Can Pittsburgh Save The Planet?
By Pittsburgh Magazine
Visiting Pittsburgh in 1930, R.L. Duffus could hardly contain his disgust. “Quiet valleys have been inundated with slag, defaced with refuse, marred by hideous buildings,” the journalist wrote for Harper’s. “Life for the majority of the population has been rendered unspeakably pinched and dingy.” In a further twist of the knife, the Harper’s headline wondered: “Is Pittsburgh Civilized?”
It’s a past the region has tried its best to shed. On the site of Pittsburgh’s last steel mill now stands Hazelwood Green, home to one of the largest rooftop solar panels in the country. Allegheny County’s last coal-fired power plant closed earlier this year; its new owners hope to redevelop it as a hub for renewable energy. Meanwhile, hundreds of “hideous buildings” have joined the Pittsburgh 2030 District, a network of buildings that have already cut carbon emissions by 38% and energy use by more than a third.
Transformations such as these have caught world leaders’ attention.
“[Pittsburgh] has risen from the ashes like a phoenix,” says Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Energy. Nearly a century after it disgusted Duffus, “other countries want to learn: What was it that Pittsburgh did that made it successful?”
They’ll soon have a chance to find out. From Sept. 21-23, Pittsburgh will host the Global Clean Energy Action Forum, a summit expected to bring thousands of researchers, business leaders and government officials from more than 30 countries to Downtown’s David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Hosted by the Department of Energy in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, the forum is a follow-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Glasgow, Scotland last year. Leaders will gather in Pittsburgh to make good on their Glasgow commitments, aiming to slash emissions, expand the use of clean energy and keep the planet from warming past its breaking point.
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