 Hi, everyone. I think everyone's joining now. Hi, I'm welcome to this natural capital conversation. My name is Megan Meacham, and I am based at the Stockholm Resilience Center. And I'm a postdoc there and also the research coordinator for a collaborative research program between the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University and the natural capital project at Stanford. And I am going to introduce the natural capital project this conversation series and what we're going to do today. So the natural capital project. NACAP is a collaborative initiative working to pioneer science technology and partnerships that highlight the values of natural capital and environmental services in a broad range of planning and development decisions. And our goal is to enable people and nature to thrive together and centered at Stanford University the NACAP partnership is made up of five additional core members that you see here. And the natural capital conversation series is the newest addition to NACAPs virtual programming. So it's conversations with scientists practitioners and leaders in government and business, and the format is designed to engage the panelists and the audience in discussion, learn from each other's experience experiences and promote connections and broaden the NACAP project and to get notifications for upcoming conversations and also find recordings of previous conversations around other topics. Today, we are going to focus on when and how will nature provide urban solutions. So with this excellent panel of speakers. We have Eric Anderson who's the associate professor and principal researcher at the Stockholm resilient center. We have Joseph Kane who's a fellow at the Brookings metropolitan policy program. And then, he's the designer, who's the director for city cities for forest and natural infrastructure at the world Resources Institute. We have time in McPherson who's the associate professor and director of the urban systems lab at the new school. And we have Seema Kymar, Kyrem. Who's the design lead at able city. We will start now with me giving these opening remarks and then I'll hand over to our co moderators and Gary who's the chief strategy officer and lead scientist at the natural capital project at Stanford. And Eric Lamstorf who's the program director and lead scientist at the University of Minnesota, also part of the natural capital project. Then we'll open and have a discussion around challenges and opportunities and, and a further discussion including with you the audience. So, one final thing is that we will have a question and answer box available for you. So you can enter your questions and comments for the panelists. So, please use the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen. You can access that Q&A box and there you can put your questions and comments and then we'll use the chat for any technical difficulties or other webinar logistics. So with that, I would like to hand over to and Gary. Thanks Megan. Hey everybody so glad you're here. Nat Cap's been working in urban systems for a few years now, and we're seeing both so many opportunities to bring more nature to cities and all the benefits that it can bring to urban residents of all species. But we're also seeing a lot of different challenges in implementation. And so, Eric, Lawnstorf, and Megan and I had a great time dreaming up this session, where we've invited a really fabulous group of panelists ranging from academia to practice, and a lot in between to help us explore those challenges and opportunities for including nature based solutions in cities. So as Megan said, we're going to first start with some focus on challenges and then we're going to focus on opportunities and then we'll have time for discussion at the end. Thank you for a very interactive session so we're asking our panelists to start with brief opening remarks in each of those sessions so you'll hear little chimes if people are going over their three minutes, because we want to make sure that we have time for a lot of interaction through that Q&A box. So I just want to thank everyone, all of our amazing panelists for joining us today, and I'm going to turn it over to Eric to tell us a quick story that will help set the stage. Thanks, Anne. Okay, so the setting of this little story is in Ramsey County, Minnesota, which is where the University of Minnesota's campus where I'm based as a setting behind me there is the university. It's in the city of St. Paul the capital of Minnesota is there. And about two years ago, county commissioners who helped manage the lands of the county decided to sell two parcels of open space without much public discussion at the time. Each of those parcels were near each other and about 80 acres or about 30 just over 30 hectares. One of those parcels happened to be a golf course. And a lot of our teams work over the past few years has been to try to document and quantify the benefits that golf courses can provide the surrounding communities, particularly in urban areas, kind of the green infrastructure benefits. And the county before deciding to formally sell that wanted to have a little public discussion about what those parcels could turn into. And so they started an architecture firm Perkins and will that works internationally. Turns out, and they actually had heard about our work. Through the US golf associations publications about about the work that we've been doing, and actually reached out and wanted to ask us to kind of evaluate the benefits, kind of the environmental benefits that were being provided by the golf course. We were presenting some of our work at some of those community meetings and encouraged the architecture firm to think about all kind of components of sustainability, the economic value, social value and environment when in kind of framing that decision. And we tried to actually evaluate scenarios that the architecture firm had developed for discussion, and it turned out, it was really difficult, they use different