally as it seeps downward and replenishing groundwater supplies.
How to Make it Happen
Because these are big spaces, and also require some engineering, it’s the type of green infrastructure that will have to happen on a political level. If you live in a drought-prone area, bring this up at your next local community board meeting.
9. Tree Canopy Expansion
This is a fancy term for more trees, specifically, more big trees.
More big trees create a “canopy” effect, where, when you look up, you’re shaded by trees more of the time. In additional to all the typical benefits like cleaner air and better soil to absorb rainwater, tree canopies are uniquely suited to cool us off.
This is for two reasons:
- More shadeBig trees provide a “canopy” effect where you’re covered by shade as you walk.
- Combat the “urban heat island effect.”We’ve already talked about this, but trees cool the air because of evapotranspiration. Concrete absorbs it and makes it hotter outside.
Because of this, effective tree canopies are like natural air conditioning. According to a report by the USDA’s Forest Service, an average healthy tree is equivalent to ten room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day.
This save our personal energy bills in the summer. It also lessons the need for energy use which are often still powered by fossil fuels like natural gas. Even if your grid does use renewables, there are still environmental downsides to running the AC.
The downside of this green infrastructure method is that it’s slow. Trees take a long time to get big enough to provide us with that canopy shade.
How to Make This Happen
Medellín has successfully created a tree canopy through entire neighborhoods, and have in total added millions of plants. This is through city programs.
When you walk around, it feels cool and it feels like you’re in nature, even though you’re in a city.
It will take a political effort like this. But it won’t necessarily be that expensive, and has obvious benefits (who would be against trees?) so it’s a winnable battle.
In New York City, new local laws on the books have led to planting of thousands of trees.
If you see empty sidewalk gardens… hey I’ll leave the guerrilla gardening up to you. However, remember that trees can get big, so if you don’t know what you’re doing in terms of how it’ll affect the area around it, I wouldn’t. Don’t do this without consulting tree experts!
10. Basket Willow Designs
This is a personal example to me, because it’s something I do! This summer, I met an artist and green space activist Aresh “Earth” Javadi, plants and weaves a willow shrub called the “basket willow,” plants them into all kinds of designs.
He has made huts that act as a sort of playground and relaxation space. Together we’ve planted small structures in empty sidewalk gardens.
They grow fast too, so you can trim and propagate them, making even more willow structures. make it more actionable than planting a tree and waiting 10+ years.
Aresh has grand plans to even make entire bus shelters out of these. Because they bend easily but don’t break, the artistic potential for these is unlimited. Here’s a mock-up from Aresh.
How to Make it Happen
First, send me a message, and I can connect you with Aresh how to get the materials and the techniques, which aren’t as hard as they seem.
Second, go do it. I outline exactly how in this blog on creating a willow spiral in a South Bronx sidewalk garden.
11. Mangrove Restoration
This green infrastructure is for tropical areas. This underscores the importance of curating your green infrastructure solutions to the specific place.
Mangroves act as a buffer between land and sea, absorbing wave energy during storms.
What you won’t see about the mangroves is the power of their roots. As this research articles in Nature puts it, “The aerial roots of a mangroves forest retain sediments, stabilizing the soil of intertidal areas and reducing erosion.” By helping reduce erosion and beefing up the soil, they directly protect waterfront ecosystems.
They’re also really good at sequestering carbon. One June 2024 study observed that they store greater at a rate 4-5 times greater than boreal, temperate, and tropical highland forests.
Sadly, as they have been wiped out in favor of monocrop agriculture land and giant beach houses, coastal cities in places like Florida have lost their natural mangrove protection.
If a city like Miami has any chance, it’s going to need its mangroves back.
How to Make This Happen
Restoring mangroves requires community involvement and policy support. It can start with something as simple as a local initiative to plant new saplings in suitable areas. Larger scale projects involve wetland management, the protection of existing forests, and enforcement against deforestation.
In a state like Florida, where the governor still actively denies climate change, it may take a grassroots movement.
If you live in a region where mangroves thrive, get involved in local efforts to support their restoration or protect existing mangrove forests.
