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Do curso por University of Michigan

Act on Climate: Steps to Individual, Community, and Political Action

17 ratings

University of Michigan

Act on Climate: Steps to Individual, Community, and Political Action

17 ratings

Are you concerned about climate change? Would you like to learn how to address and respond to this challenge? If so, this course is for you. Act on Climate: Steps to Individual, Community, and Political Action is intended to help learners understand, address and respond to climate change as individuals and in partnership with their communities and political leaders. The course focuses on how to translate learning into action on climate change in the areas of food, energy, transportation and the built environment (cities). This course was co-developed and taught by Michaela Zint, Professor of Environmental Education and Communication, and University of Michigan Students. A range of academic climate change experts and professional leaders are featured. As a result of completing this course, you will be able to: 1) Identify individual, community, and political actions you can engage in to effectively address and respond to climate change. 2) Describe how insights from the social sciences can be employed to create change at the individual, community, and political levels. 3) Feel empowered to continue to influence how you, your community, and political leaders address and respond to climate change. Use #UMichActonClimate on social media to share what you're doing and connect with other learners.

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Built Environment

There is a complex relationship between our lives and the built infrastructure with which we interact on a daily basis. This week, you will learn about one theory of urban design - “New Urbanism” - and use it as a way to explore these relationships and how you can reimagine the built environment as a means to act on climate change. You will also learn about how one city used deliberative democracy to transform their built environment and move toward carbon neutrality. Together, the content will assist you in identifying how the built environment can be transformed to address the effects of climate change.

Meet the expert - Doug Kelbaugh26:56

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Michaela Zint
Professor of Environmental Education and Communication

Hi, welcome to the Build Environment module.

My name is Haley, and I'm an undergraduate student studying Economics and

Urban Studies at the University of Michigan.

In this module, we will be showing you an interview with Professor Doug Kelba about

new urbanism and how the design of the build environment affects climate change.

Before taking a class with Professor Kelba,

I thought that my home community in Iowa was a relatively sustainable community.

My family lives on a half acre of land with plenty of grass and

trees surrounding our yard.

There was plenty of green space all around our neighborhood The grocery store is

close by, only a mile away, and my high school's only three, but then I started to

learn more about how the build environment has a huge impact on the environment, and

how where I lived wasn't necessarily good for climate change.

Although I was near everything I needed, my only option was to drive there.

There was no infrastructure for walking and biking or any public transportation.

My family's big yard wasn't being put to much use besides being watered and

maintained.

And the utility bills to heat and cool a large, single unit home for

my family of five was several times more expensive than it is now for

my current apartment in Ann Arbor with four people.

Now, I am lucky to be able to interact in a more sustainable way with my community

here in Ann Arbor.

I can get to wherever I need without driving.

I share an apartment building with a dozen other people.

And I can have plenty of green space with the several public parks and

plazas right down the road.

What makes me able to live in a more sustainable way

is the density of Ann Arbor.

I learned from Professor Kelba's class about how law can apply to cities.

It's this concept where if you double the size of

the city from 100,000 to 200,000 people or a million to two million.

It doesn't matter.

And systematically you get a 15% increase in wages,

wealth, number of AIDS cases, number of police, anything you can think of.

This includes infrastructure too, whether it's the length of roads,

length of electrical line,

anything you look at has the same economy of scale, all going up in the same way.

When the population doubles,

you only need 15% more infrastructure, which saves a lot of resources.

A city is a super environmentally friendly form of human settlement if designed well.

Each city dweller consumes less land, less energy, less water and produces

less pollution than their counterparts in settlements of lower densities.

You don't have to live in the city to reap the benefits that new urbanism has.

Promoting higher density,

mixed use communities can produce the same results anywhere you live.

As my home community has grown and developed,

they have applied the idea of new urbanism, whether they knew it or not.

New stores did not replace farm land, but instead went near other stores,

filling underused areas and making more walkable spaces.

In this module, you will learn about how the design of the build environment

has a significant impact on climate change.

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