software, they don't use GIS, which is what about a lot of our work is based on. And in trying to frame the problem as a multi objective discussion with the community that kind of fell flat because each community member had very specific goals. So either they wanted more housing or protection for birds, or they were concerned about flooding. So multiple objectives didn't really know one resident really was concerned about that and so that the decision has yet to be made and the discussion continues but I think it reflects both the opportunity. The recognition that the green spaces are providing benefits to the surrounding communities and so there's kind of common goals around that, but also the challenge. Kind of the gaps that we need to fill and trying to kind of implement those tools into the active decisions, as well as sort of just the challenge of multi objective multiple objectives. So I hope we get some insight around issues like this this this issue of the pressure on green space for housing is is common at least throughout the United States I'm sure elsewhere. And so I hope that I trust that we'll be getting more and more into that as we hear from our panelists. Great thanks Eric. So now if I could ask all of our panelists to turn on their cameras. Okay, so what we'd like to do is to start with each of you. Sharing your thoughts on what currently limits the use of nature based solutions in cities today and whether or not there are knowledge gaps and or particular barriers to implementation that hamper progress in this space and we thought we'd start on the end and move towards the practice and so I'd like to introduce to invite time and to share his thoughts first. Thanks and it's a pleasure to be here and a privilege to be able to speak with everyone. Thanks so much. I want to pick up on Eric's last point about the potential conflicts with pressures on land and the pressure for housing and many kinds of housing in cities as cities are growing, expanding and even you know sort of redeveloping in particular areas. Because we see this I think in cities all across the US and you see it similar around the world that as you're developing there's a need to generate tax revenue. There's a need to spur economic development while supplying critical services to urban residents like housing. And so one of the big gaps we still have is to show the full value of what urban nature can provide and does provide. And to me one of the key gaps here is really understanding this in the context of health and mental health. I think it's been clear during the pandemic, not only for social distancing, but we're, you know, we'll probably see many studies that start to document better the importance of urban nature for stress relief for, you know, just mental, mental recovery and stress of the pandemic. And yet we don't know very much how valuable that is. I mean let's put this in context. In the United States, almost 20% of our GDP is spent on health care. How much of health care costs are avoided by the current green space we already have in cities by people being able to recreate by people being able to increase their physical activity we've had lots of studies that have shown this that, you know, green green spaces in streets along streets promote running promote cycling right. We're hundreds and hundreds of medical studies showing the mental health benefits also of urban green spaces. And yet, when we're trying to think about the value of new housing development or or new commercials space development and how that compares with the multiple benefits climate regulatory and others that we get from urban nature. We just don't know enough about the true value of mental and physical health and I think this is a massive challenge that we have to overcome if we're going to be able to argue that we need to save space for nature and they're highly dense right there they're growing rapidly around the world. And if we're not going to protect the value of nature and cities, we're going to we're going to miss out on some of these fundamental benefits that we have and I just wanted to pick up on the the help the mental health piece because I think it's a huge challenge we have to address. Thank you so much time and I'd like to gather everybody's opening thoughts and then open up for discussion so Eric over to you. Thanks on thanks for inviting me to the panel and similar to time and I pick up on one of the things the previous speaker time and said. So yes, we need to find space for nature in cities but then we need to remember for this not just to be greenwashing that nature is nature it's not just green space. But it is ecosystems with ecological dynamics and it's something different. So we're looking at different types of infrastructure and different types of solutions. And we're quite used to using engineered solutions to deal with anything from climate change adaptation to providing critical services. But if we want to use nature based solutions we need to understand that there's a different logic behind them ecology doesn't work like engineering. And this we need to realize for really understanding when and how nature based solutions can contribute. Because for example, if we look to them for helping us deal with climate change, we should also be aware that many of the nature based solutions that we are trying to use are themselves sensitive to climate change. So again, if we believe that just by having a green something in us it is everything should be well. It's not necessarily that simple it may fail it may flounder. If we're under pressure of climate and especially if we don't know how to manage because often nature green spaces nature based solutions in cities are small scale and very much dependent on human management and the management from other types of infrastructure. So that said I would suggest that they challenge with nature based solutions and possibly a way of moving forward is that I wouldn't say that they are necessarily to be or should be