A water meter in Richmond, Virginia. Photo by Taber Andrew Bain, used under Creative Commons licensing.

 

Reposted from The Nature Conservancy's Cool Green Science blog. You’ve no doubt seen it all over the news: California is in the midst of its worst drought in its history.

And that media coverage has portrayed this drought as an extreme, unprecedented event. But it’s something more. The California water crisis is a harbinger of things to come.

Increasingly, cities around the world are going to have to deal with their own water crises. And the reason may not be what you think.

Climate change is driving part of this increased water scarcity, by changing the timing and amount of precipitation, snowmelt, and evaporation.

But my own research suggests that increase in human use is even more important globally: we are a thirsty species, and global use of water is increasing in all sectors (agriculture, industry, and municipal).

The growth of urban water demand is striking. We are in the midst of the greatest human migration in history, as more than two billion additional people move into cities.

Even when water is wisely used by cities, such a rapid and profound increase in urban population drives an increase in municipal water demand. What California cities are struggling with is something many cities will struggle with in the 21st century.

Water crises like the one in California are so challenging because our everyday rules governing water use are deeply dysfunctional.

The price paid by most urban water users doesn’t reflect the real value of water to human society, but at best helps the utility recoup the cost of piping water from its source and delivering it to residents.

Water is so cheap that half the buildings in Sacramento don’t even have water meters (and neither does my apartment in DC, for that matter). That doesn’t give residents much incentive to reduce water use.

Water for the agricultural sector is even cheaper: farmers in the Imperial Valley pay $20 per acre-foot of water to grow alfalfa, while nearby in San Diego the cost of a desalination plant to supply water to residents is almost a hundred times greater.

These perverse incentives for individuals carry over to the level of water utilities. Because of the California drought, water providers in California will sell less water this year, losing $600 million in revenue. This structure provides a strong incentive to utilities to sell as much water as they can.

This sort of arrangement is common for water utilities: the more water used, the more money they make.

An extreme event like the California drought can sometimes drive attention to the perverse incentives of our society’s rules for water.

Extreme events can sometimes even lead to reform of these rules. But to me the important question is: can the world’s cities be smart enough to act in advance of the crises?

It is very hard to change the incentives that govern water use, particularly if they mean that someone, somewhere has to pay more for water. But unless forward thinking cities plan for the future, the 21st century could be full of a dreary sequence of urban water crises.

Smarter policies are out there, and they aren’t rocket science. Some of these work by creating incentives to individual actors that encourage less water use by individuals.

For instance, cities could price water close to its true value, while also ensuring the poor and the environment still have sufficient access to water. Another possibility is to provide incentives so utilities do not get paid less if municipal residents consume less water.

We aren’t lacking smarter policy options but political will. For cities, gathering political will around water is easier said than done.

Some political scientist is going to look back in thirty years and write a fascinating study of which cities succeeded in this challenge and which failed. Some cities will be unable to act proactively, and suffer through some difficult times during the water crises.

Others will act proactively, and will be more successful in having a secure, stable supply of water for their citizens. Often the key to finding political will is avoiding an “us versus them” political showdown with one water user pitted against another. My favorite example: More than a decade ago, San Diego expanded its water rights. San Diego, rapidly expanding, needed more water.

They negotiated to purchase water rights from farmers in the Imperial Valley. The farmers got more money, and San Diego got more water. Neither got something for nothing, but both felt okay about the deal. To me, the San Diego story is an example of the art of the possible, finding a solution rather than bemoaning the imperfections of current water policy.

In California, and in hundreds of other cities globally, humanity will have to find some sort of urban water solution that works, even if it is a little ad hoc. We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

This post by Rob McDonald originally appeared on The Nature Conservancy blog. 

Golden Gate Heights in San Francisco, California. Photo © Daniel Hoherd/Flickr through a Creative Commons license

Zoning is often viewed as a friend of conservation. But could some zoning actually be detrimental to conservation goals?

It may seem almost heresy for environmentalists to argue for more development in certain places. But that’s exactly what I will argue in this blog. Let me explain.

