Welcome to Parachute
by Sonam Velani & Lyn StolerHot off the press (pun intended)
Introduction, sort of:
The climate is changing, and it's really starting to mess with our lives. We're setting out to fix it.
I (Lyn Stoler) have spent the last seven years working in public health across the globe, most recently building strategic initiatives at UCLA's Center for Healthy Climate Solutions, where we designed public health responses to climate change. In everything I did — from mapping wildfire smoke and heat waves in California to fighting food insecurity in Mali — I saw how climate interferes with our lives.
And I (Sonam Velani)have spent my career connecting the dots between cities, climate, and capital. I’ve financed water systems in Chicago and transit lines in Denver at Goldman Sachs, launched open-source mapping tools in Kathmandu and built rainwater harvesting systems in Mumbai at the World Bank, and designed New York City’s $15 billion Green New Deal, implementing climate-smart solutions across our affordable housing, infrastructure, and economic development programs at the NYC Mayor’s Office. I’m now launching Streetlife Ventures, a global venture studio and fund to develop and deploy the sustainable hardware of our cities.
For both of us, the work was super depressing at first.
But then we started working on solutions in our own communities — from pilot resilience hubs in Los Angeles to the first net zero affordable housing development in New York. These made our cities more beautiful and vibrant — and there are countless stories just like these all over the world.
This is why we’re launching Parachute — to share stories about what works, what doesn't, and why.
Here's the Problem:
We're already feeling climate impacts on our health, homes, and cities — this is happening, here and now.
You don’t need us to tell you that London hit a record high temperature of 40.2C last month, Seoul has seen 16 inches of rain in the past 24 hours, and 35% of wheat crop in the bread bowl of India has been damaged, worsening a global food shortage. It’s all in the headlines.
The good news: people have started to pay attention.
Governments are making historic investments, companies are setting net zero targets, and there are countless resources for people who want to dedicate their careers to climate change (Work on Climate, Climatebase, Terra.do, ClimateTech VC, Lowercarbon Capital, Breakthrough Energy, Climate People, and many more).
The bad news: it's only half of what we need to be doing.
Climate action can be broken down into two buckets: mitigation, and adaptation & resilience.
We've funneled over 93% of our climate resources (energy, talent, dollars, you name it) into mitigation — basically, reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere. But the fact is, even with huge improvements in mitigation and net negative emissions, climate change is going to make things a lot worse before mitigation can make them better.
Ok, so why does this matter?
Because climate adaptation and resilience — the second half of the equation — can save lives.
Note: this is not drawn to any sort of scale; it's just to illustrate how mitigation and adaptation can work together to save lives over the short and long term.
People are testing and iterating on some really rad adaptation and resilience solutions all over the world.
Because climate impacts can vary drastically between zip-codes, most resilience work is done hyper-locally by governments, non-profits, researchers, industry, and startups. The catch is, hyper-local solutions are limited by a lack of coordination. Without a way to learn from each others' winning strategies, we're losing precious time and resources, and missing opportunities to scale solutions and save lives.
What we’re doing about it:
We're setting out to create the adaptation and resilience storytelling platform. Expect lessons learned and data gathered from real solutions around the world to show us what works, what doesn't, and how to beat our odds.
Parachute’s research is a series of case studies of cities and solutions around the globe. We’re scouring media and literature, collecting data on-site, and interviewing the folks in the trenches - the policymakers, community members, climate tech startups, and nonprofits deploying early stage innovations in their communities.
We're breaking this project up into manageable chunks, which will be released in seasons. Each season will focus on a specific climate threat and explore solutions in one geographic region. As we travel the world, we'll share our conversations and findings as Street Notes.
The goal is for Parachute to be a tool for city, startup, and community leaders around the world. So when they're ready to build solutions in their own streets, this information will be right at their fingertips.
Season 1: Extreme Heat in North America
Season 1 of Parachute will be focused on solutions to extreme heat across North America. (Because just last week, 60 million Americans saw triple-digit temps).
We’ll be on the ground and in the streets, diving into solutions not just in a PDF report, but in the real world. Here are some of the places we’re researching and visiting:
As we visit these cities, write about their solutions, and collect photos and videos, we'll be sharing it on this map. Consider it our living, breathing, experimental captain's log.
Some solutions we love so far:
Extreme heat solutions generally fall into four main categories: built infrastructure, social connection & communication, natural systems, and tech & materials. You'll see more breadth and depth throughout Season 1, but here are some of our favorite examples thus far:
We're obsessed with the Seaholm ecodistrict in Austin, Texas. It has everything you'd want in a resilient neighborhood, plus exciting infrastructure technologies like Austin Energy’s district cooling system, Soofa’s creative solar powered benches, and rainwater harvesting. The best part is, it was once home to a heavy crude-oil burning power plant. It's one of our favorite examples of a city celebrating its roots and history while upgrading its built environment to meet its needs with technology solutions.
New York's OneNYC Strategy launched the "Be a Buddy NYC" program, which fosters social cohesion and promotes community-level resilience to extreme heat. We think these types of solutions can be bolstered and scaled with social tech, like the Extrema app, which is used in cities throughout Europe.
Chicago is putting nature to work through a network of hundreds of green roofs across the city. Sustainable roof startups like Adaptive Green, CityFarm, Green City Growers, and Ecovegetal are installing and maintaining all sorts of green building components from urban farms to rainwater collection systems. Policymakers from Chicago teamed up with NASA to see how much these roofs cool the urban landscape, and came back with mixed results. This is where we want to sink our teeth in, because that can tell us how to optimize solutions for greater impact.
Approximately 75% of the urban infrastructure of 2050 is yet to be built. Technology and materials innovations can both create entirely new solutions, and also increase the scale or effectiveness of existing strategies. For example, Living Carbon is planting bioengineered trees that capture more carbon on less land and provide shade. Gradient is making air conditioning more energy efficient and accessible, which has major implications for our grid during extreme heat events. And finally, an interdisciplinary team at UCLA is designing and testing a new type of outdoor cooling structure to protect communities on their hottest days.
The best part? All of these solutions make our cities and neighborhoods more beautiful, livable, economically vibrant, and resilient. Because climate action shouldn't be about scarcity and sacrifice, if you ask us.
That's pretty much it.
Adaptation and resilience is an indispensable part of our climate response, and we’re sharing what works and why it’s going to get us farther, faster. The solutions already out there are treasure troves of information; it's about time we start learning from them. With these stories at your fingertips, we hope that you'll operationalize these solutions in your own streets, neighborhoods, and cities.
If we're asking questions you're curious about, join us as we take flight. You've found someone who's willing to go find the answers for you.
Welcome to Parachute.
Share a Solution.
If you have a solution that you’d love for us to research through Parachute, please tell us about it on this Google Form — if you’d like us to reach out, please be sure to include your name and email. Else, they’re optional!
by Sonam Velani & Lyn Stoler