Cool Cities ─ Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming

Climate change is the most urgent challenge we face in an interdependent world where independent nations have grown increasingly unable to cooperate effectively, even on the urgent issue of sustainability. Can cities do better? Benjamin R. Barber argues that with more than half the world's population, 80 percent of both its GDP and its greenhouse gas emissions, and a common will to cooperate, they can. In this compelling sequel to If Mayors Ruled the World, Barber assesses both broad principles and specific strategies like fracking bans, walkable cities, above-ground mining of precious resources, energy and heating drawn from garbage incineration, downtown wind turbines, and skyscrapers built from wood. He shows how cities working together on climate change can find common measures by which to evaluate the radically different policies they pursue. This is a book for a world in which combating climate change is about nothing less than cities’ survival.

Benjamin R. Barber is the Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Fordham University Urban Consortium, the Founder of the Global Parliament of Mayors and author of Jihad vs McWorld. He resides in New York City.