Page 20 - CooperatorNews Chicagoland EXPO 2021

20 COOPERATORNEWS CHICAGOLAND —EXPO 2021 CHICAGO.COOPERATORNEWS.COM ENERGY & THE ENVIRONMENT The reality of climate change is upon coasts and shores—including along the storms up and down the East Coast, and us. Weather patterns have changed, and shore of Lake Michigan. seasons have been altered. We experience more intense heat, more frequent, de- structive storms, wide-ranging wildfires, han, owner and president of Blooming- and more destructive cold. Tornadoes— the spawn of conflicting hot and cold air Structural Technologies. In recent years, far west as Michigan Avenue. The lake is masses—touch down in places they were he says, “The lake’s water level has risen already two feet higher, and that backfill once almost unheard of. What was sci- entific prognostication only a few years tensity and runoff. The result has been It’s an iconic address, and owners are very ago has become reality. It’s also a reality significant erosion of the shoreline, espe- that most of the structures that house our cially around Chicago and into Indiana footings because of the rising water table. homes—particularly high-rise multifami- ly buildings—were not designed for these shearing off and falling into the lake. The Building pilings are on bedrock, but the types of changing climate events. While trend and the damage are significant. In steel is exposed to water and can corrode. that’s a chilling thought, today’s commu- nities have no choice but to deal with that have been put in or reinforced. Seawalls— reality, as well as plan for what may be including gigantic stones to act as break- ahead. The New Reality Perhaps the two most pressing and building collapse problems.” dramatic ramifications of climate change currently facing our communities are the fronts,” says Kevin Keating, an architect He explains that these new extremes in rise in sea level and the increasing fre- quency and severity of storms and other tectural firm, echoing Mahan’s analy- weather events. More concerningly, these sis. For oceanfront communities in New requiring more maintenance and earlier two events often overlap, causing even York, New Jersey, Florida, and New Eng- greater peril. The worry is particularly land, for instance, rising sea level is the severe for communities built along our biggest issue. Combine that with bigger principal of New York-based RAND En- “The real impact in the Midwest has fortify the properties against the combi- involved Lake Michigan,” says Phillip Ma- dale, Illinois-based engineering firm “\[The city\] is built on silt and backfill as by two feet due to increased storm in- and Michigan—whole sections of land are The problem we face is destabilized soils. an effort to stave off the damage, pilings Corrosion of steel within pilings and re- walls to protect building foundations— have been built, but we do have potential Howard Zimmerman, owner and founder “The biggest issue is along our water- with Selldorf Architects, a global archi- you must ask the question of how we will nation of these two factors. In Chicago’s case, Mahan explains, is saturated. Lakeshore Drive is at risk. concerned about the stabilization of their bar is the major issue.” On a more global, macro level, “Hot- ter is hotter, and colder is colder,” says of New York-based consultancy Howard Zimmerman Architects & Engineers. temperature add stress to our building systems, reducing their useful life and replacement. Peter Varsalona, vice president and gineering, brings up yet another concern: with worsening extremes of hot and cold, existing HVAC systems require more energy to maintain comfortable (or just livable) interior temperatures. This in- creased energy usage in turn exacerbates the original problem of human-made car- bon emissions. So not only does climate change cause more extreme conditions, but the extreme conditions it causes re- quire still more energy to mediate, which in turn worsens the problem...you see where this is going. How Much Worse? The reality is that the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. Years of inaction and over-politicization of the is- sue have given human industry the up- per hand when it comes to impact on the planet. The United Nations Intergovern- mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its most recent report on the is- sue on August 9, 2021. Among its sobering findings was that averaged over the next 20 years, global temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming—a rubicon of sorts that climate scientists say will result in increasing heat waves, longer warm seasons, and shorter cold seasons. According to the press release accompanying the report’s publication, “Unless there are immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to close to 1.5°C or even 2°C will be beyond reach”— and once that line is crossed, many of the more dire consequences of a quickly heat- ing planet will be unavoidable. “We don’t know how fast it will wors- en,” says Mahan. “Lake levels are ex- pected to continue to rise. In the past we built with no ability to control runoff into lakes. Within 10 years, we may have a major catastrophe on our hands. Mitiga- tion should have started a decade ago. We always had a lake effect on our weather, but now those numbers are bigger, and we’re getting storms and tornadoes like we have never seen before. What we need to do immediately is reduce our carbon footprint, which is causing a microcli- mate within the city. We need green roofs and solar-reflecting ‘white roof’ systems to reduce heat gain. Another big factor is the increase in glass buildings that don’t Climate Change & Residential Communities A New Reality Raises New Challenges BY A. J. SIDRANSKY continued on page 30