climate resilience can look different depending on the place and the people. but at its core, climate resilience is the ability to anticipate and bounce back from hardships related to climate change. however, this doesn’t come easily; it requires a lot of intentional and attentive action.

let’s start with the polymer. what is a polymer? a polymer is like that chain of paper clips you used to make in your fourth-grade history class. in greek, poly means “many” and meros means “parts.” plastics are polymers of synthetic materials, essentially long chains of thousands of individual parts. so if you think about it, the climate movement is a polymer – and necessarily so. 

we are becoming increasingly aware of the intersectionality of the climate crisis. by this i mean that it is impossible to separate racial justice from climate justice from migrant justice. these are all chunks of a larger systemic problem. and in order to deal with all the moving pieces of this complex issue, we are going to need many parts. there are about 328 million people in the united states alone. that’s a lot of parts if you ask me. that’s also a lot of potential to create impactful change on a local and national level.

at the risk of sounding cliché, every little bit helps. whether it’s a single vote, a $5 donation, or a reusable water bottle, these things add up. but i’m not here to tell you that all you need to do is donate a few bucks or carry around a bamboo straw. solving the climate crisis is going to take much more than that, and frankly, the solution is not entirely in our hands. the values and actions that have caused the climate crisis have been solidified in systems run by the rich and the powerful. but resilience doesn’t mean stopping when the going gets tough. and we’ve proven countless times that we are resilient people – just look at our history.

but to overthrow these harmful and violent systems, we are going to need a collective, a “cooperative enterprise.” the polymers in plastic are a cooperative collective. as i mentioned before, they are formed of single molecules, or monomers. the formation of polymers is a transformation. and isn’t that true for us? think about it, when two people are in a relationship, we call them a couple. they are each their individual selves, but they’ve created something more, something new. climate resilience is about joining. about linking. it is about creating something bigger than ourselves. because that is the only way to survive a crisis that is bigger than us. 

plastic is durable. unfortunately, our waterways, oceans, and landscapes know this all too well. plastic never fully goes away. it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics. to me, this is both terrifying and intriguing. we have the power to create something that is everlasting. which means we can construct a movement and a world that will outlast us. realistically, climate change will not be solved in the next few years – although it needs to be. so when we think about climate resilience, we need to be planning for something both now and in the future. 

climate resilience requires intergenerational cooperation and dependence. we need each other; we always have. to act in this moment, while also having an eye toward what lies ahead, we need a variety of experiences, realities, and perspectives. we need the wisdom of our elders and ancestors and the vibrancy of the youth. the current climate movement has become synonymous with youth. but this is not sustainable, as much as we think it might be. we are tired; we are exhausted. burnout makes it hard to be resilient. the youth need the resources and support of older generations, while older generations need the vision and energy of the youth. this is how we create a durable, mutual movement that will outlast both generations. 

right now we are in a critical moment. we are poised to build back better. but we must ensure that the foundations we are building now are strong, able to withstand the trauma that comes with climate change. plastic is surprisingly shock-resistant. it can also withstand corrosion, water, and chemicals — basically, whatever we throw at it. 

yet resilience doesn’t require us to be impervious to these blows and disturbances. what makes a building earthquake resistant? it is flexible. the foundation is strong, yet there are devices built into the structure that allow the building to move with the shocks. you know what’s coming next – yup, plastic is also flexible. the word plastic originally comes from the greek word plastikos, which is derived from plassein, meaning to mold, or to form. plastic is naturally malleable, formed by it’s environment, such as a mold or a hot stovetop (it’s okay, we’ve all been there). 

resiliency means we have to be able to bounce back. we’ve already had a lot thrown at us in the past year alone – from floods to fires to a pandemic. and the scary thing? this is just the beginning. we are recognizing the mold we are in, one of a burning planet. we have to accept reality and begin to adapt to the difficulties we are facing and will face. we have to be malleable, like plastic. and we have to be agile, letting the punches roll off our back and moving with them. they still hurt, they are punches after all. but we are saving our energy for when it really matters. and we keep building. maybe the green new deal won’t pass congress. it will hurt; we will grieve. but then we lean into each other and adjust. 

