On March 7th, 2021, N-EWN partners from the Institute of Resilient Infrastructure Systems and the Water Institute of the Gulf published a perspective piece in the Washington Post titled, How nature can help solve our infrastructure crisis amid extreme weather, climate change.
In the article, Director of IRIS, Dr. Brian Bledsoe and Director of TWIG, Dr. Justin Ehrenswerth made the argument that natural infrastructure is an important tool against the challenges of aging infrastructure and increasingly extreme weather events that our country faces.
“When conventional engineering and Mother Nature join forces, our communities are protected by multiple lines of defense that generate a wide range of economic, environmental and social benefits,” Bledsoe and Ehrenswerth wrote of the vast opportunities that natural infrastructure provide.
Bledsoe and Ehrenswerth also addressed the perilous combination of social inequality and climate change, which causes severe weather events to disproportionately affect vulnerable communities. They highlighted how adjusting the way we value the costs and benefits of infrastructure projects can create a more equitable society:
“When we limit ourselves to old ways of thinking about costs and benefits, we tend to invest in protecting wealthier communities. This approach perpetuates climate injustice: Multimillion-dollar condos on Miami Beach are deemed worthy of protection while less wealthy neighborhoods, disproportionately communities of color that have been underserved or actively harmed by past infrastructure investments, are neglected.”
Want to read the full article? Check it out here.
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