Climate Change and Sustainable Solutions: A Night with Entrepreneur Aaron Fyke

With coal lobbyists heading the Environmental Protection Agency and global emissions continuing to rise despite dire reports of the climate passing one dire benchmark after another, speaking with hyper-competent and extremely driven professionals like Aaron Fyke is always reassuring. An engineer by training, co-founder of six alternative energy companies, and outspoken climate activist, Fyke is truly the kind of motivated entrepreneur we need as it becomes clear just how much we must cut emissions in order to avoid runaway global warming.

Though Fyke began his presentation with a sobering account of the potential destruction resulting from climate change, unlike your typical tree-hugging, fist-shaking environmental activist, he did not warn us that the only way to save the planet was for everyone to turn off the lights when they leave a room or take shorter showers. In fact, he rejected this kind of small-scale activism as unnecessary shaming and focused on larger-scale solutions, illustrating with fascinating graphs and figures how many types of alternative energy had already achieved "grid parity," or become cheaper than fossil fuel sources. In the face of his bleak vision of Earth's future, this optimism was comforting and he pared with a plea for those of us who want to affect real change to pursue a career path (not just in STEM) that could tie in to addressing climate change.

I walked out of Fyke's presentation wondering whether it was all enough. The gloom-and-doom warnings and business-friendly optimism seemed irreconcilable and left me wondering whether the powers of the market would be strong enough to solve global warming or governments and international bodies would need to take drastic action that could cut into the profit margins of major corporations. I hope the market forces are as potent as Fyke made them sound because global governments seem to be in denial or else taking far too little action to address what Fyke called the greatest crisis of the 21st century.

Why is British Parliament So Rowdy?

Last week in the British Parliament, Prime Minister Theresa May barely finished introducing her wildly unpopular Brexit proposal before she was drowned out by a chorus of boos and jeers from the opposite side of the room. Chief among her antagonists was Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who quieted the room in order to  brutally berate May for the ineffectiveness of her Conservative government and the unpalatability of her Brexit deal. Corbyn's side erupted in cheers, and the Speaker of Parliament, a cantankerous gray-haired Brit in a colorful tie banged his gavel shouting "Order!"

I found myself thinking that if only America's Congress was this way, C-SPAN would have as many viewers as the Super Bowl. Last week, Iowa Representative Steve King, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, couldn't get a fraction of the jeers and taunts that PM May's good faith efforts to follow through on a promise made to her people receive on a daily basis.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn mutters to himself that PM Theresa May is a "stupid woman."

Wondering how our legislative branch ended up so radically different from our mother country, I did a little research into the history and layout of the British Parliament. I discovered that the House of Commons, where British policy is debated, is only 70 feet long, and the front benches were built exactly two swords lengths apart to keep duels from breaking out. In addition, the rowdy, brutal, and frankly awesome insult-laden debates I was witnessing were a part of Britain's Question Time, a weekly occurrence in which the Prime Minister goes in front of Parliament to have her policy decisions lauded by her own party or excoriated by the opposition. By contrast, America's separation of powers means our president rarely speaks to our Congress outside of the annual State of the Union address, a polished and orderly opportunity to reassure America that the state of our country is strong.

Beyond the fact that the British approach to government is significantly more fun to watch than our lackadaisical Congressional meetings and debates, I also believe it holds serious benefits in the legislative process. In America, impeachment and the 25th amendment are the only ways to remove a president from office; in the UK, the opposition party can trigger a vote of no confidence to replace the ruling government. In the midst of the longest government shutdown in American history, with the president hopelessly out of touch with the Speaker of the House and Congress divided starkly along party lines, I think the original accountability mechanisms—some good old yelling—could go a long way.

Paolo Soleri and the "Arcology"

Arcosanti interior.

In 1946, Italian architect Paolo Soleri came to study in the US under a fellowship at Frank Lloyd Wright's summer home, Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, AZ. It was in this year and a half and the decades that followed that Soleri would develop the idea of the "arcology." This new type of urban plan was to draw from the disciplines of architecture and ecology in order to create a city that was energy and waste efficient, aesthetically striking, in touch with nature, and built to human scale. Soleri watched with dismay as American cities expanded rapidly outward into suburbs comprised of single-unit homes and connected by highways only traversable using gas-guzzling, human-isolating automobiles. As Soleri continued to develop his vision, it increasingly stood in stark contrast to the wanton sprawl of nearby Phoenix, AZ, built seemingly without purpose during the Sun Belt migration of the early Cold War.

Bell Tree at Cosanti gallery.

In 1970, Paolo Soleri moved his family from his home in Scottsdale to the Arizona desert between Phoenix and Flagstaff to found the community of Arcosanti, a sustainable "arcology" built from Soleri's own vision and intended to support 5,000 residents. Since 1970, Arcosanti has expanded significantly to include many single and family residential units, public spaces including a gallery and amphitheater where numerous musical events are held, and sustainable energy infrastructure. The signature arcs that make up Arcosanti's architecture were designed using cement-pouring techniques picked up by Soleri from Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West. Much of the revenue for Arcosanti comes from the making of unique bells that are crafted in a foundry at Arcosanti, as well as Soleri's home and gallery of Cosanti in Scottsdale. Though Soleri passed away in 2013, around 70 people currently live at Arcosanti at any given time, and it has ambitious plans for expansion.

Taliesin West exterior.

Over winter break, I had the privilege of visiting Arcosanti and Cosanti, as well as Taliesin West, on a family road through Arizona. Soleri's vision seems to me to fit squarely under UN Sustainable Development Goal #11: "Make cities inclusive, safe, sustainable, and resilient." As my Global Scholars grant proposal with Ian McLeod is currently working on tackling this same goal by expanding affordable housing, I feel truly inspired by Soleri's work and want to keep his philosophy in mind as I move forward with my project.

Mixed-use amphitheater and apartment spaces at Arcosanti.