Blue Infrastructure
Of course, there’s overlap between what’s “blue infrastructure” and what’s “green infrastructure.” Functionally, it’s similar. I’ll just define it as stuff that focuses on water.
12. Oysters and Other Shellfish
New York, and many other east coast cities, use to be home to countless oysters. They were a cheap, nutritious food source and superstars of cleaning our harbors. As we polluted the waters, they all but died out.
This story is told brilliantly in this fun read, The Big Oyster, which is also a great book on the history of New York City.
Like the mangroves in tropical places, we’ll need to bring the oysters back to our cooler coastal cities.
Oysters offer two major environmental benefits: water purification and shoreline protection.
- Cleaner Water: Oysters are natural filter feeders. Each oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, removing pollutants from the water. This helps improve water quality and clarity, which supports other marine life.
- Flood Protection: Just like mangroves, oyster reefs act as a natural barrier against coastal erosion and storm surge. Oyster reefs break up wave energy before it reaches the shore, reducing the impact of storms and helping to prevent flooding. These reefs also stabilize the seabed, which can help protect coastal infrastructure. Unlike seawalls or bulkheads that degrade over time, oyster reefs can grow and adapt, making them a sustainable and long-lasting solution for coastal resilience.
Maybe where you live, oysters aren’t the star of the shellfish show. Mussels and clams provide similar benefits.
How to Make This Happen
I also have a personal connection to this on. In college, I took a class where we took field trips to the epicenter of fighting to restore oysters to the New York Harbor: Governors Island. This small island that’s a short ferry ride from downtown is home to the Billion Oyster Project, a nonprofit working to bring oysters back.
If you want to help out, I highly recommend signing up for one of their volunteer days. They’re a fun time and a great way to join the fight with your own bare hands.
For more on oysters as flood protection, I also recommend this New Yorker piece, The Seas Are Rising. Could Oysters Help?
13. Daylighting Streams
In our cities we have filled in, diverted, or shifted many longstanding waterways. Some were paved over, others we diverted into pipes.
“Stream daylighting” is the process of removing the obstructions and restoring the streams.
This is happening all over the country. In New York, Tibbetts Brook in the Bronx is getting daylighted. There are several benefits to stream daylighting.
- Flood Mitigation: By returning streams to the surface, we create more space for water to flow naturally and be absorbed into the ground, reducing the risk of flooding. The stream’s banks can be landscaped with plants that absorb excess water, further improving flood resilience.
- Water Quality Improvement: Daylighting streams allows water to flow through natural environments where vegetation and soil can filter pollutants. As the water travels through the open stream, it’s naturally cleansed, resulting in cleaner water that eventually reaches larger bodies like rivers, lakes, or oceans.
- Ecosystem Restoration: Uncovering streams brings back habitats for fish, amphibians, and other wildlife. It reintroduces natural landscapes into cities, creating green corridors that support biodiversity.
How to Make This Happen
Daylighting projects often require significant planning and coordination, as they can involve removing pavement, rerouting infrastructure, and restoring natural landscapes. Start by identifying buried streams in your area. Many daylighting efforts begin with community advocacy, pushing for projects that enhance public spaces and address flood concerns.
This is a great example in this spirit of urban rewilding.
14. Restoring Floodplains
Floodplains are low-lying areas adjacent to rivers or streams that naturally absorb excess water during heavy rainfall or snowmelt. When left intact, they act as a natural sponge, soaking up water to reduce the risk of flooding downstream.
Like our streams and rivers, many floodplains have been paved over or developed, limiting their ability to serve this crucial function. It provides all the same benefits too.
Like spreading grounds, they can also help replenish groundwater supplies. When floodwaters are absorbed into the floodplain, they seep down through the soil, recharging underground aquifers that supply drinking water.
How to Make This Happen
Restoring floodplains often involves removing levees, dams, or other barriers that restrict a river’s natural flow. It can also include reforesting the area with native plants and creating wetlands to help manage excess water. Community engagement is crucial**,** as it often requires balancing the needs of flood control, land use, and conservation.
Successful examples of floodplain restoration can be seen in projects like the Napa River Flood Protection Project in California, which has restored thousands of acres of floodplain while also providing public parks and trails.
