Tag: SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities

Authors: Rafaello Adler-Abramo

Advisors: Crystal Brown, Stephen McCauley

Category: Undergraduate

Abstract:

People With Disabilities (PWDs) face a four-fold higher risk of death from climate emergencies, yet largely lack any meaningful inclusion in municipal climate vulnerability planning. This project maps out a strategy to increase PWD inclusion in a Massachusetts government agency, the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program providing municipalities with climate resilience technical assistance, funding, and guidelines, currently undergoing a 5-year update. Over 95% of Massachusetts’s municipalities participate in this program, so changes to this one entity are disseminated throughout the state. While this project was in its intermediate stage, sharing this project’s early findings and resources led to strong interest being expressed in increasing PWD inclusion by an MVP program official.

All of this project’s resources are offered for MVP’s consideration, as well as for climate planners and activists in other locales, including: recommendations; resources; existing examples from a few locales; and best practices that provide PWDs with equal access to the interventions and protections in climate resilience planning programs. In addition, the researcher draws on PWD expertise to develop a single document showing how multiple specific climate hazards affect accessibility needs for a wide range of functional limits and disabilities.

A gap in the literature is described in detail: there is no widely used, comprehensive system to describe varied types of functional limits and disabilities, despite those in current use being rejected by PWD experts, or else having either excessive or insufficient detail to be suitable for resilience planning.

The report includes input by policy experts with disabilities on how best to identify, and plan to remove, specific barriers for PWDs with varied functional limits and requirements. The project also connected PWD climate activists with the MVP program. While the project is currently focused on the specifics of Massachusetts, it could be adapted to serve the needs of other locales with relative ease, and these resources will be made available to interested parties.

UN SDGs:

---

---

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p><strong>Author(s):</strong> Emmanuel Vargas, Stephen Fanning, Lily Bromberger, Eric Schuman</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p><strong>Advisor(s):</strong> Aarti Madan, Ryan Madan</p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p><strong>Category:</strong> <a href=”https://wp.wpi.edu/sustainabilitycompetition15/undergrad-iqp-humanities-other/” data-type=”page” data-id=”59″>Undergraduate</a> </p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p><strong>Abstract:</strong> Extreme heat—which includes temperatures of 40°C (104°F) or higher—is becoming increasingly frequent in Australia, and the effects on wildlife are clear as we enter the sixth mass extinction. Not only does climate change affect biodiversity, it also creates additional hardship for economically disadvantaged municipalities that lack the resources to deal with these issues. Yet, functional greenspaces and shaded areas are crucial to deal with extreme temperatures, allowing spaces for people and wildlife to escape the heat. In Melbourne, Victoria, Banksia Gardens Community Services is one of the few organizations attending to climate justice through their community-based work. Their Climate Adaptation Garden Initiative seeks to minimize the effects of extreme heat on people and wildlife, as well as to foster community engagement, pride and wellbeing. Our team was tasked with developing a process to automatically measure the impacts of their efforts to enhance biodiversity and decrease temperatures across six property gardens. To accomplish this goal, we created a network of custom-built heat sensors around the property to track temperature, a database that collects information on biodiversity and local temperatures , and multiple citizen science activities to ensure continued biodiversity data collection. The increased participation in citizen science and development of functional greenspaces will result in both a stronger environment and community in Broadmeadows. </p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p><strong>UN SDGs:</strong> <a href=”https://wp.wpi.edu/sustainabilitycompetition15/tag/sdg-10-reduced-inequalities/” data-type=”post_tag” data-id=”22″>SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities</a>, <a href=”https://wp.wpi.edu/sustainabilitycompetition15/tag/sdg-13-climate-action/” data-type=”post_tag” data-id=”7″>SDG 13 – Climate Action</a></p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p><strong>Video Presentation:</strong></p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:embed {“url”:”https://www.youtube.com/embed/fiOQq5RcSBM”,”type”:”rich”,”providerNameSlug”:”embed-handler”,”responsive”:true,”className”:”wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio”} –>
<figure class=”wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio”><div class=”wp-block-embed__wrapper”>

</div></figure>
<!– /wp:embed –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p></p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p><strong>Poster Presentation:</strong></p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:file {“id”:279,”href”:”https://wp.wpi.edu/sustainabilitycompetition15/files/2023/04/UG01_HABITAT.pdf”,”displayPreview”:true} –>
<div class=”wp-block-file”><object class=”wp-block-file__embed” data=”https://wp.wpi.edu/sustainabilitycompetition15/files/2023/04/UG01_HABITAT.pdf” type=”application/pdf” style=”width:100%;height:600px” aria-label=”UG01_HABITAT”></object><a id=”wp-block-file–media-d5467ef9-f46d-44e1-8620-6e2570a9a387″ href=”https://wp.wpi.edu/sustainabilitycompetition15/files/2023/04/UG01_HABITAT.pdf”>UG01_HABITAT</a><a href=”https://wp.wpi.edu/sustainabilitycompetition15/files/2023/04/UG01_HABITAT.pdf” class=”wp-block-file__button wp-element-button” download aria-describedby=”wp-block-file–media-d5467ef9-f46d-44e1-8620-6e2570a9a387″>Download</a></div>
<!– /wp:file –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p></p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>

<!– wp:paragraph –>
<p>To find our videos and supplementary materials visit our website here: <a href=”https://sites.google.com/banksiagardens.org.au/heatbiodiversityaudit/home” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>https://sites.google.com/banksiagardens.org.au/heatbiodiversityaudit/home</a></p>
<!– /wp:paragraph –>