On a recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, I saw a worrisome sight I often see in America cities. In North Berkeley, you can be just a few blocks from a Bay Area Rapid Transit station, which offers an easy 30-minute commute into downtown San Francisco.

And yet the neighborhood is single-family, detached homes that house relatively few people. Zoning has made it so, by prohibiting certain kinds of structures (apartment buildings, for instance) that could house way more people.

This is sometimes called exclusionary zoning, when the primary purpose is to restrict further development or change in a neighborhood. It’s a change from (arguably) the original purpose of zoning and building codes, which was to protect public health and safety (by preventing a factory with smokestacks being built next to residential housing, for instance). It’s also massively common in the United States- one study classified 80% of U.S. urban land as having minimum lot sizes that prevent more dense development. On some parcels, that may be quite appropriate, for environmental, health, or safety reasons. But it is striking that 4 out of 5 landowners are prevented from developing more densely, even if they wanted to.

Environmentalists have to tread carefully when discussing zoning codes. We want the government to be able to use zoning codes to protect public health, ensure access to public parks, and protect at least a few parcels of open space in a metro area. We want governments to be able to plan to make cities more walkable, greener, healthier places. So we respect and support strong zoning codes. Yet the massive exclusionary zoning in many cities has restricted housing supply near cities, pushing up prices there and contributing to urban sprawl, and the spread of new low-density neighborhoods in the fringes of urban areas.

One study I worked on in the Bay Area looked at this process. Parks in the Bay Area, while extensive, didn’t restrict the housing supply much, since land protection was overwhelmingly on sites that were either too steep or too wet to support dense development. The main limitation on housing supply was simply the large amount of area restricted by zoning to single family homes.

Suburban single family house development. Photo © Dan Reed/Flickr through a Creative Commons license

The Bay Area is actually denser already than many U.S. metro areas, and regional groups like the Greenbelt Alliance are actively trying to encourage infill development, increasing housing density within the urban footprint of a city rather than expanding the urbanized areas. The Association of Bay Area Governments has mapped places for infill development, and outlines changes to zoning and tax codes that could make infill development more possible. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has promoted transit-oriented development, to support this infill development. Despite all these efforts, I was struck during conversations in the Bay Area by how controversial infill development can be. Change is hard. It is hard for people to accept changes in neighborhoods they have come to know and perhaps love.

http://blog.nature.org/science/2015/09/30/environmentalists-development-houses-zoning-urban-sprawl-suburbs-conservation/Continue reading the full post here.

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Rob McDonald is a senior scientist for urban sustainability at The Nature Conservancy. He researches the impact and dependence of cities on the natural world, and is the lead scientist for much of the Conservancy’s urban conservation work. He currently leads a global team of scientists mapping where the cities of the world get their water, and evaluating their dependence on ecosystem services and their vulnerability to climate change. He authored the book Conservation for Cities (Island Press) which documents the role green infrastructure can play in the well-being of urban residents. Another major research interest is the effect of U.S. energy policy on natural habitat and water use.

Conservation for Cities author Rob McDonald reflects on a comment he received after giving a lecture at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to give a lecture at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale entitled "What Does Nature Have to Offer Cities During the Coming Massive Urbanization?" It was an engaged crowd of people from the university, community, and the general public. What I will remember most though about the experience was one person who was deeply, profoundly saddened by my talk.

After the talk, a man came up and said “I just wanted to let you know, that was the most depressing talk I have ever heard.” I laughed a little nervous laugh, but it was soon apparent from the man’s demeanor that we was serious. He explained that he found our species' urban future, the 2 billion more people who will move into cities in the next 30 years, to be a tragic shift of our attention away from the beautiful, wild, natural areas he holds dear. His point of view is common among environmentalists, who bemoan humanity’s increasing domestication of nature and dominion over the world. From this point of view, any increase in human population or urban area is a loss of something morally, and accepting that loss is merely surrender.

What saddened me was I clearly had failed to communicate in my talk that I too love wild nature. Indeed, one of the central themes of my book is both protecting the wild nature we have left while also making our cities livable, green places. This urban world is coming, and no amount of wishing by environmentalists will make it otherwise. I would rather fight to make that urban world beautiful and green, rather than impotently cursing its existence.