building climate resilience is a hard, but necessary task if we are going to make it through this climate emergency. it requires us to join together: work together, cry together, laugh together. it requires us to build a durable and shock-resistant foundation. it requires us to create a flexible and evolving movement and community. and of all the things to turn to, ironically, we can look to plastic to be our guide. because plastic isn’t just one of those characteristics. what makes plastic plastic is the cumulation of all these traits.

we are creative, resourceful, powerfully imaginative. look at what we’ve made — the good and the bad. we invented plastic: our worst nightmare and potentially, metaphorically, our saving grace. but we also invented solar panels. we must recognize our influence and reclaim our detrimental behaviors and creations. this period in time could define us as a human race. do we want to ruin and decimate all that we have, including ourselves? or do we want to be like the problematic, yet wildly resilient plastic we’ve created? to me, the answer is clear.

this temperature difference can be very problematic when heat waves hit big cities for a number of reasons. for example, increased temperatures can increase energy consumption and increase the amount of air pollutants and greenhouse gases that are emitted. 

but these heat islands (uhis) also are problematic for individuals experiencing heat stress — which can cause heat injuries that sometimes lead to death — and can exacerbate global temperatures.

it’s a rising concern that’s being met with research on the subject — with the hope that the research can inform solutions and result in action. here are some solutions that can help reduce the impacts of the urban heat island effect.

increase the green 

shading

preserving and increasing the green space and canopy cover in urban areas can have a significant impact on how warm a city is. with increased canopy cover, the potential for more shade exists and consequently more cooling effects. most of the time this means planting more trees to increase tree canopy cover. but deciding where to plant trees in a city is crucial to the success of the trees and the cooling that they provide, as well as crucial to making sure that the urban canopy is distributed fairly.

aaron ramirez, an assistant professor at reed college, and hannah prather, a postdoc in ramirez’s lab, employ translational science when conducting their research, where they incorporate managers and other stakeholders into the process of research so that conversations can be started right away about how to act upon the research.

they are working with the city of portland to reduce the canopy disparities and make sure that less wealthy communities are not more adversely affected by the urban heat island effect. 

“our research interests in this area are focused on how uhis drive increased tree stress in urban forests,” ramirez said. “this is an important potential feedback loop whereby communities already underserved could experience higher rates of tree stress and mortality, which would strengthen the urban heat island effect.

“in our work, we are developing new methods for measuring tree stress in the urban landscape and working with managers to explore ways to prevent these dangerous feedbacks between increased tree mortality risk and human health risks.”

management decisions, informed by their research, could be anything from updating approved planting lists to including more drought-tolerant trees to changing how the city manages irrigation of city parks. this is especially important for portland and other cities that have some of the highest urban heat island effects around the country. portland, ranked no. 4 in the difference between rural and urban temperatures, is up to 19 degrees hotter in urban areas, while no. 1-ranked las vegas has a difference of up to 24 degrees. 

green roofs 

increasing the amount of green spaces in cities can happen in seemingly unlikely places. green roofs have the ability to help combat the urban heat island effect by providing shade, reducing rooftop temperatures, and increasing insulation in buildings, which reduces energy consumption. green roofs can even remove greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants from the air via sequestration and storage. 

solar 

the use of solar energy can have many of the same effects as increasing green spaces in cities in addition to acting as a mitigator of climate change and the heat island effect. in using solar panels, the need for non-renewable energy is reduced and fewer amounts of detrimental emissions are put into the atmosphere in the first place, which can help reduce temperatures by not contributing to the greenhouse effect.

depending on the type of solar array installed, it can provide shading and cooling similar to that of vegetation.

additionally, when installed on rooftops, solar panels are able to insulate buildings. in the summer months this can create a cooling effect during the day, while in the winter months it can help prevent heat loss at night. this means less cooling energy and costs in the summer and less heating energy and costs in the winter.

city management

vegetation is a great way to adapt to urban heat islands, but how we manage man-made materials is also very important in how we react to rising temperatures. 

cooling materials

the materials that buildings, cars, pavements and other surfaces are made of and what color they are affect how much heat is retained in those objects and how much heat stays in urban spaces.

lighter colors have high albedo — a measure of how much light that hits a surface is reflected without being absorbed — and trap less heat than darker colors. cool roofs and cool pavement can help lower temperatures, but there are more areas that can also be evaluated.

