Much has been mentioned about TFG and his illegal acts and possibly being brought to justice, as well as the war in Ukraine, the overturn of Roe vs Wade, the ongoing attacks on civil rights on BIPOC and the LGBTQ communities, as well as the ongoing gun violence plaguing the nation, but the most in-your-face issue that has affected everyone, whether they are inclined to believe it or not, is climate change. We have heard all the stories about the western United States being on fire for most of the year while other parts of the country have been deluged with floods, particularly St. Louis and Kentucky, but now it appears parts of the West which had literally been on fire are being deluged with once-in-a-generation flooding. And that’s just the United States. We have largely not even acknowledged the massive heat waves in Europe and south Asia which are causing the same conditions there and making some places literally uninhabitable.
Fortunately, the Inflation Reduction Act which was recently signed into law by President Joe Biden will finally begin to address climate change issues, including funds to promote electric vehicles, installing a network of charging stations across the country, and giving rebates to install more solar panels, wind turbines, and even heat pumps for residences. This is all very much welcome news, but these measures could take years or even decades to fully implement. Meanwhile, the average air temperature continues to rise each year.
However, we can take steps right now to mitigate global warming. One of the driving forces behind global warming is the number of urban heat islands across the country and around the world, particularly in developed nations. And much of those urban heat islands are due to the overabundance of parking lots, nearly all of which are made of concrete and asphalt which absorbs the sun’s ultraviolet rays and raises the air temperature of the parking lots themselves to uncomfortable levels during the day and radiates that heat into the atmosphere at night. Unfortunately, many of these lots were proposed and constructed years and decades ago to accommodate a car culture that assumed everyone would own cars and use those cars to travel everywhere for their daily trips. But the use of automobiles actually peaked in 2007, and as the rise of ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft, the retail apocalypse, and the COVID pandemic has shown us, not all of this paved space is necessary.
One of the biggest issues with parking lots is that they are only typically used about one fourth to one third of the day, and even then the lots are usually not always full, and most of the time they never fill up except during special local regional events or the last week before Christmas. In addition, they collect seepage of gasoline vapors, motor oil, and other trash that runs off into our sewers, rivers, and streams whenever there is specific rainfall, thus polluting the water. These lots also were paved over luscious green space that previously was covered with grasses, flowers, and trees that supported entire ecosystems of insects like butterflies and honeybees, as well as birds and ground animals. Yet all of these lots were justified to accommodate office workers and shoppers.
But since the turn of this century and particularly after the 2008 financial crisis, retail stores, particularly department stores and mall-based specialty stores, have gone out of business or have seriously contracted. There are numerous reasons for this, some of which are problematic on their own, but that’s for another story. Also, when the COVID-19 virus came onto our shores, it disrupted our usual work routine, and some would say some of these changes will be permanent. Large tech companies that just prior to the pandemic were building new office complexes that were supposed to be shrines to their awesomeness suddenly had to send workers home and accommodate remote work, leaving a ton of unused office space. So we’re now at an unusual inflection point where we not only have dying malls but dying office buildings as well, many of which have acres of unused parking spaces. So what do we do next?
Simple. Depave those spaces. Many of those parking lots are far too large for the actual needs of employees, visitors, and shoppers anyway, and in some cases they could literally dig out half of the asphalt and concrete and return it to green space without affecting current usage patterns at all. Not only would a concerted effort to depave half of the parking lots cause a reduction in air temperature, but the green space would also alleviate rain runoff and absorb the water into the ground as it’s supposed to.
Apparently my idea isn’t new. There are several organizations who have proposed such ideas, and some them have been taking action since 2005. One such group is called Depave America, and they are creating chapters across the country. They have made the biggest effect in Portland, Oregon and have been trying to expand their operations in the Pacific northwest. (BTW, I am not a sponsor of this group nor am I affiliated with them. I just appreciate what they are doing.) One of their members actually came from Chicago and would like to go back home to depave Chicago.
If we’re actually going to get serious about climate change, we have to consider land usage and stop building massive parking lots, huge interstate highways, and start promoting remote work and telecommuting. Otherwise we’re either going to burn or drown ourselves out of existence.