This post originally appeared on The Nature Conservancy's Cool Green Science blog and is re-posted with permission.

The Watershed Conservation Screening Tool. Image © TNC

How can municipal water utilities know where conservation will have the best results in improving water quality? We can now answer with confidence: There’s an app for that!

In fact, I was recently testing that web app on the banks of the Dead Sea in Jordan. That might seem like an unusual location, but the complexity of water conservation in Jordan – with an influx of more than 1 million Syrian refugees – illustrates well the opportunities and limitations of this new app.

Honestly, I never thought developing a web app would lead me to the banks of the Dead Sea. I came to Jordan to launch The Nature Conservancy’s Watershed Conservation Screening Tool, developed over the past several months by staff from TNC, the Natural Capital Project, and Arizona State University.

The International Water Association, the membership organization of many of the world’s water utilities, was kind enough to invite us to launch the web app at their annual congress, and so I somewhat surprisingly found myself on a plane to Jordan. Hundreds of people from all over the world gathered for the congress on the shores of the Dead Sea. And these folks, representing bulk water users, are the target audience for the Watershed Conservation Screening Tool.

The tool provides large water users, like municipal water utilities and industrial facilities, a quick way to evaluate the opportunity for source watershed conservation to help improve water quality. It focuses on sediment and nutrient pollution to surface water sources from so-called non-point sources, such as from agriculture or other human land-uses.

The tool will instantly provide, for any medium to large-scale watershed (anything bigger than a roughly 6 mile by 6 mile area), located anywhere on the globe, estimates of water quality impairment. More importantly, it then provides estimates of opportunities to improve water quality through five different conservation activities.

The utilities I met with have been uniformly supportive of what the tool does. Many of them want to think more about source watershed conservation, and view the tool as a useful first datum that might help inspire their organization to act.

But as one utility employee said to me, to know is not enough. Many utilities talked about the barriers that could stop them from implementing a source watershed conservation plan. Many felt they didn’t have the funding or capacity to work on source watershed conservation, or that there were political or regulatory impediments in their way.

Continue reading the full post here.

With the end of COP 21 and the signing of the historic Paris Agreement, it’s not just countries that are thinking about how to reduce emissions—individuals are reflecting on how their habits and actions impact climate change as well.

Island Press authors shared what they’re doing to reduce their carbon footprints and, in some cases, what more they could be doing. Check out their answers and share your own carbon cutbacks—or vices—in the comments. 

Jason Mark, author of Satellites in the High Country:
Very much like the Paris Climate Accord itself, ecological sustainability is a process, not a destination. Which, I'll admit, is a squirrely way of saying that I'm doing my best to reduce my carbon footprint. I ride my bike. I take mass transit. Most days my car never leaves the spot in front of our home. Most importantly, I have sworn off beef because of cattle production's disproportionate climate impact. The (grass-fed, humane) burger still has a siren song, but I ignore it. 

Grady Gammage, author of The Future of the Suburban City:
I drive a hybrid, ride light rail to the airport and don’t bother to turn on the heat in my house (which is possible in Phoenix).  My greatest carbon sin is my wood burning fireplace.  I don’t use it when there’s a “no burn” day, but otherwise, I have a kind of primordial attraction to building a fire.

John Cleveland, co-author of Connecting to Change the World:
We just installed a 12 KW solar array on our home in New Hampshire. At the same time, we electrified our heating system with Mitsubishi heat pumps. So our home is now net positive from both an electricity and heating point of view. We made the solar array large enough to also power an electric car, but are waiting for the new models that will have more range before we install the electric car charger.  The array and heat pumps have great economics.  The payback period is 8-years and after that we get free heat and electricity for the remainder of the system life — probably another 20+ years.  Great idea for retirement budgets!

Dan Fagin, author of Toms River:
Besides voting for climate-conscious candidates, the most important thing we can do as individuals is fly less, so I try to take the train where possible. I wish it were a better option.