understood as solutions themselves but they can certainly contribute to solutions and be components of solutions but often they need to be complimented with other things nature is rarely a solution to human problems it can contribute to solutions but again we must be part of creating the actual solution so just having nature there or just having a green biological component there is not enough. I think it's sort of like a caution not to check a box like yep we've got a green space on the land use land cover map and that's going to be good enough. Okay thanks Eric. Seema over to you. Alright, so when I was thinking about the sort of challenges or knowledge gaps that impact how we implement nature based solutions that are kind of two things that jumped out at me immediately. First is thinking about how we frame the impacts of it green investments. And second is about how power is distributed across our implementing institution. And this, you know, advocates for nature based solutions and folks in the conservation movement. Yeah I found kind of over emphasize the benefits of parks and open faith and green infrastructure. You know we talk a lot about physical activity, mental health benefits, stormwater management pollution control, but often fail to acknowledge the potential harms, you know, the distribution of resources the possibility of gentrification and displacement, the lack of agency or cultural representation and built environment. And not to say that we should invest less in green state space we just need to start from a position where we're, you know, really understanding the full scope of consequences, particularly because lower income people and communities of color, most often bear the unfortunate burden of the negative impacts, while not, you know, not. And the balance is different for them than a lot of the folks that are leading those that decision making process. You know, in my experience in the field and in practice these comes from kind of a narrow sense of history. You know, I don't think that we're paying enough attention to the fact that parks and quality of life amenities have historically been developed hand in hand with the systems that have created the inequities in our cities that we're talking so much about today, you know that we're like, we have that responsibility to take on that legacy. You know we talk a lot about redlining, but we don't talk a lot about the racialized prioritization of investments in nature to the, and the outdoors to you know people with privilege. So going back to Minnesota, where I worked for a bit and where Eric's example was, you know, I really appreciated the work of Kirsten Dilligard in the mapping project. You know she studied the system of parks and lakes that helps Minneapolis become, you know, the number one park system in the nation for many years. And she found that the residential neighborhoods that were developed in tandem with those natural resources. You know all those neighborhoods were developed with racially respected covenants. So that meant that black and brown residents were like legally not allowed to live near this incredible investment in nature 100 years ago. And so when you look at that as a broad in the broader context, you know, the park system was really being used as a real estate tool. It was an effective one, you know, now those are the most affluent communities in the city. And you know this game created a century of generational wealth and stability for white homeowners, while black and brown residents were pushed to areas with fewer parks, more inequitable development practices more heavy industry, and you know all of those places were using gentrification so there's just this cycle of disinvestment and inequity that's happening there. And so I'll just touch a little bit on the second topic about how you know how that plays out into how we implement. You know, because we're not thinking about this holistic impact of parks on economic development land use housing the cultural infrastructure of the city. Then the implementing agencies the parks department in the local government are siloed from other department, you know you can only work within the bounds of the sidewalk like you can't even touch the street like that's a different department that public works. But we really need to you know if we think about this broader analysis of the pro the, you know the benefits and the consequences, then you know it'll become clear that parks needs to, and you know, and the climate infrastructure needs to like really be integrally tied with other parts of the government that are impacting economic development housing land use and all of this. Thank you Seema. So many great themes coming up here. I can't wait for the discussion part but first I want to hear from Todd, and then Joe so over to you Todd. It's a pleasure to be here. I want to first me pick up on a point that Eric Anderson made in his opening remarks I think he said ecology doesn't work in the exact same way as engineering. And that's such a true point and the crux of one of the biggest challenges for urban nbs and green infrastructure. We're asking traditional engineers and infrastructure developers to think differently to plan differently to come up with implementation plans that are quite different than what they're accustomed to. And oh by the way, you also need to think about different financing approaches for green infrastructure relative to the traditional, you know steel and cement approaches and like anything changes hard. It takes time. And that is something that we continually need to work with and increase the comfort level of these decision makers of all of the values of green infrastructure within our cities. That idea of time has also proven to be one of the challenges, at least from a temporal perspective of when we're actually going to recognize the benefits of urban green infrastructure. When you build a new stormwater plant, once it's ready and you hit the switch at least in theory, you