The Coolest Summer of Our Lives?

In the August of 2022, the Scientific American printed a piece by Andrea Thompson, titled:

This Hot Summer Is One of the Coolest of the Rest of Our Lives

If the doomsayers are correct, this may be a perpetually renewable statement, good each year into the foreseeable future. Of course, this prediction rests on the assumption with which many conventional economists hedge all their forecasts—ceteris paribus aka ‘All other things being equal’.

But we can know, if we choose, that this does not work in a world where evolution is a principle of life, and where our futures are always affected by our communal choices and actions. We can choose to be fatalistic, fold our hands, and wait passively for our worst nightmares to unfold. Or we can, collectively, make different choices.

I say, ceteris paribus, based on science and common sense, that humanity is headed for disaster. But the good news is that it’s far from a done deal.

Irrespective of our beliefs on climate change impacts, global mean temperatures are rising, and many weather phenomena are oscillating to new extremes of lows and highs but tending inexorably toward increased warming.

We’ve long known that there is a phenomenon we call Urban Heat Islands.  The argument here has long been that urban areas have more heat absorbing surfaces (buildings and roads made of materials like pavement, asphalt, concrete and other bituminous mixtures), less heat reflective skyward surfaces, and less cooling by evapotranspiration (from trees and vegetation).  While the countryside is—on average—2 to 4 degrees cooler than cities.  And studies have shown that highly developed areas can be 15°F to 20°F hotter in the afternoon than neighboring vegetated areas. 

Global mean temperature rise, and the Urban Heat Island phenomena (ambient temperatures) are two distinct streams of planetary processes. Synergistically, both these phenomena increase the levels of heat stress to which residents of Jersey City are subjected. Risks to our health and wellness, and a variety of quality of life factors lower the overall effectiveness of our collective human performance. Severe environmental and economic impacts, e.g., increased energy consumption driving higher greenhouse gas emissions, are baked into the extreme heat equation.

There is no reason to assume that this trend will stabilize—let alone reverse—any time soon. So, the instrumental and pragmatic question is, "What can we (individually and as a community) do to deflect the consequences of the most likely rising trend in ambient temperatures ?”

Many of these mitigations are reasonably well understood. Plant more native shade trees, orient our building developments orientation to reduce the heat load on buildings [e.g., more awnings, fenestration, painting upward facing roof surfaces white], and so on.

But is there more we need to know to be truly sapient?

I believe most of the problems we, as a community, actually care about are better addressed at the system level and am known to be more a proponent for the now resonant call for “System Change, Not Climate Change…!” I take the position that addressing our climate crisis requires more than just technological or individual behavioral changes and believe the root causes to be dealt with are economic and social propensities driven by profit and unsustainable consumption patterns. Therefore, my position is that we must be willing to undertake systemic change if we are to avoid disaster.

And as regards this growing debacle of these two intertwined heat trends, there are things we ought to know so we can make informed and collective choices.

In that light, the World Resources Institute recently put out two web pages that are worth reading:

• Cities Are Heating Up. Better Infrastructure Can Cool Them Down

• Urban Heat and Passive Cooling

These pages are a very compact summarization of a huge body of research, over the past half-century, and a useful go-to tool for inquiring minds. Ultimately, providing policymakers and urban planners with the data, tools and insights to cool down cities is an effective way forward to impact systems change to combat climate change. 

Ashwani Vasishth is a board member with Sustainable JC and a retired Professor of Sustainability at Ramapo College of New Jersey.

The Bigger Picture: Composting Policy in New Jersey

SJC and its members have always focused on helping individuals and organizations live and function sustainably here in Jersey City. Today, however, we are excited to share an opportunity for community members to start spreading sustainability best practices and policies across the state by joining forces with our newest partner, the New Jersey Composting Council (NJCC).