Photo by Bernal Saborio, used under Creative Commons licensing. 

Darrin Nordahl, author of Public Produce:
The United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China, and how we produce food in this country is responsible for much of those emissions. From agriculture, to the fossil fuels needed to produce bags and boxes for pre-packaged food, to the burning of gas and oil to transport both fresh produce and pre-packaged food, I have discovered I can reduce my carbon footprint with a simple change in my diet. For one, I avoid processed food of any sort. I also grow a good portion of my vegetables and herbs and, thankfully, local parks with publicly accessible fruit trees provide a modicum of fresh fruit for my family. We also eat less meat than we used to and our bodies (and our planet) are healthier because of it.

Yoram Bauman, author of The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change:
I try to put on warm slippers or other extra layers around the house in order to not have to heat the house so much, but I still like to take long hot showers. (Maybe those two things are connected).

Rob McDonald, author of Conservation for Cities:
I try to pay attention to my daily habits that make up a lot of my carbon footprint. So I bike to work, or take mass transit. That gets rid of the carbon footprint of driving. I also try to only moderately heat or cool my home, so I’m not burning a lot of energy doing that. The biggest component of my carbon footprint that I haven’t managed to cut is for travel. I have to travel once or twice a month for my job, and unless it is a trip in the Northeast (when I can just use Amtrak!), I am stuck travelling. The carbon footprint of all that air travel is huge. I try to do virtual meetings, rather than travel whenever I can, but there still seems to be a big premium people place on meeting folks face to face.

Emily Monosson, author of Unnatural Selection:  
We keep our heat really low in the winter (ask our teenage daughter, it's way too cold for her here!) and I hang my clothes on the line in the summer. Because it’s so cold, I love taking really hot long showers. I should also hang my clothes in the winter too, and ditch the dryer. 

Jonathan Barnett and Larry Beasley, co-authors of Ecodesign for Cities and Suburbs:
We both live in a town-house in the central part of a city – on opposite sides of the continent: one in Philadelphia the other in Vancouver. Our neighborhoods have 100% walk scores. We each own one car, but don’t need to drive it very much - most of the time we can go where they need to on foot.  We wrote our book using email and Dropbox. What they still need to work on is using less air travel in the future.

Jan Gehl, author of Cities for People:
I live in Denmark where 33% of the energy is delivered by windmills. A gradual increase will happen in the coming years. As in most other countries in the developed world, too much meat is on the daily diet. That is absolutely not favorable for the carbon footprint. It sounds like more salad is called for in the future!

Photo by Katja Wagner, used under Creative Commons licensing. 

Suzanne Shaw, co-author of Cooler Smarter:
Cooler Smarter: Practical Steps for Low Carbon Living provides a roadmap for consumers to cut their carbon footprint 20 percent (or more). My approach to lowering my carbon footprint has gone hand in hand with saving money through sensible upgrades. Soon after I purchase my 125-year-old house I added insulation, weather stripping and a programmable thermostat. When I needed a new furnace, I swapped a dirty oil furnace to a cleaner, high-efficiency natural gas model. And now have LED bulbs in every fixture in the house, Energy Star appliances throughout, and power strips at my entertainment and computer areas. This summer, I finally installed solar panels through a 25-year lease (zero out-of-pocket expense). In the month of September, I had zero emissions from electricity use.  Living in the city, I am fortunate to have access to public transportation and biking, which keeps our household driving to a minimum.

Peter Fox-Penner, author of Smart Power Anniversary Edition:
I’m reducing my footprint by trying to eat vegan, taking Metro rather than taxis or Ubers, and avoiding excess packaging.  Right now I travel too much, especially by air. P.S. Later this year I’ll publish my carbon footprint on the website of the new Boston University Institute for Sustainable Energy. Watch for it!

Carlton Reid, author of Roads Were Not Built for Cars:
Our family has a (small) car but I cycle pretty much all of the time. My kids cycle to school (some days) and my wife cycles to work (sometimes). It’s useful to have the car for some journeys, long ones mostly, but having a family fleet of bikes means we don’t need a second car. Reducing one’s carbon footprint can be doing less of something not necessarily giving up something completely. If everybody reduced their car mileage (and increased their active travel mileage) that would be good for the planet and personally: win/win.

