The end of school holidays is already approaching for my son. No day camp this week. In the midst of preparing for the start of the school year, it’s a race to buy school supplies, take inventory of the clothes that still fit him and try to motivate him to happily return to homework and lessons.
Recently, as my son was cycling past his school that was being renovated, he said to me: “Dad, maybe the work won’t be finished and we’ll start school later!” You know what I mean? While he was dreaming of a long summer, I was looking at this completely asphalted playground and wondering why our children are still playing in such uselessly mineralized spaces, often without a single touch of greenery.
Too often, we build playgrounds thinking that asphalt is necessary for activities like dodgeball, dodgeball, soccer, hockey or skipping rope. However, we forget that our children easily adapt to all sorts of contexts and constraints to find a way to have fun. Sometimes, I feel like we park them in these spaces like we would park cars in a huge shopping mall. Moreover, these expanses of asphalt, just as useless, showed their harmful effects on August 9 during the storm Debby.
Have you noticed how the term “adaptation” has been on everyone’s lips in recent months, even more so since these torrential rains? Yet, in a way, all of this was predictable. The reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been warning us for a long time: weather scenarios for southern Quebec predict a sharp increase in this type of bad weather.
For decades, we have talked about reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs) to slow the rise in temperatures. Yet, as I often point out, we have failed miserably, both individually and collectively, to curb the climate crisis.
This is an issue I know well. In my essay Adapt. Tomorrow: Resilient Cities (Quebec America, 2023), j‘explores the need to move from combating global warming to adapting to the climate crisis. I stress the importance of being innovative and agile in our decisions to achieve different results. While we continue to repeat the same actions, the intensification of weather storms causes ever greater material and financial damage for individuals and governments.
I also stress in this essay the crucial importance of greening, demineralizing public spaces and roads, and the need to design facilities that absorb rainwater rather than direct it directly into the underground network. Under natural conditions, during normal rainfall, only 10% of the water runs off, while the rest is absorbed or evaporates. On soil that is more than 70% impermeable, the runoff rate rises to more than 55%, or 5.5 times more. This figure rises to 16.5 times during torrential rains. Imagine the consequences on completely impermeable soil.
We can multiply initiatives such as drainage projections, water retention micro-basins or sponge parks, but rain does not distinguish between public and private spaces. For these efforts to be truly effective, they must also extend to private land.
It is imperative that we correct these planning errors that are causing colossal damage and exorbitant bills. This problem is not limited to public developments or underground pipes that need to be renovated. Ultimately, it is the cities, the governments, and therefore you and me, who are responsible for will end up paying a high price.
You may be wondering how to do this. After all, we can’t force private property owners to change their developments at their own expense, can we? In fact, we can. Just before leaving the Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie town hall, I received a legal opinion confirming that we could penalize urban heat islands created by private land by classifying them as urban nuisances, just like fly-tipping or graffiti. The same goes for nuisances that damage infrastructure.
In other words, all cities in Quebec could adopt a bylaw targeting the nuisances caused by large impermeable asphalt surfaces, thus requiring owners to transform them quickly. Corporate social responsibility cannot be limited to voluntary actions when the effects of their assets are so detrimental to the public good. Sometimes, in situations as extraordinary as the one we are facing, legislative measures are necessary.
Fine words will no longer be enough. It is time to act with boldness and determination. Let’s put an end to the era of asphalt and breathe new life into our urban spaces. Greening large commercial parking lots is not an option, it is a necessity. The future of our communities depends on it. So, let’s rise to the climate challenges and make our choices today the foundations of a resilient and sustainable Quebec for tomorrow.