Tidying our shared home: The power of subtraction for better US infrastructure
Analysis: People don't like perceived losses. But the US has much to gain by putting quality of life—rather than "shiny and new"—at the forefront of infrastructure rebuilds.
If her book sales are any indication, you or someone you know have probably used Marie Kondo's "KonMariTM" method for tidying up your home.
Sure, Kondo's approach has some space-saving sock-folding tips, but the real tidying benefits come only if you follow her instructions to subtract everything you don't love from your home. It's nice to have a tidy personal home, but Kondo's advice holds far more potential when we apply it to the infrastructure that connects these personal homes and turns them into communities.
Our infrastructure includes everything from roads to public buildings to sewer lines to the electric grid. Everyone paying attention recognizes the need to make this infrastructure better.
Consider a seemingly bipartisan and non-controversial proclamation from the most recent U.S. State of the Union address. "We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land." Who argues with that?
As a civil engineering professor, I'm all for infrastructure, but worry about prioritizing the "gleaming new" kind over the subtractive KonMariTM kind. For the shared homes that are our communities and planet, what we subtract from infrastructure is at least as important as what we add.
There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. What works for roads may not work for the electric grid. What works in Staten Island, New York, won't necessarily work in Puerto Rico or Houston.
But there is a common theme among many infrastructure success stories: They improve quality of life, in large part, by KonMariTM-style subtracting.
Subtraction through “Superblocks”
Zvi Leve/Flickr
Consider Barcelona's innovative "Superblocks" program, which subtracts by closing roads to through-traffic. Ultimately, the program will close two of every three roads in the city's grid system. Superblocks reduce the vehicle air pollution that make Barcelona residents (and probably you) more likely to die early from vehicle air pollution than from a car crash.
Superblocks also relieve congestion. Before Superblocks, private vehicles accounted for more than half of road-use but less than a quarter of human movements within Barcelona. Subtracting for Superblocks has "created" streets that do more than convey vehicles.
An area equivalent to ten full-size golf courses, will be reclaimed from vehicles and returned to people. Spaces previously devoted to metal boxes and their drivers are repurposed for strolling, biking, kissing and any other activity that is safer and more fun when you don't have to worry about automobiles whizzing by, or worse.
At ten million dollars, Superblocks is an inexpensive infrastructure program, roughly equivalent in price to a cup of coffee per Barcelona resident or to building one mile of superhighway near a city.
Because it subtracts for better roads rather than adding "gleaming and new," Superblocks also avoids any need for more concrete, which accounts for more climate changing emissions than any other material.
U.S. opportunities
Many U.S. cities have shut down individual streets to through traffic, but few have done so on a Superblocks scale. Copying the best parts of Barcelona's program in places where it makes sense carries little risk. Ten million dollars is not even a rounding error in the $2 trillion White House infrastructure initiative.
Each of the 307 U.S. cities with at least one hundred thousand residents could spend ten million dollars on a Superblocks program, providing healthier shared homes for hundreds of millions of people, and the total cost would be 0.00 trillion dollars.
What about subtractive thinking for other types of infrastructure? Stormwater management is increasingly challenging with climate change induced storm events and salt-water intrusion.
Subtractive thinking about stormwater might mean that, instead of adding pipes to move water out of cities, we remove manmade barriers that prevent water from infiltrating the ground.
In Baltimore, for example, residents get paid to aerate their lawns, breaking up the soil that has become densely packed together over the years. Widespread aeration not only prevents flooding, it makes for more beautiful and productive gardens.
Subtractive thinking about much-needed storm protection infrastructure could lead to more projects like the post-Hurricane Sandy "managed retreat" in the Ocean Breeze community of Staten Island, New York.
Returning vulnerable areas to their natural vegetated state inexpensively creates buffer zones, which protect surrounding communities from inevitable future storms.
Certainly, managed retreat, distributed electric generation, aerated lawns, or even Superblocks are not right for every scenario. However, the KonMariTM-style subtraction that leads to responses like these must be a part of the infrastructure legacy we leave.
Overcoming barriers to subtraction
Of course developers who want to sell you "gleaming and new" infrastructure have little incentive for subtractive thinking.
But there is an even more fundamental human barrier to subtraction: loss aversion. Loss aversion means we dislike losing more than we like gaining. Loss aversion is why my commercial meat slicer remained in our pantry to be tidied more than six years after I became a vegetarian.
If you are human, you are probably loss averse; it's one of the most widespread phenomena in behavioral science.
Loss aversion has been observed in countless decisions and in a range of populations, even extending to apes and monkeys. Brain imaging studies even confirm that activity associated with the fear and anxiety of experiencing loss is a more powerful motivator than the possibility of rewards.
Loss aversion may be a formidable mental obstacle to better infrastructure, but research suggests ways we can check our loss-averse instincts when they blind us to good options.
One way is to avoid gain-loss comparisons altogether, or to reframe losses as gains. Superblocks can be described as "adding green space to the city" rather than as "subtracting roads."
