How to Save a City

Overview

Storms, earthquakes, flooding. More extreme weather is putting pressure on aging infrastructure in big cities, where 68% of the world’s population is expected to live by 2050. In this episode of Getting Warmer, Kal Penn explores how cities can adapt, and why obvious infrastructure solutions are often so costly (and slow). In New York City, Penn investigates both “gray” and “green” infrastructure initiatives to save the city from the next big Superstorm Sandy. Is the answer a giant wall around the city’s coast? Or are there other, “greener” alternatives? Penn meets the creators behind the Living Breakwaters Project, a storm barrier off the coast of Staten Island populated by filter feeding oysters. In a guest segment, climate storyteller Alice Aedy explores how urban population growth and weather extremes have spurred climate adaptation projects in the Global South.