can more or less immediately recognize all of the benefits of the filtration and storage and treatment. If you're planting an urban canopy, putting more open space on the landscape by the swells and the like. It's not immediate. And in some cases there's years or even the decade between initial implementation and full recognition of benefits. The objectives are not aligned for decision makers and engineers to do things for the benefits to accrue 10 years from now, when we think about political realities election dynamics and the like so that has been been another challenge. Again, this builds a little bit on what Sima was saying and I 100% agree with her remarks around, you know, equity justice community engagement making sure the appropriate folks especially underserved community have a seat at the table. It's important, also not easy to do, especially with the current structures that we have so there's tons of guidebooks and roadmaps produced by NGOs like WRI on what needs to happen how you do it, but putting it into practice and asking infrastructure workers to do that, in addition to their day job right or at least what they perceive as their day job has not been something that globally, or even in big cities in the US we've been successful at today so a lot of challenges but also excited to get to the opportunities part because it's not all bad news there's a lot of exciting opportunities. Thanks. Thanks Todd and last but not least I'd like to invite Joe to give us his thoughts. Thanks Ann, I'll probably repeat a lot of what was already said a little bit. It's a hard part of going last but I'll point to really three challenges I see them, primarily from a policy and planning perspective in a US context but I think that there are probably some parallels to what we see in some other regions globally. First, and I think Seema did a great job describing this sort of the fragmentation that we see in how we actually implement some of these improvements. The reality is, and at least in the US, you know we have a hyper fracturing of roles and responsibilities and in terms of our infrastructure ownership and operation, whether that's green infrastructure or gray infrastructure. We have more than 50,000 water utilities I often like to say our watersheds do not match our political boundaries it makes it extremely challenging to mobilize resources, make plans, devise new programs when there's just a huge amount of monitoring of responsibilities and oversight so I would point to that as sort of a primary challenge here as we think of implementation. Second, which which several fellow panelists have are touched on lack of real clear consistent climate measures and information here if we cannot clearly identify what some of the challenges are. We can begin to address them. And I think there's there's a lot of great examples out there and very ad hoc ways, you know, certainly in the academic literature and elsewhere, particularly from a climate science perspective of trying to measure what some of these challenges are but are we translating these chat these these climate measures into economic measures that that all types of leaders can understand because you know often. Occasionally, you know planners and others aren't the ones controlling the purse strings mayors governors others are, can they understand both the costs and the benefits here in an economic sense. Often that is not the case. You know when we talk about cubic feet of water or other risk factors that isn't easily interpreted I don't think by by some of our leadership that actually controls some of the funding for for some of these decisions and then last, but not least I think is the elephant in the room is lack of proactive investment and I don't mean just sort of the need for more money here but channeling money into it is ultimately a broken framework for forgetting these projects done overly reactionary done in silos. And that's true. I think, especially in the public sector, you know, as I like to say state states and local governments are responsible for more than three quarters of our public spending on transportation and water infrastructure each year. In the United States they are bearing a lot of this responsibility, it's challenging for them to have the capacity to address some of these newer projects procurement is a big deal, rethinking procurement. And in the private sector to you know we hear they're sitting on a lot of resources when we think of ESG investing, where are they going to put all that money there's a lack of matchmaking, I think, to even understanding where those resources could go and a danger for greenwashing, as others have already pointed to. So a lot of challenges here but but very much looking forward to the solutions to. Great thanks Joe. So I'm going to check the Q&A box here so we thought we'd have a little bit of a conversation now about challenges although I, I feel myself already wanting to move towards solutions it's not fun to dwell on the challenges for too long. Okay, I thought I would see one theme that definitely came up a bunch is this issue of silos being a problem and that's something that I've seen time and time again with NACAPs work in this space where we're trying to talk about co benefits. These solutions bring all these things that maybe we've inflated a little bit according to SEMA and not focus enough on the challenges side of things. But I feel that we often hear we're often talking to people in municipal governments who say well yeah but education benefits of green space are not my thing like I my jurisdiction is not to care about that. And I think you've each brought up these challenges of silos in planning when we're trying to think about something that's long term multi benefit sort of the systems perspective. And I'm just wondering if while I'm trying to focus on the Q&A box here. If any of you would like to talk a little bit more about that challenge of going across silos. I might jump in and maybe steal a remark from