We asked our authors: In today's age of slacktivism, has Earth Day become meaningless as a way to make impactful environmental change? Check out what they had to say below.

Travis Beck, author of Principles of Ecological Landscape Design
April 22^nd, Earth Day, is also National Jelly Bean Day. How should one celebrate National Jelly Bean Day? The internet suggests guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, making jelly bean jewelry, or, simply, eating lots of jelly beans. The internet also suggests a number of ways to celebrate Earth Day in my immediate area. They include an Earth Day Celebration, an Earth concert, an Earth Day cleanup, a film screening, a moonlight hike, a 5k run/walk, an Earth Day festival, and an Earth Day fair. Or, if you’ve been invited to United Nations headquarters on that day, you could sign a global climate agreement.

All of this—the jelly beans, the festivals, and the signing ceremony—falls under the heading of marketing. The Earth needs good marketing. It’s too easy to ignore the pervasive, perplexing, and long term environmental issues we face in the rush of everyday life. Those recent video spots from Conservation International with Julia Roberts as the voice of Mother Nature, etc. are impactful, but a bit grim. Why not go on a moonlight hike instead, take in a film, wander a fair, or think about your nation’s CO2 emissions? And while you’re at it, enjoy a few jelly beans. Green ones.

John Pastor, author of What Should a Clever Moose Eat?
We have holidays to celebrate the planting of trees, the harvest, the four key points that define the Earth’s orbit (the solstices and the equinoxes), so why not a holiday to celebrate the whole Earth? And so we do, Earth Day, April 22. When Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day in 1970, he hoped to promote environmental activism and demonstrations, especially on campuses. Today, some campuses still have demonstrations against environmental degradation, but these are not as large as they once were. But I am encouraged by the growth of many environmental and nature organizations since the first Earth Day, such as the Xerces Society for the conservation of rare insects, WildOnes for the establishment of native plant gardens, and many others.  Demonstrations on Earth Day may not be as common, but people seem to be putting their energy into actively doing something for and learning about nature and the environment. Nonetheless, the idea of Earth Day as a day to celebrate the wonder of life on our planet home is still worthwhile. So celebrate Earth Day: if it makes you feel good, find and join a local environmental or nature organization in your area.

Yoram Bauman, author of Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change
Earth Day is a way of connecting like-minded people who care about sustainability, and hopefully (as with the Yes on 732 carbon tax campaign I’m part of in Washington State) those connections lead to more and deeper types of involvement!

Rob McDonald, author of Conservation for Cities
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”- a hackneyed quotation, but a true one. Yes, the kinds of minimal individual actions sometimes promoted for Earth Day don’t add up to much themselves. Given the magnitude of the challenge of climate change, for instance, biking to work one day a week is a pretty minor step toward reducing my carbon footprint. Similarly, avoiding food waste in my home is only a teeny step toward reducing global agricultural production. These kind of good first steps have some value on their own, but their real value is getting people to be educated and committed to an issue. For a small subset of people, these kind of first steps lead to bigger, more significant steps. Or they may lead to political support for broader legal or policy changes that do have a meaningful environmental impact. So, instead of criticizing the “slacktivists”, tell them what other steps they should take next, if they want to prove greater dedication to the environmental cause.

A changing climate means a changing society. The Island Press Urban Resilience Project, supported by the Kresge Foundation and the JPB Foundation, is committed to a greener, fairer future for all.​ This post was originally published on EarthTalk.org.

More than 25 years ago, author and activist Bill McKibben famously declared the end of nature. Defining “nature” as wild places essentially untouched by people, McKibben argued that our collective environmental impact—especially our alteration of the planet’s climate—has left nothing on Earth in pristine condition.

By this definition, McKibben was right: Nature is dead. And, in the last quarter-century, our domination and destruction of the Earth has only grown. The climate change McKibben warned about is unfolding around us. We have crossed other boundaries that have fundamentally altered the chemistry and function of the planet. And we are farther from nature than ever, as more than half of humanity now lives in cities. 

