Calling on Urban Designers to Lead the Fight Against Climate Change

Alan G. Bake cites the memory of Hurricane Sandy and the People's Climate March in an appeal to architects and other urbanism professionals to move beyond their already substantial leadership on the issue:

Climate change is one area where the architecture/design/urbanism communities have taken the lead. The professions can and must do much more. In already dense areas, like New York, improving the efficiency of our buildings has the greatest potential to reduce our already modest (by U.S. standards) emissions. 

Brake joins the American Institute of Architects New York chapter in supporting a climate change plan announced recently by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio:

Nearly three quarters of the city’s greenhouse gases can be traced to its buildings. As a first step, the mayor created a plan to upgrade 3,000 city owned buildings, and pledged to work with the private sector in incentivize efficiency upgrades. Though these upgrades will come with upfront costs, the city estimates a savings of $1.4 billion in energy costs by 2025.