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President and Trustee, Jairo E. Gonzalez after testifying for NJ bill s1768 and how Compost can Improve stormwater infrastructure. Source: Twitter

NJCC is a non-profit affiliate of the U.S. Composting Council dedicated to the development, expansion, and promotion of the composting and organics and food waste recycling industry here in New Jersey through grassroots political advocacy. To date, NJCC’s officers have been busy advancing the interests of New Jersey’s organics waste industry in multiple public forums, including testimony before the township of Princeton regarding its food waste recycling program and testimony before the New Jersey Senate’s Energy and Environmental Committee regarding amendments to proposed legislation aimed at promoting green storm water infrastructure and encouraging the use of compost in sustainable infrastructure projects (bill S1768).

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If you would like to learn more about how you can get involved as an agent of change throughout the state, we encourage you to attend NJCC’s spring meeting next Wednesday, April 24th from 4:30pm to 6:00pm in Morristown. Corinne Coe, an NJCC member and organics recycling specialist at Sustainable Generation, will present on “Why the Waste Industry Should Support Small Scale Composting.”

This meeting will be a great opportunity to learn more about the state of New Jersey’s composting industry and to begin making your voice heard by your elected representatives in Trenton. For more information regarding this event, including location details, please visit https://njcomposting.com/news. Can’t make the meeting? Stay in touch with their advocacy work by signing up for their newsletter.

Why I Admire Artists

Seeing the artwork and the artists performing at our monthly Green Drinks +ART inspired me to write this post.

I’m an amateur artist.  I write songs about once every two year on average. Some are mediocre, some I really like.  I also make tie dye shirts, which for me is a kind of art because with each shirt I’m thinking about what I want it to be, and how the colors will interplay, and also how it will be seen.  I don’t like tie dyes because I’m some hippie dude (although my kids think I am), I just like patterns of bright or rich colors, and I like to see people wearing them.  Finally, I write blog entries like this one, to express thoughts I think worth sharing.

So I make a dozen tie dyes every year or so, and record my songs, and write these short essays whenever they coalesce in my head, but I don’t sell them or promote them.  I really admire artists who do.

Art, for me, is about reflection, optimism, and inspiration.  An artist spends time reflecting on their experience of the world and society around them, and tries to make it mean something.  That’s where the optimism comes in. When we look at the entire universe, and what happens in it, there really is no meaning to it all:  it simply happens.  The most vital gift of humanity is that we try to find patterns, and meaning, and beauty in the world around us, and we succeed!  The meaning really comes from within us.  And so meaning is clearly individual.  And amazingly we often find meaning that others share as well.

Our lives don’t need to have meaning.  We are born, we have children, we die.  We perpetuate our species, in competition with other species.  This happens on a cooling ball of lava in a universe of incomprehensible size.  That can be all there is, or we can choose for it to be more.

A work of art (written, visual, performance, etc.) creates something of meaning in a meaningless world, and so inspires us.  It inspires us to see that meaning elsewhere.  It inspires us to do work of value, that helps ourselves and others to not just exist, but exult in the experience of life.  It inspires us to change what we do to promote what we value.

We should all be amateur artists. We all experience the world in our own way, and have perspectives and values that carry us through our lives. We should share them with others, and be willing to adapt or expand our own views in response to others artistic views.  And as a viewer, or reader, or audience, we should not be passive.  Our personal interpretation of others artistic work is an essential part of the creation of meaning.

A professional artist does something more.  By their example they are saying that meaning is not just something you have in your head, it is something you create in the world around you.  They are stating that this creation of meaning is important, and though it takes time and practice, it is worth the effort.  And finally, they have the courage to say “my interpretation of the world has value”, and are willing to share it.  They do this knowing that what they create is of immeasurable worth, and yet its monetary value will probably be small.

We can’t all create artistic works all the time.  We need time to prepare food and eat it, we need clothes to keep us warm, we need shelter to keep us safe and dry.  We need time to create these things, or we need to do work of some value to others to acquire them.  And we all need time to nurture children, reflect on our lives, help others in need, and, of course, to sleep.

But I salute those that commit to self reflection and the creation of art full time.  They inspire us to see the meaning in our lives, encourage us to keep it present throughout the day, and make life the fulfilling, exciting, and beautiful experience it ought to be.