The cities we call home are, in many ways, the opposite of McKibben’s vision of nature. They are almost entirely human-made spaces, designed to suit our needs and desires. Yet those cities have launched a new wave of environmental activism. Urban environmentalism has caused considerable soul-searching among conservationists—but it may also herald a new chapter in the relationship between human beings and the natural systems that sustain us.

Today, cities are embracing nature—albeit an engineered version of it. New York City, for all its famous skyscrapers, has generated buzz about a pop-up forest in Times Square and its High Line park, built on a repurposed railroad spur. Meanwhile, ecologists and economists have quantified the value of nature in cities, showing its contributions to everything from stormwater management to air quality to improved health.

And, while the international fight against climate change seems moribund, hundreds of cities are taking significant actions to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions, working together in groups such as C40 and ICLEI.

As part of this surge of activism, many environmental and conservation groups are launching new programs in urban areas. My own organization, The Nature Conservancy, just started such a program. The World Wide Fund for Nature is focusing on the urban environment, as is the World Bank and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Major philanthropic organizations in the U.S., including The Kresge Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation, have launched programs to make cities more resilient in the face of climate change and other shocks.

Some urban environmental programs focus on restoring “natural infrastructure.” Others promote the idea that islands of urban nature—even just street trees–can make city dwellers happier, healthier and more productive.

Hard to argue with, right? And yet there is a deep and bitter debate within the conservation movement about whether these urban programs are really about protecting nature at all. Is it protecting nature if we save a forest that surrounds a drinking-water reservoir? Most conservationists would say yes, even if that forest has been logged or otherwise altered by people. But what about an artificial wetland, or some stubbly grasses growing on a green roof? Many conservationists feel there is nothing at all natural about these novel assemblages of plants that humans have thrown together for our own purposes.

This raises larger questions. Is conservation just about protecting nature from people–by safeguarding biodiversity and the few remaining mostly wild places? Or is it also about maintaining nature for people, by saving—or even creating—natural spaces? Old-school conservationists view the idea of nature for people as offensive, a sell-out of Mother Earth. As legendary naturalist E.O. Wilson said to author Emma Marris a few years back, “Where do you plant that white flag you’re carrying?”

The problem with the old-school vision of conservation is this: If we believe that we are now 25 years past the end of nature, then conservation itself is now at an end. By 2050, two thirds of humanity will live in cities. If conservation has nothing to offer them, then it is largely irrelevant. On the other hand, if conservation is, at least in part, about people, then making our urban world more green and humane is an essential part of a conservationist’s job.

The latter view points to a new kind of relationship with the Earth. The microbiologist Rene Dubos once wrote about the “wooing of the Earth.” Rather than living as masters of the Earth, bending it to our will, Dubos envisioned human beings as lovers of the Earth, making decisions about nature with love and respect in our heart. Nature is not something apart from humanity, but something that we should love and interact with, something that we will change as it changes us.

In our ever more urbanized world, we could mourn the death of nature as McKibben once defined it. Or we could broaden our view of nature and to include beautiful, green, humane cities. That is not the end of nature, but a new beginning.

In honor of the first presidential debate tonight beteween Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we asked Island Press authors: "If you were advisor to the president, what would your top priority be and why?" Check out their answers, in their own words, below. 

I'd urge the President to act on every possible opportunity to reduce the influence of money in the political process, because until that happens it will be increasingly difficult to make progress on anything else. 
-Dan Fagin, Toms River

Maintaining and extending the collaborative relationship with the Republic of Mexico over the shared waters of the Colorado River should be a sustained priority. The 2012 agreement known as "Minute 319", signed in 2012, included important water sharing provisions and for the first time allowed water to be returned to the desiccated Colorado River for the environment and the communities of Mexico. The deal was an important milestone, but it was only a temporary agreement. We need permanent solutions to the overuse of the Colorado River, and sustaining our partnership with Mexico is a critical piece.
-John Fleck, Water is for Fighting Over

1) Ending farm subsidies and other protection/promotion of food crops.
2) Embracing GMO neutrality. 
3) Ending federal support for state unpasteurized (raw) milk bans.
4) Reining in the FDA.
5) Ending the federal ban on sales of locally slaughtered meat. 
6) Ending federal policies that promote food waste. 
7) Improving food safety and choice by requiring good outcomes, rather than mandating specific processes.
8) Ending the federal ban on distilling spirits at home.
9) Deregulating the cultivation of hemp.
-Baylen Linnekin, Biting the Hands that Feed Us
For more elaboration on these bullets, see Linnekin’s full article on Reason.