the heat island group at berkeley labs is looking at cars, pavements, roofs, and walls to evaluate what materials and colors can help create cooler cities. often this means lighter colors and more reflective materials will provide the most benefits.  

city planning 

the urban heat island effect is a complex network of many factors, such as those discussed above. researchers like vivek shandas at portland state university point out that there are other factors to consider as well in addition to the ones already discussed. designing our cities so that there are varied building heights, varied canopy cover, and varied street widths can immensely help reduce the heat island effect by increasing air flow that can then cool down the city environment. the hope is that research like shandas’ can help inform city planners and managers so they can adapt to the detrimental urban heat island effect. 

so: what do we do?

whether mitigating it in the first place or adapting to the urban heat island effect, there are many ways in which researchers have the potential to work with bureaucracy to bring about much needed change. this can be accomplished by increasing urban green spaces and cover, choosing better materials to build with, planning cities in better ways by being informed by research, and reducing our reliance on energy from fossil fuels.

these ideas — along with reducing our footprints in other ways including eating more plant-based foods, reducing fuel consumption for travel, using less single-use packaging, and interacting with our legislators to let them know how we feel about a changing climate — have the potential to reduce the urban heat island phenomena and make cities safer for residents in the years to come. the research has and will continue to guide us to solutions. now is the time to act upon it.

i sat down with professor josh cousins at suny-esf and talked about this topic. cousins, who has a ph.d. from the school for the environment and sustainability at the university of michigan, teaches community planning & sustainability, sustainable urban development, and an environmental energy auditing course. urban resilience, according to cousins, is “ultimately a social concept. we developed it, we created it, and we use it as a metaphor to describe something we see in the natural world.

“it has this positive connotation along with it in terms of applying that metaphor to a city; thinking about how a robust ecosystem is able to bounce back from certain shocks and stresses. so when applied to a community or city, how can a city respond to different shocks and stresses? whether it’s a hurricane or an economic downturn, etc.”

this resilience is really important when we’re thinking about what we want a sustainable future to look like. with rising sea levels and more extreme weather-related disasters, resilience is crucial in how our cities can bounce back from these shocks and stresses.

the main question isn’t if we should make strides for our cities to be more resilient, but rather: resilience for whom? with any policy or social change, certain groups always seem to be excluded. obviously we want our cities to be able to bounce back from environmental stresses, but if this happens only in more affluent areas of the city, for example, is the city truly resilient?

an important way to combat these disparities within urban resilience, according to cousins, is to “start at a local, grassroots level and try to incorporate (a diverse group) within planning processes. give them the resources at the grassroots level to do that, rather than initiating that from a top-down drive.”

many cities are implementing a resiliency leadership position, which cousins argues isn’t a bad idea, but there needs to be an emphasis on encouraging citizen-led change through local movements. those who live within a particular area of a city are the most knowledgeable about the day-to-day resiliency strengths and weaknesses, since they are witness to it every day. this aspect cannot be acknowledged and utilized enough.

a lot of general greenspace development, according to cousins, has been linked to gentrification and displacement because as more projects work to make an urban area appear more green, certain groups are pushed out of their familiar urban environments. this also plays into that question of: resiliency for whom? the adverse effects that green space planning might actually have can be significant. sometimes certain amenities can bring certain disservices. for example, something like tree planting might result in added labor for a community that might not have the capacity to maintain new trees. the result is an environmental benefit that may turn into a disservice to the community in the long run.

resiliency is crucial in order to create societies that thrive and react to growing environmental concerns. but resiliency also must be sure to include low-income communities and communities composed mainly of minorities.

said cousins: “resilience is here to stay whether you like it or not. you have to engage with it. overall, more resilient futures are better futures.”

our idea was to share a story about food deserts and the efforts to mitigate them by introducing the program plant a row for the hungry. this podcast illustrates the evolution of a program from its very beginnings to its present, documenting the challenges associated with taking on a task as daunting as feeding the hungry. food deserts are a common problem faced throughout the united states, and this program helps to alleviate the impacts they have on disenfranchised communities. 

