Future Ready Features: 4 Things to Know

A few mid-summer musings (some sunnier than others).

Power-full response

Unfortunately, summer isn’t always sunshine and rainbows for all.

Over the last decade, about 83 percent of all reported power outages in the U.S. were caused by a weather-related event. For critical facilities, maintaining power 24/7 in the face of a natural disaster is essential.

Five weeks into the start of the 2024 hurricane season, Hurricane Beryl became the earliest Category 4 storm ever recorded in the Atlantic, devastating the Caribbean islands of Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, before making landfall in Texas yesterday. The outlook for an intense season is high with forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center predicting an 85 percent chance of an above-normal hurricane season.

The federal government keeps an expansive stock of generators on standby for deployment to communities in need in all U.S. territories — powering essential services such as hospitals, police and fire stations, nursing homes, pump stations and water treatment facilities. Critical equipment in the face of catastrophe…but someone has to organize, station and turn them on.

Learn more about life on the frontlines of disaster, keeping the lights on for communities in dire circumstances.

Railway renaissance?

Planes, trains and automobiles.

Two of these modes of travel will be in heavy use over the next couple of months as Americans crisscross the country on summer sojourns. Rail on the other hand — while enjoying ardent supporters and a perhaps unrivaled romantic history — has struggled to keep pace in the modern era of U.S. travel.

According to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics:

• Annually, Americans take more than 2 billion long distance trips (defined as more than 50 miles from home) totaling over a trillion person-miles.
• Slightly more than half of those trips are for leisure, with the balance made up by business, commuting, personal business and other reasons.
• Regardless of purpose, personal vehicle travel leads at over 90 percent, with flying coming in second and railway travel accounting for just about 2 percent of business travel and less than 1 percent of leisure travel.

There are a number of reasons given for why train travel currently lags in the U.S., including cost, property rights issues, political will — all frustrations for the railway enthusiast, and for the efficiency-, economy-, equity- or environment-conscious commuter (or adventurer). Fortunately for all of us, it appears a renewed focus aims to put U.S. rail back on track to a flourishing future.

All about the investment in a nationwide resurgence of U.S. intercity passenger rail.

Now in fashion: nature-based accounting

Be on the scene. See and be seen.

For the trend setters, and the companies that clothe them, summer is a critical season in the cycle of fashion. And while designers are continuously evolving the landscape of style — creating what we’ll wear next season and the one after that — fashion brands, and the apparel industry at large, are evolving in the landscape of sustainability.

Forward-looking companies in the apparel industry have traveled various distances along their sustainability journeys — some quite a long way and some just a few steps — focused on responsible sourcing, eco-friendly materials innovation, waste reduction and reuse, and reduction of emissions and decarbonization of operations. Now, these companies are beginning to focus attention on their dependencies on natural systems, and the stress their production practices put on those systems.

Positive progress, no doubt. But understanding, assessing and reporting on these nature and biodiversity-related dependencies does present some distinct challenges. Not the least of which is the intricacies of fashion production supply chains.

“The apparel sector has wildly complex supply chains, making biodiversity and nature-based accounting intimidating, said Emily Wolff, climate change associate consultant at WSP in the U.S.”

Even so, the risks are ever present, and the companies starting to outfit themselves with the right guidance, knowledge and tools will lead the market.

Baking Alaska

3°F. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that is the average increase in temperatures across Alaska over the past 60 years, which is more than twice the rest of the U.S. Of perhaps even greater concern is the average warming in winter over that time: 6°F.

The story of how this warning trend is transforming the arctic is not new. For years, experts of many stripes have extensively explored, analyzed and reported in great detail about shrinking glaciers and decreasing artic sea ice, boding ill for the sustainability of native ecosystems, fish and wildlife habitat, availability of and access to traditional food sources, and the longevity of native Alaskan traditions and livelihoods.

Other impacts of these climate-related challenges facing Alaska include:

• Storm surge and erosion, which present risks to coastal and riverine indigenous communities that may necessitate relocation of populations.
• Sea level rise, which is threatening critical U.S. military installations, requiring fortification and implementation of adaptation measures to maintain national security.
• Permafrost thaw and changes to freeze-thaw cycles, which can lead to heave and subsidence and cause significant damage to infrastructure and buildings.

That last bullet is of particular interest to the technical experts among us. As climate change continues to impact the built environment, it also introduces new and complex variables to engineering in historically frigid environments.

And therein the challenge: rethinking what resilient infrastructure design means for the future of Earth’s coldest places, which are already looking and feeling substantially different today.