my solutions. But I guess I wanted to just sort of dig in a little bit more on the community engagement piece because I think that it might be like in a way a way through it. I think like I'm coming to this realization after like multiple degrees and like 10 years as a practicing architect and you know like more and more like I think of myself as an expert. But I think that community members are also expert. Like, we are never going to understand the nuance of how like a change of the built environment is going to affect like on the ground locally. And that mixture of like oh well it created this like this shift in the real estate dynamic but it also was a great place where I love to go walk my dog and you know like being able to like people, people understand the world holistically, and like people don't think about just housing. They're not just experts in you know where they like to go for walks like they like they think about those things like intersectionally. And so I think if we can bring think about the people that we're engaging like first of all bring them to the table, and then second of them treat them like experts. Allow the people who are going to be impacted by the investments that we're making to get to decide, you know what that balance is. And also you know it brings added benefit that those people will also be the political advocates for creating the structures to make those changes. So yeah I think it's less about like, you know, the engineers and experts over here engaging the community but it's really thinking about like, we're all experts in something and they actually can bring a lot to the table and, and thinking about how all of these things tied together and connect. Yeah, thanks. Thank you so much for this point real fast. Yeah, sounds good. Thanks. Yeah, one just to totally agree that the local residents in their neighborhoods. No best what they need. And they're articulating it, you know the question is like who's listening. And I think this whole issue of how do you change the processes of decision making so that they have a seated table gets to Joe's point about some fundamental structures that aren't in place. And I think it's an interesting question about the siloization that we have had, especially in city government decision making, which is a long standing tradition of how you sort of set up and create governance structures is something that there's also I think the emergence of potential shifts that are starting to happen there and one of them is the increasing recognition of the way in which climate change is impacting cities. The development, it's slow, it's emerging, but the development of these agencies that are across agency agencies, right these offices of sustainability these offices of resilience. And where those exist there, at least as a bit of a light maybe at the end of the tunnel of how we can start to harness that as the baby steps towards a more radical shift and governance structures that can break through the transition and start to harness because they're at least in some specific examples I have in mind they're charged with working across agencies to try to unite goals around health and goals around transportation and goals around housing through the need to deliver resilient solutions or sustainable solutions. So I think that's an opening, but we also see that they haven't solved the problem of process of engaging with the communities who have their own knowledge about what those solutions are so it's a starting point I think it's sort of starting on that solution space, and maybe that's a place that we can sort of break that open even more as we sort of push on the need for new governance structures. Actually time in, I'll call on you next time but I'm looking at one of the questions in the Q&A that would be a great follow up here about whether or not you can, or anyone can this is from Taylor Ricketts, give an example or two of a city that has done a job in busting those silos, accounting for equity engaging communities well or otherwise addressing these challenges you've just alluded to a few examples that you might have in mind maybe you could give one quickly and then we'll turn it over to Todd. I'll give two very fast, I'm not, I don't think they are hitting the mark perfectly on all those categories right. So I think for example, you know after Hurricane Sandy in New York City this establishment of the Office of Resiliency now the mayor's Office of Climate Resiliency has been fundamental to the city's ability to start to develop solutions that cut across silos, and some of the responses led in part by that agency but contributed by many agencies to the current Ida after the Ida hurricane in New York that quickly within weeks put out a unified response of the city about what do we have to shift accelerating plans that were on the books and saying we got to put these in place right away, including nature based solutions I think the city of Phoenix and establishing a heat resiliency office together with Miami are two places that are starting to lead to say no we have to think thematically about governance. They have to be thinking about how he cuts across all aspects of the city in terms of who's most affected and how we develop solutions. That doesn't mean they've solved the equity problems or they've solved the you know engagement or really dealing with procedural justice problems, but I think there's the beginning of starting to rethink governance. And maybe to kind of go to the other side of the country in in San Francisco and I do want to give them credit for starting the process. We are not there yet to say that it's been a success but what we're going to try along with encouraged capital has been partnering with San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the ports authority and the Department of Transportation, what we're calling the joints joint benefits authority. And the idea is we're piloting it in the Slayers Creek area for those familiar with the Bay