My advice to a presidential candidate would be to recall the words of Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “The good thing about science is that its true whether or not you believe in it.” Natural forces are at work that will have adverse consequences, many of which are diametrically opposed to our national interests. Global climate change, the spread of vector borne diseases, and the rampant overuse of nonrenewable and renewable resources are just three such forces currently in play. The decisions that you make during your tenure will be pivotal relative to the health and well-being of our citizens, as well as the citizens of the world.  Recognize the fact that you are governing, just as Lincoln did, during a period of history that will resonate for centuries to come. Make wise environmental decisions even if they are not necessarily politically advantageous. Our futures depend upon it.   
-Alan Kolok, Modern Poisons

“I would urge the President to take strong action to pass climate change legislation in Congress. The form that climate change legislation would take would depend on the politics, but it is imperative that the U.S. begins to lead the world to action on climate change. Climate change isn’t even my own professional issue of focus (I would love to talk to the President about how to make our cities more resilient, green, and livable), but it seems to me clearly the crisis issue. Every major scientific study that is coming out is pointing toward serious consequences of climate change, happening now. Rather than thinking about climate change that will impact my kids’ lives, I am realizing it will deeply impact my own as well.”
-Rob McDonald, Conservation for Cities

If I had a chance to sit face-to-face with the winning candidate, my advice would be something like: Think about the welfare of our grandchildren when you make decisions on energy and environmental issues. Consider not just the short-term impacts but the long-term consequences of sea-level rise, extreme weather events, droughts, and loss of agricultural land. Set an example for reducing carbon emissions based on energy efficiency and renewable energy that can serve as a model for developing countries. Listen to our climate scientists and heed their warnings. Trust their advice on global warming in the same way you trust the advice of your physician with regard to your personal health.  
-Charles Eley, Design Professional’s Guide to Zero Net Energy Buildings

I would push for the next President to try again (yes, again!) to work on bipartisan climate action, perhaps with a revenue-neutral carbon tax like the Initiative 732 campaign that I’m a part of in Washington State. We’re proud to have endorsements from three Republicans in the state legislature as well as from a bunch of Democrats. The short-sighted opposition from some left-wing groups (including some mainstream “environmental” groups) highlights the risk of making climate change a partisan wedge issue for electing Democrats instead of an existential issue for all Americans. We need to try harder to build a big tent for lasting climate action, and that’s one one reason I’m so fond of the quote at the end of this NYT story (about the failed attempt by enviros to win control of the Washington State legislature for the Democrats in Nov 2014): “The most important thing is to normalize this issue [climate change] with Republicans,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist. “Anything that makes it more partisan makes it less likely that there will be legislation, until such time as Democrats take over the world. Which according to my watch, will not be happening anytime soon.” 
-Yoram Bauman, Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change

I would urge the President to reassert cross-departmental efforts such as the Partnership for Sustainable Communities to further empower local governments and constituents to meet ongoing challenges of urban development, because those challenges of land use, transportation, affordability will not be entirely met by private market solutions. I would also advise that the new administration investigate further centralizing resources relevant to urban areas, and evaluate (as was once proposed by Richard Florida) a new cabinet-level position focused on cities and rapidly urbanizing areas. Finally, I would suggest to the President that the federal government should lead by example by illustrating methods to elevate civic dialogue, including program development and funding to encourage individuals to obtain firsthand knowledge of the cities around them through careful observation and input into urban political and regulatory processes.
-Charles Wolfe, Seeing the Better City