the use of a dockless scooter is dependent on the use of the corresponding mobile application which allows you to unlock the scooter and perform other features. riders can use the apps to pay for a ride on a scooter, which often costs less than using public transit to go to the same destination. the apps also allow riders to locate the scooters available for use and to report any scooters which need maintenance.

since these escooters run on battery, they can only function for so long before needing a charge. that’s where people known as the chargers, or “juicers” in the case of lime scooters, come in. each night, they pick up the electric scooters, charge them at their own residences, and in the morning they “free the birds” and otherwise distribute the scooters to optimal locations for people to find and use them.

these scooters provide low-cost and sustainable transportation that can be shared among multiple riders per day. in highly congested urban areas, use of the scooters can relieve some car traffic and emissions. amazingly, it’s budget-friendly even for a city or campus to start a program in their area, with virtually no cost to the community to have one or more of the electric scooter companies.

the scooters can also have unexpected community benefits. lime is pioneering a new program that gives disadvantaged communities the opportunity to use electric scooters at a much more affordable rate. however, that is not the only social program lime pioneered in 2018. on nov. 6, election day, lime ingeniously partnered with vote.org and made all rides to polling stations free to ensure people were not prevented from voting due to lack of transportation.

some communities are beginning to regulate the use of scooters. arguments against the advent of the dockless electric city scooter are primarily those of the safety of the riders and pedestrians. sometimes people ride them on the sidewalks, which is not allowed. the scooters can interfere with pedestrians, blocking sidewalk access by being placed lying down — or falling over — or in clusters in random areas. although required in some places, riders often choose not to wear helmets.

but there are some safety features that are fundamentally built into the scooter programs and apps. some examples include the requirement of a rider scanning their driver’s license and in-app checks and reporting on erratic riding. the requirement to wear a helmet is supplemented by the scooter companies providing extensive supplies of free helmets at events.

electric scooters are transforming how people get around cities. they reduce the number of automobiles and the volume of traffic on the roads, as well as the congestion in public transit. they provide a less expensive yet environmentally friendly method of transit that reduces pollution output and improves city air quality. where public or affordable transit is less available, they provide residents with a reliable way to get around at a low pay-by-ride rate. while it remains to be seen whether scooter-share program deployment is a temporary trend or the beginning of a movement, scooter ridership continues to climb.

that night, the student organization hosted their “2018 environmental justice keynote speaker,” jade mazon. mazon is an optimistic and endearing latina woman and lifelong resident of south deering, a resilient, southeast neighborhood of chicago. she is also the co-founder of the rebel bells collective, which came to fruition to educate southeast side girls of color about empowerment and social justice.

she returned to loyola university chicago’s lakeshore campus that evening—after graduating from the university herself years ago—to talk about her community, the environmental injustice happening there, and what it is she has done and is doing about it.

south deering lies just a few blocks west of the indiana border and just southwest of lake michigan. lake michigan creeps inland through the calumet river, collecting in lake calumet, the largest body of water within chicago, not even 10 miles inland on the southwest side of the neighborhood. the river continues on past lake calumet meandering its way both westward through several chicago suburbs—eventually reaching the mississippi river many miles later—and eastward into northwest indiana.

once home to a plethora of wildlife within its marshes, lake calumet, due to its historical connection to lake michigan, is a huge industrial corridor for numerous hazardous industries. “during the 1880s, there was no such thing as regulation. in fact, we didn’t even have the u.s. epa until (1970),” adds cheryl johnson, executive director of people for community recovery. people for community recovery (pcr) is a chicago-based organization, founded by johnson’s late mother hazel m. johnson—known as the “mother of the environmental justice movement”—and turns 40 in 2019.

with johnson at its reigns, pcr works on a gamut of issues regarding the environment, housing, health, safety, and education that all encompass equity, hoping to affect policy and curate change. johnson adds, “when regulation came into play, many industries did not know how to come into compliance. the industries only care about profit at the expense of the poor or communities that don’t know any better.”

within south deering, there are dozens of industries in the area, including landfills and recycling facilities. in addition to the factories that reside within the borders of south deering, there are also outside threats, like the bp oil refinery just across the border in whiting, indiana. looking at a map of whiting, the refinery is so extensive it is twice the size of the residential area—it’s basically its own city. according to bp’s website, this refinery is “bp’s largest refinery anywhere in the world.”