Reframing does have its limits. A Staten Islander mourning the loss of her home is unlikely to mentally process "planned retreat" as an infrastructure gain no matter how it is framed.
A more promising approach may be shifting the reference points against which gains and losses are measured. When promotors say, "the nation's infrastructure needs to be rebuilt," the implied reference point is what currently exists, invoking loss averse biases.
On the other hand, a plan for carbon-zero infrastructure would set up a very different reference point where anything less than carbon-zero infrastructure, including perpetuating the status-quo, feels like an uncomfortable loss.
Perhaps the best way to inspire infrastructure subtraction is to recognize initial loss averse instincts and then deliberately consider the opposite. Marie Kondo's tidying method asks us to subtract everything we don't love from our personal homes, even things we like and use.
And when it comes to our shared homes, simply taking a moment to ask ourselves, "Did I consider subtracting?" would take us a long way toward the infrastructure that provides the best quality of life for the most people.
Leidy Klotz is a University of Virginia professor, jointly appointed in Engineering and in Architecture. His teaching and research merge design and behavioral science for a more sustainable built environment. Leidy is also the author of Sustainability through Soccer: An Unexpected Approach to Saving Our World.
Coral reefs globally are turning white and dying due to record ocean heat, marking the fourth mass bleaching event, according to NOAA.
The bleaching, caused by stress from hot water, threatens marine life, fishing industries, and economies reliant on coral reefs.
Rising ocean temperatures, exacerbated by climate change and El Niño, pose an existential threat to coral ecosystems.
Key quote:
"It's like going from corals providing houses and buildings for marine life to just being scaffolding. What really wants to live in scaffolding?"
— Jennifer McWhorter, NOAA.
Why this matters:
Coral reefs, vital to marine ecosystems, are under severe threat from climate change-induced bleaching. The loss of coral not only impacts biodiversity but also jeopardizes industries reliant on healthy oceans. Read more: Unexpected ocean heat waves are becoming the norm.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
Todd Stern, former U.S. climate envoy, criticizes political leaders for their cautious approach to climate change, claiming it jeopardizes global safety.
Todd Stern rebukes leaders who advocate for slowing down decarbonization, arguing it leads to global catastrophe.
Stern emphasizes that advancements in renewable energy and technology prove that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 is feasible.
He warns against the dangers of right-wing populism in Europe, which may undermine climate action efforts.
Key quote:
"We are slowed down by those who think of themselves as grownups and believe decarbonisation at the speed the climate community calls for is unrealistic."
Investigative journalists delve into the intricate strategies deployed by the fossil fuel industry to sow doubt and misinformation, urging the public to remain vigilant amidst mounting climate crises.
Energy security narratives from the fossil fuel industry often overlook alternative sources and promote nationalistic undertones, despite documented risks of dependency on hydrocarbons.
The fossil fuel industry has long pushed the false dichotomy of economy versus environment, using studies to argue that environmental action is economically detrimental.
Through propaganda campaigns, the fossil fuel industry shifts blame onto consumers, portraying fossil fuels as essential for progress and shaming individuals for their usage.
Key quote:
"Basically it’s a propaganda campaign."
— Robert Brulle, environmental sociologist at Brown University
Australia's unique wildlife faces extinction due to habitat degradation, invasive species, and climate change.
Scientists propose altering animal genomes through techniques like crossbreeding and gene editing to enhance species' survival traits.
Interventions like genetic rescue aim to increase genetic diversity and resilience in endangered populations.
Key quote:
"Let’s lean into that, not be daunted by it. My view is that 50 years from now, biologists and wildlife managers will look back at us and say, ‘Why didn’t they take the steps and the opportunities when they had the chance?’"
Residents of northern Patagonia are enduring increasing earthquakes caused by intensive fracking, with little action from Argentine regulators despite clear evidence linking the two.
In Argentina's Patagonia region, frequent earthquakes have become a norm due to intense fracking activities, severely impacting local communities and structures.
Despite clear links between fracking operations and seismic activities, regulatory bodies remain largely inactive, failing to provide necessary oversight or mitigation strategies.
Indigenous Mapuche communities, alongside other locals, experience significant distress and damage, with little to no governmental support or recourse.
Key quote:
"I have been completely traumatized."
— Ana Guircaleo, member of the Wirkaleo Mapuche community
Why this matters:
Seismic events triggered by fracking can have far-reaching consequences beyond property damage. They can disrupt local economies, causing financial strain on residents and businesses alike.
Fracking not only consumes vast amounts of water and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but also has the potential to contaminate groundwater and surface water sources with harmful chemicals.
Biodegradable food packaging is a step in the right direction, experts say, but when composted carries risks of microplastic and chemical contamination.
Oregon’s Regenyx plant announced its closing in late February, with those involved calling it a success, despite never reaching planned capacity and millions of dollars lost.
