Fostering Dissent
Norman Foster has explained his logic behind continuing to design airports during the climate emergency (image: Wikimedia Commons).
Norman Foster has suggested that geoengineering can solve climate crisis, as he designs more airports
The architect says he has “respect” for those who choose not to design airports on environmental grounds – but he also thinks they’re hypocrites.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV the 86-year-old British douyen of architecture explained the logic behind his practice Foster + Partners continuing to design airports despite the climate crisis. He argued that aviation isn’t the worst offender when it comes to carbon emissions – and suggested geoengineering could offer a way to avert disaster.
“I respect their outlook, their views, [designers] who walk away and say ‘as a moral principle we’re not going to have anything to do with mobility in the form of air travel because it has a carbon footprint’,” Foster told Bloomberg.
“I would argue that everyone has a carbon footprint and, in relative terms, the carbon footprint of air travel is relatively small,” he added. “We have to address the infrastructure of mobility, we have to reduce its carbon footprint like everything else. We can’t walk away from it. We can’t, you know, adopt a hypocritical moral stance.”
“We can’t, you know, adopt a hypocritical moral stance.”
If airports are going to be built, goes his reasoning, it’s better that architects committed to building a sustainable terminal building are involved. Foster + Partners caused a stir in 2020 when the practice withdrew from Architects Declare, a group of practises who have pledged to take responsibility for their part in climate change.
When asked about this controversy by Bloomberg, he reasoned that a commitment to designing greener infrastructure overrides taking a stance on whether people should be flying more. “There is an imperative to reduce the carbon imprint of transportation of mobility,” he said. “And our society is about mobility.”
Foster pointed out that the meat and dairy industry is responsible for almost 15 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions to aviation’s 2 per cent. Does this mean that Foster + Partners will design airports but draw the line at hamburger joints and milkshake parlours?
“Technology exists to decarbonise the ocean.”
While Foster is right that design can’t solve a political problem such as extractive capitalism and the drive for exponential growth on a planet with finite resources, he perhaps has too much faith in technology’s ability to save us.
“Technology exists to decarbonise the ocean and to cleanly produce the fuel for jet travel,” Foster says, presumably so he can sleep soundly as his minions draw up the plans for a new airport for a luxury seaside resort in Saudi Arabia. But his facts could bear a little checking.
Decarbonising the ocean is the process of rectifying the acidification of seawater. As the ocean absorbs more and more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere it dissolves in saltwater and decreases its pH value. Ocean acidification destabilises the calcium carbonate that shellfish and corals need to build their exoskeletons.
Most importantly, marine plankton use calcium carbonate to form plated exteriors, acting as a natural carbon sink when they die and drift down to the bottom of the ocean. But increased levels of carbon dioxide in the ocean has led to malformed plankton, disrupting this vital process. Previous mass extinction events have been linked to ocean acidification, so it’s not inconsequential for Foster to bring it up.
“Ocean-based carbon dioxide removal proposals remain largely theoretical and have not been tested in the field.”
But while scientists and designers have put forward ways to rebalance the ocean’s acid levels, from growing more kelp to vast geoengineering projects, most would require a financial investment on an unprecedented scale. Crucially, none of this has actually happened yet. “Ocean-based carbon dioxide removal proposals remain largely theoretical and have not been tested in the field,” says research foundation Climateworks.
Stopping carbon dioxide getting into the atmosphere (say, by cutting down on recreational air travel for the rich) and thus the ocean is easier, cheaper and safer than trying to remove it once it’s in there and messing with the delicate balance that keeps the planet in its current life-sustaining state.
The Red Sea Airport in Umluj is expected to see one million travellers by 2030, and run on renewable energy. One section of the terminal designed by Foster + Partners will be dedicated to VIP travellers and their private jets, notoriously ten times more polluting than a commercial jet. It will eventually serve a vast tourism development that will see 22 islands turned into luxury resorts. However you slice it, it’s going to be a lot of carbon emissions for a money-making leisure zone.
The technology to cancel out the carbon emissions could eventually exist, but it’s not a carte blanche to keep on building and hoping for a tech-based deus ex machina to get us out of the carbon pickle. Arguing over who has the moral high ground on carbon when it comes to design only serves as a distraction from putting pressure on those who gain the most from gambling with climate change.
Story source: Architects Journal