Work on sustainability

By Ann Christenson

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Considering the proposed comprehensive plan for Iowa City, I see a lack of imagination and a great deal of lip service. It is time for this city's council and administration to take climate change as serious, with imminent consequences.

Our leaders like to think of Iowa City as progressive, yet there is little evidence in this comprehensive plan of forward thinking on this community's place in the big picture.

One needs only to look at other places taking groundbreaking steps to make a difference for its population and by extension, the earth - cities such as Portland, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Austin. Or on a smaller scale, Oberlin, Ohio. Even greater efforts are being made abroad, in places like Freiburg, Germany, Quebec City, Canada, and Barcelona, Spain, among many others.

Global warming has been called “the great moral crisis of our time.” Futurist Alex Steffen, a leading voice on sustainability, has said, “One of the biggest things that people can do is begin to see their own cities as places of transformation …. Cities that are embracing the idea of bold action are generally producing better solutions.”

These “better solutions” include advances in green construction that have made possible structures that need little heating and cooling, common in Germany and Scandinavia; the understanding that older buildings can be retrofitted for savings, as Iowa City's 142-year-old Trinity Episcopal Church has done, gaining LEED certification; that automobile-dependency can be phased out with forward-looking options.

On Earth Day, April 22 of this year, the Bullitt Center in Seattle, billed as the Greenest Commercial Building in the World, will hold its grand opening. Google it, and then tell me why Iowa City can't do as well on the corner of Gilbert and College streets, incorporating the New Pioneer Co-op, which is much more of an economic asset and far more in demand than movie theaters and a bowling alley.

Chicago has a climate action plan with five strategies: Energy Efficient Buildings, Clean and Renewable Energy Sources, Improved Transportation Options, Reduced Waste and Industrial Pollution and Adaptation. One outcome example: Since 2010, six Chicago buildings ranging in size from 18 to 70 units have been fitted with solar modules that provide more than 600 people with renewable energy in their daily lives.

Drake Landing Solar Community, a master planned neighborhood in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada, has successfully integrated Canadian energy-efficient technologies with a renewable, unlimited energy source: the sun. The first of its kind in North America, DLSC is heated by a district system designed to store abundant solar energy underground during the summer months and distribute the energy to each home for space heating needs during winter months. The system fulfills 90 percent of each home's space heating requirements and hot water needs from solar energy, resulting in less dependency on limited fossil fuels. The entire community was built with solar power in mind. This, in Canada!

Why isn't there anything remotely like these examples in Iowa City's comprehensive plan?

Let's require that all new construction, residential and commercial, in Iowa City meet stringent sustainability standards. That all new rooftops be either white or greened with plants. Let's offer low-interest loans for neighborhoods to implement solar arrays. Let's tap the Iowa River for hydropower though small underwater turbines, such as is being done in India. Let's ban plastic bottles and bags to clean up our water routes to the ocean. Let's stop competing with Coralville and start working on cooperative efforts for sustainability throughout the county.

We live on a planet where the climate has changed and will continue to change no matter what we do now. We're playing a game of making the problem less bad rather than preventing it.

Can't we make Iowa City a leader instead of an overly cautious foot-dragger?

Ann Christenson of Iowa City is retired from a public relations/marketing business. Comments: annfchris@gmail.com