Challenging as this will be even to try, much less accomplish, the next President should work to return a spirit of compromise and cooperation to the American political conversation. On the current course, no real progress toward environmental or social sustainability is possible. The impacts of climate change and demographic pressure are now becoming obvious to people of all political persuasions. Growing awareness may eventually offer room for fresh policy ideas: a carbon tax with proceeds turned into dividends and a universal basic income for all citizens, access for all to comprehensive sexuality education and reproductive health services, and humane and sustainable migration law.
-Robert Engelman, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want

As much as climate change will affect the United States, we likely have the capacity to adapt more effectively than most other countries—at least in terms of human welfare. At the same time, US demand for foreign goods and services is not going away; I, for one, don’t care what you say about the damn environment—I’m having my morning cup of tea or coffee come hell or high water (the latter an increasingly distinct possibility). If my personal recalcitrance is at all reflective of our national attitude, we nonetheless ought to be striving for a broadly-defined international stance that fully and coherently accounts for climate change. Specifically, in a world where the actions of our friends and our enemies will be increasingly defined by surging resource constraints (as well as “releases”—think Arctic oil…), our next President should focus on integrating foreign aid, fair trade, free trade, and military/security policy in a way that anticipates the incoming tsunami of threats—and opportunities—posed by climate chaos. 
-Charles Chester, Climate and Conservation

In general terms, I believe the wealth of the nation lies in two areas: natural resources and human resources. As a matter of national defense priority, these areas require policy attention at the national level. Attending to these issues requires commitment and collaboration among all political, ethnic, religious and socio-economic affiliations—it is time for the adults to take charge. In particular, it will be necessary to harness their combined strengths in a public and private partnership initiative. An outline of my top priorities topics includes the following:

Natural Resources/Climate Change:

• Clean energy and carbon reduction
• Ecosystem and land management
• Coastal and interior infrastructure protection
• Water resources
• Agriculture

Human Resources:

• Science and technology
• Public primary and secondary education

Public health

• Immigration reform
• Terrorism
• Social equity and income equality

-Michael Murphy, Landscape Architecture Theory, Second Edition

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I read Glenn Beck’s recent commentary in the New York Times.  “The only way for our society to work is for each of us to respect the views of others, and even try to understand and empathize with one another,” he wrote. He took the words right out of my mouth. And so, Glenn and I urge the next President to do exactly that, reach across the aisle, connect with the great diversity of people and views in this country, and with respect and empathy seek to understand.
-Lucy Moore, Common Ground on Hostile Turf

Given the evident impact of rampant development pressures and climate change on our nation’s wildlife populations and diverse ecosystems, I urge the next President to endorse and promote a strong federal leadership role in collaborative landscape-scale planning efforts among federal, state, tribal, and private landowners in order to ensure our natural heritage is conserved for present and future generations.
-Robert Keiter, To Conserve Unimpaired

Dear Future POTUS,
The U.S. must be consumed with the urgent goal of retooling the energy infrastructure of our country and the world. Cooperatively mobilizing with other nations, our government—we, the people—must immediately, using all just and complementary means at our disposal—e.g., directives, incentives, and disincentives—close down fossil fuel operations and facilitate replacing coal, oil, and gas dependencies with cradle-to-cradle manufacture and ecologically and socially sensitive installation of ready, climate-responsible technologies, including locally scaled wind turbines, geothermal plants, and solar panels.

No less urgently, as a globally-responsible facilitator, the U.S.—members of all administrative branches together with the citizenry who have chosen them—must, with forthright honesty and transparency, support a matured narrative of progress that is alluring across political spectrums. This story must redefine power to integrate economic prosperity with other commonly held values—such as equality, justice, democratic liberty, and skillful love for land that interpenetrates with human health and flourishing. It must recall people to ourselves and each other not as mere individual consumers, but as diverse, empowered, capably caring members—across generations—of families, neighborhoods, and of the whole ecosphere of interdependencies—bedrock to sunlight—the source of Earth’s life.
Sincerely,
Julianne Lutz Warren, Plain member of the U.S. and Earth, and author of Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey, Tenth Anniversary Edition