Op-Ed

How to Help Ukraine Now … and in the Future

What can the green building and resilience communities do to help the people of Ukraine?

Kharkiv after shelling

Ordinary people living in ordinary buildings are suffering.

Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine. License: CC BY 4.0.
The news coming out of Ukraine is heartbreaking. A modern European country with cafés and clothing boutiques that weeks ago had been bustling with the goings-about by ordinary people of a modern society, was invaded by an authoritarian despot, consumed by a thirst for power and domination. Most of us feel helpless as we watch the events unfold, hoping and praying for this democratic nation—the largest in area in Europe, besides Russia—to hold fast against Russia’s power and might.

What can we do to help the people of Ukraine? We can certainly donate money to relief efforts. We can advocate for the U.S. to increase our humanitarian and military aid. We can boycott Russian goods and services—though the only Russian services most of us have contact with seems to be their state-sanctioned election interference, and maybe some Russian vodka. Perhaps most significantly, we can urge Western nations to cease the importation of Russian oil and gas, which accounts for a third of the Russian economy.

Weaning ourselves from fossil fuels

The war is a catalyst for redoubling efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. Western European nations are currently highly dependent on Russian oil and gas. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Europe depends on Russia for roughly a third of its natural gas and a quarter of its crude oil. There is currently a lot of focus on finding other sources of those fossil fuels—not surprisingly, the U.S. oil and gas industry is trying to use the Ukrainian crisis as a reason to weaken environmental regulations on energy extraction and open up more land to energy exploration. I suspect the same is happening in Europe. A far better solution is to redouble efforts to replace that oil and gas with renewable energy sources. 

Even the U.S. is importing oil from Russia. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. imported about 20 million barrels per month of crude oil and other petroleum liquids in 2021—roughly 8% of total imports and 3% of total U.S. consumption. Cutting off Russian oil imports is something that’s easy for the U.S. to do, even if it contributes to the upwards trend in energy pricing that’s been underway for the past year. It’s time to put our money where our mouths are and be willing to spend a little more when we fill up our SUVs—or switch to electric vehicles!

On the heels of the latest installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th Assessment Report—which in ever-starker language points out the climate crisis we are facing—eliminating oil and gas imports from Russia is a win-win solution. In the short term, it will help to cripple the Russian economy and build political momentum in Russia to overthrow their authoritarian regime.

In the longer term, it will help Europe lead the world in the shift away from fossil fuels. This is eminently doable, and our green building community needs to step up to the plate to show the world how to do it, including reduced energy loads and 100% electrification of all buildings. Success will depend on collective action by all of us in the green building and resilience communities. We know how to create net-zero-energy, net-zero-carbon, all-electric, resilient buildings. Western Europe and Ukraine can be the proving ground for such a future. Since the invasion, Germany has already announced plans to speed up the transition to 100% renewable energy—now hoping for nearly 100% renewable energy by 2035, even as it phases out nuclear power for safety reasons.

Building back better in Ukraine

We can also look ahead to the time that the crisis will be over—when (we hope) Ukraine will remain an independent democracy—perhaps even an even stronger, more resilient democracy. Clearly there will be a need for reconstruction and restoration of the buildings and infrastructure being destroyed by the invasion. What can we in the green building and resilience communities do to help in that process? 

Kyiv rubble

Firefighters work at the site where a residential building near downtown Kyiv was hit.

Photo: Yan Boechat/VOA. License: Public domain.
Resilience is often defined as bouncing back from disturbance, but I prefer to think of it as bouncing forward—ending up with something better than existed before. When the war is over—and assuming Ukraine prevails in retaining its status as an independent, democratically governed country—there will need to be a great deal of reconstruction to deal with the destruction we are watching in the daily news coverage. 

There will be an outpouring of foreign aid to support that reconstruction. This will be an opportunity to build back better. Using that foreign aid, Ukraine can create greener, healthier, more resilient, all-electric, net-zero-carbon buildings. The country can become Europe’s leader in the fossil-fuel-free future our world depends on.

Fortunately, Ukraine has some great architecture and construction trades schools—institutions like the Kyiv National Academy of Constructions and Architecture, the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in Kyiv; the Kharkiv State Technical University of Construction and Architecture; the State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture in Dnipropetrovsk; the Donbas National Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture, the Donbas National Technical University; the Odesa State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture; and the National Academy of Environmental Protection and Resort Development in Simferopol.

These Ukrainian universities can become leaders in green and resilient building design. Those of us involved in these fields in the U.S. and elsewhere can play an important role. Networks like the Society of Building Science Educators, the Sustainable Design Leaders (a peer network of professionals that BuildingGreen facilitates), the International Living Future Institute, the Passive House community, and the World Green Building Council can lead this charge. 

BuildingGreen wants to do its part to support this transition to a greener and more resilient Ukraine. To assist with that, we will make our information resources available at no cost to Ukrainian architecture and building trades schools. If there is interest, we will provide compilations of articles that we believe would be most applicable to the climate and needs of Ukrainian buildings and infrastructure. 

