Along 72nd to 158th Street on the Upper West Side, there’s an easy exit from the asphalt cacophony of Manhattan into leafy canopy and rushing water: Riverside Park. On Saturday mornings its benches are claimed by elderly newspaper-readers, its paths traversed by dog-walkers and runners, its sloping greens dotted with picnicking families. All week long it is a bird conservatory. But when this summer’s first heat wave came, it was post-apocalyptic - the usual traffic of cyclists and joggers gone, save for the occasional persevering jogger, soaked in sweat. The dry rattle of cicadas, conjuring images of rattlesnakes in the desert, filled the absence of birdsong and children. Sitting there, I watched a battle unfolding before me: that between an increasingly hostile climate and the city, its residents and planners. A growing attention around the environmental benefits of urban green space has made parks a promising new recruit. But does this reframing of parks as a solution underestimate the severity of climate catastrophe and the stakes at hand? The stakes are, after all, nothing short of the public realm.
On that sweltering weekend in June, nearly two-thirds of the United States was brought to its knees. The heatwave caused the heat index in densely populated areas like New York, Washington and Philadelphia to spike up to 46°C (114.8°F). On the other side of the Atlantic, Europe, home to the longest standing records for extreme temperatures, saw scores broken as two deadly heat waves in June and July left cities scrambling to ensure the safety of their residents. Certain areas in France reached up to 46°C, the first time 45°C (113°F) has been surpassed in modern history.
This summer was the latest installment in an emerging trend being brought to bear by human-induced climate change. As carbon emissions rise, heat waves are becoming more intense, more frequent and longer-lasting. According to a study by the World Weather Attribution network, the July heat waves in Europe were made 100 times more likely by climate change. This rise of extreme heat is especially damning for densely populated urban areas like New York City, where changes in land-use trap heat and create “urban heat islands” that grow up to 1-3°C (2-6° F) hotter than surrounding areas in the daytime. At night, heat islands become up to 12°C (53.6°F) hotter than surrounding areas.
These heat waves are visceral reminders to the Global North, much of which has largely managed to avoid the most severe consequences of the climate crisis, that climate change is reshaping the human experience. People are quickly realizing what many in the Global South have known for a while: Our climate crisis is also a public health crisis. Extreme heat is the leading cause of climate-related deaths in the US, killing hundreds of people each year. In Europe, where air-conditioning remains relatively rare, the casualties are even greater, peaking at 70,000 deaths during a particularly traumatic summer in 2003. In addition to causing dehydration, heat cramps and heat stroke, extreme heat can fatally exacerbate pre-existing conditions like cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. As energy and transportation systems struggle to cope with increased heat stress and demand, accidents and disruptions of health services have also become a growing concern.
Cities not meant to withstand these levels of heat are now taking measures to curtail casualties and to ensure their future livability. This has taken on a myriad of forms, from air-conditioning installation campaigns in Germany to public cooling centers in New York City to early warning systems all around. Cities are desperately erecting defenses against an increasingly hostile environment. Building green infrastructure, however, is an alternative approach that instead seeks to placate urban climates and proactively reclaim the public realm.
Green infrastructure – the use of natural elements to promote certain ecosystem services – has gained traction in urban planning circles around the world. Street trees, green roofs, various forms of urban vegetation and more can be used for a diverse array of benefits, including improving air quality and flood prevention. Urban greening is both a mitigation and adaptation strategy to climate change. In addition to absorbing atmospheric carbon, greenery serves a formidable countermeasure against urban heat island effect. In other words, one of our most promising tools against the impact of climate change is not a grand technological innovation, but the humble park.
Aptly dubbed Park Cool Island, this cooling phenomenon is already guiding urban design in some of the fastest warming cities. Parks like the planned Dallas Water Gardens are being strategically built in heat-stressed neighborhoods around the United States. Bioswales, smaller than a park but greener than concrete, are being used by cities like New York City to reduce stormwater runoff and manage flooding. The future of city life may not necessarily look like the interior of an air-conditioned room.
Managing climate change impacts is simply the latest addition to a long list of well-studied public health benefits associated with parks. Parks are linked to cleaner air, greater levels of exercise, and faster rates of healing. They provide an escape from the city – a respite from the crowds and noise. Access to nature serves as a mental and spiritual bulwark against the demands of a concrete jungle. On a community-level, parks provide an important space for gathering and fostering social well-being. In a city where space is scarce and an extremely valuable resource, public parks are radical in their entry fee: completely free, no purchase necessary.
But parks, vegetation, and the natural world more broadly are as much victims of climate change as they are protectors from it. In a very literal way, the story of the park illustrates what we stand to lose as the Earth warms. A study by the National Park Service found that while park visitation does increase with monthly average temperature, it only does so to a certain point – after 27°C, visitation declines. With the New York Times running interactive pieces on the growing number of days expected to exceed 32°C for each coming year, the idea that green spaces will serve as viable refuges from the angry outdoors begins to look tenuous. And what are parks without people? Frederick Law Olmstead, the grandfather of urban parks and visionary behind Central Park and Riverside Park, placed a great emphasis on the social dimensions of public space. He felt that the beauty of these grounds should be shared equally by all classes of people, a principle clearly upheld in the diversity present in any NYC park. The loss of these social levelers - already, by the way, more scarce in poorer neighborhoods - are an unsurprising reminder of the lines of inequity climate change is being carved along.
As each turn on its axis brings the planet closer to what David Wallace-Wells calls our “Uninhabitable Earth,” it becomes increasingly difficult to delude ourselves with the promise of engineered invincibility. Watching the heatwave empty Riverside Park of people and birdsong, one wonders whether planting more vegetation will really be enough to ward off the climbing temperatures. Despite identifying as a staunch advocate for urban green space and its benefits, I’m worried that living in a green city will help us forget to live green lives. It is precisely because I hold this movement so dear that I have become wary of my own enthusiasm - How much of it is rooted in some fantasy of returning to nature as an uncomplicated cure-all? As we deify nature at the same time that we destroy and are destroyed by it, is our faith in green infrastructure really just a denial of how deeply we are altering the natural world and its processes?