| | | | | Welcome. This week, fluorescent burdocks and releasing 2,000 rhinos into the wild. But first, what's the future of the suburbs? |  | | First, people wrote the epitaph for the suburbs. As the "creative class" poured into cities between 2000 and 2015, driving a downtown renaissance, population growth slowed in outlying areas. But the coronavirus pandemic prompted millions of urbanites to reverse course. Downtowns emptied, and pundits have been talking about the "urban doom loop" ever since. The death of both, I'd argue, is exaggerated. In reality, movement in and out of cities has been a constant in American life as people seek jobs, amenities and social connections. But these things — affordable housing, backyards, restaurants, walkable neighborhoods, good schools — are in increasingly short supply whether you look in the city or the suburbs. Americans' "choice" to live in car-dependent suburbs may not always reflect personal preferences as much as where housing and open space are affordable or accessible. To test this, developers are spending billions of dollars to redesign what the suburbs could look like for us — and the climate. Take Culdesac. The $200 million residential development that sits not far from Phoenix, the U.S. poster child for urban sprawl. The 17-acre suburban development is expected to house about 1,000 people in hundreds of apartments next to grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants, co-working spaces, shady courtyards and a light-rail stop. What it won't have is a single parking spot for residents. The company behind Culdesac plans to build more of these across the country, arguing the future of American cities is the walkable urbanism found in America's big cities and small Main Streets, relocated to the Sun Belt. Or check out the 50,000-acre dream touted by California Forever, a consortium of Silicon Valley investors known as Flannery Associates who plan to turn a massive swath of farms and cattle ranches into Northern California's newest collection of walkable neighborhoods. The group says it will offer "a chance for a new community" in a state virtually synonymous with car culture and sky-high housing costs. Its vision? The group hasn't offered many details in its meetings with the region's residents about the development's future. But it has released illustrations. Not one includes a car. Have questions or ideas for the column? Write climatecoach@washpost.com. I read them all. |  | Field Sample Last week, skies across the northern United States were set alight by a geyser of energy and particles from the sun known as a coronal mass ejection. Once these particles collide with Earth's protective magnetic shield, excited nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere release photons of light, reports Kasha Patel in The Washington Post. The resulting phenomenon, known as the Northern Lights, could be seen in Minnesota, Michigan, Wyoming and as far south as Virginia, Colorado, Oklahoma and Missouri. | | On Sept. 20, President Biden established a program aimed at training and employing young people to help speed the clean energy transition. |  | The Second Degree Some of you who read my most recent column comparing the impact of mining for electric cars versus fossil fuels asked whether new battery chemistry could change this equation. Absolutely. First, mining may look very different in the future. Lithium is already being extracted from brine. And battery technology is advancing so quickly, mining many of today's critical minerals may not be needed. New battery chemistry breakthroughs happen with astonishing frequency. Still, they could take many years to leave the lab. Could this be a reason not to stick with fossil fuels a bit longer? Tom asked, "Why do we seem to assume that the emissions are the same as 50 years ago and cannot be improved given major advances in internal combustion engine technology, particularly diesel?" It's not that they won't improve. It's that those improvements will be incremental and diminish. Engineers have spent more than a century perfecting the internal combustion engines. There's just not much room to go until you bump up against their theoretically maximum efficiency. |  | | | One Thing Last year, New Jersey became the first in the country to institute a climate curriculum for grades K-12 with support from 70 percent of state residents. Classrooms integrated climate education into everything from science to art, reports NPR. While states such as Connecticut have sought to follow suit, others have pushed back: Idaho rejected climate change standards, and the State Board of Education in Texas has issued guidance on how to highlight the fossil fuel industry's "positive" aspects. Do you want more climate change education in your schools? Reaching your school board is easier than you might think. You can find and email school boards here by punching in your Zip code through the XQ Institute, a California nonprofit organization working to improve high school education in the United States. If you're not sure what to say, the climate action group Climate Changemakers has a playbook to contact local and state school boards. |  | | Dan Perlman, a professor of environmental studies at Brandeis University, has been experimenting with photographing flowers using ultraviolet light. Below is a burdock flower, a plant Introduced from Europe by early immigrants that is now common throughout the United States. Despite its quotidian reputation, the plant's burrs served as the inspiration for Velcro and the flower fluoresces beautifully with the right light. "Under UV light," writes Perlman, "the most humble items become remarkable." Have photos? Send them to climatecoach@washpost.com. | | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Climate Coach in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday. See you next Tuesday, Michael Coren, Climate Coach | | | | | | | | |
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