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One thing the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown us is that democracies of the world are stronger and can be more resilient if they work together. The crisis has strengthened alliances like NATO and international banking organizations. European countries that have rarely acted in such a rapid and unified voice have united behind the strongest sanctions against Russia since the Cold War. It is heartwarming to see how countries like Poland, Hungary, and Moldovia have opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees trying to escape the war and how private citizens in these countries have opened up their homes to Ukrainian neighbors. 

This gives us hope that a more united, more democratic world will emerge from this crisis in a stronger position for addressing other crises we all face—including climate change. In an ironic way, the demonic actions of an authoritarian autocrat may bring about the greater world cooperation needed to solve our biggest challenges of the coming decades.

Published March 4, 2022

Wilson, A. (2022, March 4). How to Help Ukraine Now … and in the Future. Retrieved from https://www.buildinggreen.com/op-ed/how-help-ukraine-now-and-future

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Comments

March 8, 2022 - 9:28 am

Alex - that you addressed the Ukraine situation is a good thing. The search for sustainability can't be decoupled from the other social and political currents of humanity.  Thank you for this.

However, I want to take issue with two things you wrote:

First, it is crucial that we question our relative “heartbreak" when it stems from the sight of "ordinary people of a modern society" being invaded by a warlord. Somehow this same situation is too often normalized when we see it occurring year after year in communities around the world that have been systematically exploited and disadvantaged by the global capitalist/imperialist enterprise. Too often we in the sustainability movement still don't recognize the equal humanity and equal rights to peace, well-being, and quality of life of non-Europeans. Until we do, we will continue to misplace our priorities.

Secondly, I find it profoundly disturbing that I have now heard more than a few advocates for sustainable development -- particularly those concerned about global warming and fossil-fuel use -- react to this horrific human catastrophe of war by saying, essentially. "there is a silver lining here: we might be forced to wean ourselves off fossil fuel use sooner." This attitude, aside from most likely being completely wrong on the face of it (war and destruction can only send us backward into greater fossil fuel use and dependency) also betrays a terrible mixup about ends and means. There is not going to be a future that is sustainable without getting there through just means. To look for the bright side of war in any way is a completely nihilistic position that can't be defended unless one is willing to say that the worth of a human life can be put into some kind of quantifiable equation of carbon and global temperature rise. I hope we haven't gotten to that point in the environmental movement. 

March 7, 2022 - 8:09 pm

Alex: many thanks for sharing your perspective and helpful suggestions on how to help Ukraine (and us all) create a more resilient future. How wonderful of BuildingGreen to offer its considerable resources towards that end. I know there are architects who could be contacted through the UIA (the Union Internationale d'Architectes.) Tom Vonier recently held the President of UIA position and could be helpful. 

March 8, 2022 - 9:42 pm

I was disappointed to hear oil expert Daniel Yergin interviewed tonight on the PBS Newshour about the impact of cutting off our oil imports from Russia and not once did he mention the demand side of the equation! Not one reference to energy conservation: walking or biking to work, carpooling, slowing down, turning down our thermostats, etc.  His comments were entirely about supply and how to replace the 8% of imports from Russia. Someone could pretty easily calculate the demand-side measures we could take to replace that 8% of imported oil (which amounts to 3% of our oil consumption).  I think there's enough patriotism in this country for Americans to be willing to sacrifice enough to save an amount of oil equivalent to what we have imported from Russia. 

March 8, 2022 - 11:25 pm

I love the proactive optimism in your words and the generosity of making the resources you have to offer available to Ukraine and others in need.  I feel the truth in your thoughts about using this tragic crisis as a means of greatly accelerating our transition to sustainable forms of energy.  This is by far the greatest strategy in every way as it takes us in the direction we (humanity) need to go on every front.  It will make the world independent of fossil fuel rich despots' manipulation, robbing the likes of Putin of any leverage this currently gives him.  It will keep energy production local, empowering local communities to produce what they need and maintain their energy independence.  It can rapidly accelerate a critical transition that the vast majority of people are waiting for 'someone else' to make happen.  It will greatly reduce the harm done to our biosphere through the brutal and unsustainable extraction and refinement processed for creating gas and oil, transporting it, etc, as well as all the spills and leaks that descimate whole ecosystems for decades.  Lastly, it will allow us to frugally use what fossil fuel we do use to make restorative changes to the landscape that can further accellerate the reversal of our ravaged forests and soils.

March 11, 2022 - 4:15 pm

Agree with you, the involvement of professional circles around the world with professors from the best local institutions in the field of sustainable development and green construction, I think it will be the best help for the people of our brotherly Ukraine.

March 17, 2022 - 8:24 am

Alex, your heartfelt and thoughtful appeal demonstrates how much you care and makes helpful suggestions. Going back to when I first worked at EBN in 2006, I appreciate how consistently you look at scary news headlines and find a positive future. This kind of reframing is underappreciated among the doom and gloom out there!

I would just quibble with one thing. There's a well-documented bias in western news reporting and analysis around wars and crises. Here's one recent analysis of the world’s most neglected displacement crises in 2019. I was personally unconscious of bias in the Ukraine news reporting until some great reporting made me aware of it. (So it goes with out a lot of blinders come off in this era.)

