Recharging…

OK, so the blogging hasn’t been going quite so well. I’ve been having continual problems getting a power converter to work, and for most of the time I spent in Chicago my phone and laptop were both out of batteries. I’m now on my third converter, so fingers crossed for the rest of the trip.

Chicago itself was spectacular, from the mix of old and new architecture to the busy bustling vibrancy of the place. After the small town feel of DC, Chicago’s post industrial urban feel was great, and made me feel unexpectedly at home.

I particularly fell in love with the trains – the city has the quintessentially American elevated train system and it doesn’t look as though it has changed in decades. The battered carriages look like old tin cans, and they rattle past stations built of weathered, warped wooden planks suspended on rusting girders which any child who played with Meccano couldn’t help but love.

The city has a political will to implement a climate change plan – and one which explicitly sets targets for emission cuts. But the transport culture is a big problem. Though a lot of freight still travels by rail, not many people do (more as a result of urban spread beyond the range of the ‘L’ than because people don’t like the old fashioned system) and transport emissions are still very high. But there’s an ambitious focus on retrofitting the housing stock, including some area-based programmes like the one we’ve been pushing the Scottish Government to adopt.

The city is also home to some impressive climate research, both at the University and at the nearby Argonne National Laboratory. While the political logjam has prevented legislation in the US, the academic community has pressed ahead with the research agenda, and the Obama administration has been able to fund their efforts without being blocked by the Republicans.

The downside is that the research findings have had no impact on the polarised politics, so while the scientific community understands more than ever about the scale and urgency of the problem, many of them feel more powerless than ever do actually do anything about it.

2 Comments