with lots of production in indiana comes lots of waste—but where does it go? right across the border to illinois. up until 2015, the rebel bells collective’s mazon explained, the infamous waste product of the oil refining process called petcoke, which according to the environmental protection agency is highly hazardous, was stored out in the open for years along calumet river, right in the heart of her community. due to lack of zoning regulations, hazardous waste was permitted to be stored within the ward that includes south deering.

growing up, mazon said, no one knew just how toxic this material was. the neighborhood just thought of the industry as an inconvenience: having to stop for constant trains, which hauled petcoke; being forced inside to play with neighborhood kids during windy days; and not being able to have anything white on the exterior or interior of the house as it would eventually be turned black from particulate debris.

the saturday after mazon was at loyola, she headed to under the bridge art studio to be one of the featured guests on a live recording of “the hoodoisie,” a live and live-streamed show and web series about local news happening within gentrified neighborhoods across chicago. other guests included kate koval and olga bautista, both founding members of the southeast side coalition to ban petcoke, and 19-year-old rebel bells alum kat west. together, they spoke of the mistreatment of their community through its history.

it wasn’t until recently that members of this community began to educate themselves on the reality of these industries. after the community rallied together to halt the establishment of a coal gasification plant along the river — and across from the local high school — a handful of years ago, residents began to come together, bautista says, who is also a board member of the southeast environmental task force and the director of community leadership of our city our voice. after realizing how harmful petcoke truly was, bautista, koval, and other residents formed the southeast side coalition to ban petcoke, joined later with supporting community members, like mazon.

other speakers throughout the night gave their insight as well. angela tovar, who grew up within the community and is now the director of community development at the point community development corporation in the bronx borough of new york city, explained that “environmental justice is part of your daily life” when growing up in areas with so much industry and injustice.

south deering isn’t alone. other parts of the city have faced similar situations, such as pilsen, also known as chicago’s lower west side. historically, pilsen, like south deering, has been an industrial hub for the city of chicago. the neighborhood lies on the north side of the south chicago river branch, just east of little village. after battling against these industries for more than a decade, little village and pilsen shut down the coal-fired plants in their neighborhoods, the crawford and fisk generating stations, respectively, in 2012.

still, these communities continue to face injustice. “the fisk generating station is currently in the process of being reopened,” jose requena, a community organizer at pilsen alliance explained. pilsen alliance is monitoring the situation closely, however, requena reassured me. “little village environmental justice organization was able to completely shut down the crawford generating station,” requena said, “but now, hilco redevelopment partners is currently in the process of getting a contract to demolish the building and repurpose the space for a trucking and logistics complex, which could be just as detrimental to the neighboring communities.”

unfortunately, like pilsen, south deering is now fighting a new injustice: manganese. air monitors originally installed because of petcoke have now unveiled the presence of this heavy metal. s.h. bell, another industrial facility along the calumet river, processes, handles, processes, packages, and stores metal. high concentrations of manganese have been recorded in the air and have leached into the nearby community’s yards, prompting the u.s. epa to get involved. unfortunately, the search for a solution is still ongoing, but these communities are resilient in their efforts toward justice.

from an industrial standpoint, more can be done. “it speaks to the greater systemic conversation that needs to be held. do we want to keep operating in this way that puts lives in harm?” said kyra woods, the clean energy organizing apprentice for the illinois sierra club chapter, currently working on a ready for 100 campaign in chicago. woods adds that it’s not a responsible choice to continue to use harmful methods when there may be better alternatives.

but still, woods is hopeful. “by addressing these environmental issues, we can solve other issues, too,” she said. “by switching to a 100% clean energy future, we can actually empower communities, do some fantastic job training, and get people employed, especially in a city like chicago.”

these communities—south deering, pilsen, and little village—all keep fighting back. the support of groups like the sierra club and pilsen alliance, standing in solidarity with them, makes them even stronger. as cheryl johnson said to me, it is important to “follow what you believe is wrong to try and make it right.” and that’s just what these communities are doing.

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(editor’s note: story updated jan. 8, 2019, with current broadcast medium for the hoodoisie.)