To quote from that article:

Western war reporters, more used to being deployed in Middle East conflict zones, were quick to make comparisons. Some of those comparisons went overboard, causing outrage in the Arab world.

"This isn't a place, with all due respect, you know, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades," said CBS News foreign correspondent Charlie D'Agata, referring to Ukraine. "You know, this is a relatively civilized, relatively European... city." He later apologized.

Other news outlets poured sympathy on Ukrainian victims, with interviewees and correspondents pointing out that, unlike Middle Eastern refugees, Ukrainian victims were "white," "Christian," "middle class," "blonde" and "blue eyed." 

I've become aware of how easily I can exhibit unconscious bias and I've been working on it. I think that part of that requires us to name it when we see it. I'm not posting this comment, which I offered to you on a one-to-one basis and was declined, with any intent to shame or disparage, as we see so often in social media. I believe we are at a point where we've put more shame on accountability for unconscious bias than is adaptive. If the goal is to encourage people to learn and grow it should be easy and common.

If we want to undo ordinary bias we must make it ordinary to call it out and heal it. If we want all the world's people to feel supported by the liberal environmental and social values and people reflected in this beautiful op-ed, I think we want our news publications to include them more consciously.

Reading your piece, I have questions such as those raised in the article above about phrases like "Ordinary people living in ordinary buildings are suffering."

Ordinary to whom? Your readers in many parts of the world may feel that that statement doesn't include what is ordinary to them. Does it discount their suffering? I'm sure it isn't intended to, but could they feel that you care about this because they look like more like you? I don't know.

The news coming out of Ukraine is heartbreaking. A modern European country with cafés and clothing boutiques that weeks ago had been bustling with the goings-about by ordinary people of a modern society, was invaded by an authoritarian despot, consumed by a thirst for power and domination. 

My high school roommate Daniel Badiak loving called his Ukrainean ancestors "Ukes." Dan infected me with it and I've loved the people there ever since. ("Has that been a slur this whole time and I didn't know it?" I just wondered. Ruling—according to the Racial Slur Database, it is non-derogatory.) 

I can feel the same love in your heart, but what I hear is, "My American liberal version of modernity feels especially threatened, saddened, and powerless by seeing missiles lobbed at places that look similar to where my family goes shopping."

It's also worth considering whose version of modernity and ordinariness may be a priority to center at this time in human history.

You've been in publication since 1992, with a number of wars around the world in that time. I searched for similar BuildingGreen coverage of conflicts in Syria, Africa, or Asia. My searches came up empty, though it could easily have been an oversight.

I know you're a world-traveler and appreciator. I'm a travel writer myself and I think we have a job to do, as shown in examples of your writing and mine, to question whether the western solution, typified by cafes and boutiques, is the right solution for everyone. Or perhaps we might get a lot out of learning from the local vernacular of the world, as I know you've advocated in projects such as the New Orleans Principles.

With appreciation for the safe space for dialogue held by BG,

Tristan Roberts

March 17, 2022 - 11:11 am

Thanks, Tristan, for your comments. You raise a good point about why we are concerned about this crisis but often don't get as concerned about others—and whether that reflects bias. 

We had discussed this on the editorial team before posting the article. My intent with the article was to engage Americans (and Western Europeans) to use the invasion of Ukraine as a motivation to bring about some of the broad paradigm shifts that we need to make if we are to achieve real progress in solving the climate crisis—like getting off fossil fuels. I was, thus, very conscious in portraying the devastation in Ukraine in a way that would help Americans and Europeans relate to it. By calling attention to features that we know and love—like coffee shops and clothing boutiques—my hope was to create a more visceral connection among readers (who are mostly wealthy, privledged people like us) to what is going on in Ukraine so that they may be motivated to do something about it—like driving less or getting our homes off fossil fuels.

If the article had been written for readers in Sudan or Afghanastan and I wanted to appeal to them to change their way of life, I would have used different examples that they could better relate to. But the people who most need to change are people like us with highly consumptive lifestyles.

Anyway, it's a good discussion to have. Thank you for raising the issue. Many of us do have unconscious bias (including myself, certainly). But in this case, the imagry I tried to convey of a modern society under attack was mostly intentional.

March 17, 2022 - 9:10 pm

Alex, with respect to your good intentions and the team discussion, the shaping of a message of why we should care with these elements is one ingredient in a constellation of behaviors that normalize western-centric bias.

Throughout history, an ingredient in bias complicity has been shaping a message of worthiness in terms palatable to the status quo power dynamic.

The PBS converge you decry underlines why this matters. We are all permeated by a lack of awareness to western shopping and fossil fuel addiction and how they undergirds our foreign policy decisions.

It does not have to be this way.

Why not encourage empathy with Ukraine despite, nay, because of our differences with their language, values, and culture?

Why not assume that readers from "other" cultures are among your readership, as they surely are, and consciously bring them into the big, essential tent that is the sustainability movement?

I speak for myself here, and not abstractly on behalf of others in faraway places. The shopping-forward frame of American culture does not reflect my values or my vision of true sustainability and prosperity. There are many diverse values such as these in the U.S. and western powers that individual writers and publications have an opportunity to welcome and explore.