A Ranking of Cities’ Vulnerability to Climate Change | Cool Green Science: The Conservation Blog of The Nature Conservancy - http://blog.nature.org/2011...
Jun 7, 2011
from
"2010 was a tough year for Cleveland, my hometown. Forbes magazine ranked the city as having the most miserable weather and then piled on with a second poll claiming Cleveland was the most miserable city period (albeit in surprisingly hip company, with Miami and Chicago also making the miserable top 10). That latter poll included sports futility and, as if on cue, LeBron James left town in an audaciously miserable spectacle. To me it all seemed a bit unfortunate and, in the case of Forbes, premised on suspect data. Pondering a rebuttal, I remembered that Sustainlane ranked Cleveland as the 16th most sustainable city among 50 major U.S. cities. Not top 5, but a lot higher than one might expect from a city famous for its river catching fire. The relatively high rank was based on some surprising categories (e.g., #2 for local food and agriculture) and some that were more expected (#1 for sustainability of water supply and #3 for risk of natural disasters). Those latter two categories got me wondering about how Cleveland will fare in the face of climate change; in other words, where the city would rank in terms of future challenges."
- Jenny
"My analysis did not attempt to predict future conditions. Remember, I was doing this is on my laptop while watching The Daily Show. Instead, I assumed that cities with low risk of heat stress, natural disaster and water supply disruption today would, all things being equal, be relatively less impacted by climate change than other cities under various climate-change scenarios.
Crunching the numbers, lo and behold, Cleveland was number one: the major city least vulnerable to climate-change impacts (in this ranking, #1 means least vulnerable or most resilient and #50 is most vulnerable; see the complete rankings at the bottom of this post along with a fuller explanation of my methods, particularly how I handled challenges with the natural disaster ranking)."
- Jenny
"The most vulnerable cities include many of the nation’s most rapidly growing regions, such as Houston, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. The fact that the country’s population is shifting toward the most vulnerable areas underscores the importance of limiting climate change as much as possible: the U.S. is exposed to major impacts and that exposure is growing rapidly. Additionally, these cities must continue to improve the sustainability of their water supplies and/or resilience to natural disasters (even though the Second City is ranked fourth here as among the most resilient, check out what Chicago is doing for climate adaptation.) Many of the low-vulnerability cities are former industrial giants in need of new economic drivers and jobs. Arresting climate change will require developing and manufacturing innovative energy technologies. Policies that promote investment in these new industries would create tens of thousands of “green jobs” that could boost the economies of cities currently losing population. For example, studies by McKinsey and the Political Economy Research Institute forecast that aggressive transition to a “green economy” could produce 500,000 to 2 million Ohio jobs. For cities like Cleveland, despite their relatively low vulnerability, helping to prevent climate change could be the most promising way forward."
- Jenny
Glad DC and Baltimore are not at the top of the list!
- Shevonne
