New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC): The Latest Architecture and News

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

The new, online NYC Climate Dashboard confirms that New York City is not doing enough to meet its climate goals. What’s worse, the goals don’t measure up to the challenge citizens face. A growing consensus among scientists says the world has only until the end of this decade to avert catastrophic climate change. Here in New York, the biggest contributions to greenhouse gasses come from our buildings and our driving. As an architect and urban designer, John Massengale shares what he believes the world is missing and some significant changes that the world can make for the sake of future generations.

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The threat of extreme heat will intensify. Even United States President Obama has told us that the planet’s temperature is rising and that we must come to grips with that inevitability. The last decade was the hottest on record worldwide, and large cities are warming faster than the planet. Scientists predict that extreme heat events – already more deadly than all other weather-related events combined – will become more frequent. Extreme heat reduces productivity, exhausts greenery, compromises infrastructure, destroys property, and strains the economy and resources alike.