Your grandmother loves to take you walking downtown, pointing out her favorite architecture. She helped build this city, and still it’s always changing. In her childhood, she tells you, homes and buildings regularly fell victim to things like hurricanes, fires, floods, blizzards — which were worse back then. People had to rebuild, and they kept rebuilding the same way, while the storms got stronger, the seas higher. She tells you of this for the umpteenth time.
“And why was that, Gran?” You ask, knowing the answer.
She smiles. “Because they only wanted to keep nature out, instead of working with it.”
— a drabble by Claire Elise Thompson
The spotlightGlobally, our built environment contributes around 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. Both construction and the energy it takes to maintain buildings pose a problem for the health of our climate. But shelter is one of our most basic needs — and the homes and businesses that we rely on are also vulnerable to climate impacts.
Wildfires, floods, and other increasingly frequent extreme weather e... Read more