What About “Gray Infrastructure?” The Misguided Promise of Building Walls
The first thought for coastal flood resilience may be a simple one: why not build a wall?
I learned that the U.S. Army Corps had a similar thought, and built a plan to surround the harbor with walls to protect New York from storm surges.
But “gray infrastructure,” like seawalls and storm surge barriers, has a ton of problems. Let’s go through them.
They Do Not Address the Issues That Lead to Storm Surges
Compared to green infrastructure, gray infrastructure is a reactive solution, not a preventative one. It’s a one-dimensional approach to flood protection.
It seeks to block water that’s already rising, rather than addressing the root causes of worsening storms and rising sea levels—climate change and environmental degradation. Green infrastructure does it all. It lessons the impact of storm surges while also addressing many of the factors driving them.
It’s Prohibitively Expensive
The Army Corps’ plan for New York City came with an estimated price tag of $52 billion dollars. This staggering cost would be spent on a project with a limited scope of benefits.
For that same investment, cities could restore wetlands, plant thousands of trees, improve stormwater management, and upgrade other green infrastructure systems that offer more value over time.
It’s not a good use of money compared to the green infrastructure options.
They Block Off the Waterfront from Residents
Flood walls and other gray infrastructure cut off access to the waterfront, creating a physical and psychological barrier between communities and their natural surroundings.
Being near water, also known as “blue space,” has been shown to reduce stress, improve mood, and enhance overall well-being. Physical activities like walking, jogging, cycling, and kayaking along waterfronts encourage healthier lifestyles.
It also fosters a connection with nature and marine life. When people experience natural areas firsthand, they are more likely to support conservation efforts and engage in activities that protect the environment.
In contrast, green infrastructure solutions allow communities to retain — and even improve — access to the water while providing natural flood protection.
It Only Delays Problems, It Doesn’t Solve Them
Building walls only pushes the problem into the future. Over time, sea levels will continue to rise, storms will get more intense, and the walls will need to be made taller and stronger, leading to a cycle of continuous upgrades and escalating costs.
It’s a band-aid.
Do Flood Walls Have a Place?
Do band-aids have their uses? Sure. Floods walls can be useful for critical infrastructure like hospitals, power plants, or airports, where even temporary flooding would be catastrophic. Walls can be a useful tool for directing water away from these areas or buying time for evacuation.
However, flood walls should be seen as just one small piece of the broader puzzle, rather than the entire solution.
Mitigation is Not a Substitute for Halting Climate Change
While mitigation strategies like flood protection and stormwater management are essential for adapting to the realities of climate change, they should never be mistaken for a comprehensive solution. Addressing the root causes of climate change—primarily our dependence on fossil fuels—is crucial.
Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry and its political allies often use mitigation to distract us from root causes.
Transformation, Not Resilience
Dr. Genevieve Guenther discusses this rhetorical slight of hand in her book, The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It.
She writes, “People and institutions at the center of global power vaunt the idea of resilience in part because it elides the urgent need for systemic change.” She argues that they use it in order to argue that, with resilience, we don’t need to stop using fossil fuels.
Then she offers an alternative. “The term ‘resilience’ should be replaced by the word ‘transformation.’ For it is the transformation of our systems and ourselves, that will in the end preserve a livable future.
This applies to our green infrastructure as well. We’re trying to build resilience coastlines, yes, but we’re trying to transform them as well. A well-protected, prepared, and in-line with nature city coastline looks like more than adding a few plants or a wall and calling it a day.
The beautiful part is that we’re all going to love the transformation. We’re going to have more nature, more access to the water, cleaner air, cooler cities, more fresh food and local plants. It’s absolutely a win for everyone.
Think Big and Think Small
When it comes to climate action, think big and think small. Big changes, like advocating for urban policies that prioritize green infrastructure, are crucial for systemic progress. But the smaller, localized efforts are just as important.
As I’ve written about, it’s a false dichotomy to debate individual action vs systemic change.
The Future is in Our Hands
The technology is here. The opportunity is here. We just need to go do it. Let’s go build some green infrastructure.
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