Area deploying green infrastructure an area that is, you know, a profit stricken area. That's needed there and thinking about the benefits and values that each agency would get out of a green infrastructure projects right the. It's on the water to the ports obviously have a major role to play SF PUC from a flood control perspective, and then Department of Transportation went floods that screws up roads and and pathways and the like. Can we at least order of magnitude begin to model out using tools like invest what have you, what the benefits are for each of those agencies, and then they financially contribute in kind. Can we create economies of scale on the planning on the monitoring on the financing each of those departments right now has their own staff of men and women doing those things and there's a lot of overlap. So we're working towards sort of a joint benefits approach, and if successful this could be over a billion dollar green infrastructure development project so not a small pilot with full scale implementation. Other cities like Seattle and Pittsburgh are at the table as well watching and looking how they might contextualize for their needs as well. Happy to share more information after the after the panel. Thanks Todd Eric I see you've got your hand up and also I'd like to direct a question from the Q amp a box to you which is about the sort of otherness of people and nature and I think this is something that you've thought a lot about how do we change the paradigm of the wave nature or the planet rather than recognizing how intertwined our fates are. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that, as well as what moved you to raise your hand. Let's see what I can do I want to pick up on something Todd said and this is certainly not a solution to how to align better different governance processes and to deal with this siloed approach to monitoring cities but what we could. There's a promise in nature based solutions because it provides a common denominator it is potentially a solution to many different problems so instead of starting with the nature based solutions themselves if we look to what different sectors different silos need and if you can show that well this is something that could actually be addressed by this a particular nature based solution. And then if many of them come to realize that it is the same solution they're actually interested in so instead of just starting with the solution and try to sell it in you start with their specific needs and then you have a very real connected between the silos. And then of course the next step is to figure out how to jointly govern or implement that solution but still, it is a connector. Before we have looked to different solutions which makes it even harder to coordinate but here that is a commonality just because nature based solutions have multiple different potential benefits to the other question the otherness of people and nature. I think I may actually come back to the opportunities or more promises of nature based solutions, because there really is a need to shift how we think about nature and also how we think about nature based solutions as being something that we're more part of something that is just there implemented. So they're recognizing that we are part of the ecology of nature based solutions could maybe be a bit, or a tiny step towards the realization that we're part of any ecology or part of the boss at the global level. Thanks. I feel like we're all chomping at the bit to get to talking about the solutions piece so I'm just leave the floor open for a second if any of you would like to say anything else about a challenge or this section of our discussion that you would like to get on the table before we move to talking about slightly more optimistic things. Okay, over you Eric to moderate the next more fun chunk. Yeah, it seems like that was all the questions from the from the audience were all about okay that's depressing. Let's hear some some positive news. So we're going to kind of flip the order for talking a little bit about sort of the opportunities and solutions. To start you kind of laid out where three challenges. And I want you to start with, maybe some, some, some of the opportunities or solutions to some of that. Yeah, great Eric. Yeah, I'll kind of parallel sort of laid out those three challenges and a lot of what everyone else has been talking about kind of to three, as I see them three opportunities. Moving forward again looking not just towards playing lip service I think to this but actual implementation and change on the ground in different places. First, I think if we're talking so much about fragmentation and siloing and sort of different starting points, obviously coordinated planning, you know coordinated policies are a no brainer. And I would say that's true, not only in terms of the what, you know, what sort of projects are we doing and how is the money flowing but who you know do we actually have the people in place at a local level in different ways to do this. Do we have the actual talent the capacity to do this. And so a lot of my work focuses on workforce development across the infrastructure sector where there's huge challenges right now, even just replacing some of the skilled workers who we already have here. And I'm not just talking about those who are wearing hard hats to actually install some of these systems but but actually managers. I think it's human resources customer service we are having a huge silver tsunami in this sector at the moment, and a huge challenge in filling the talent pipeline to actually ensuring we have the leaders in place to to pioneer some of these solutions, let alone just kind of doing the same old same old so if we don't address the human potential here. And this addition to sort of the physical what I think it's a huge missed opportunity, and something that can connect to communities and to the types of visible improvements we can see in in place you know and this doesn't have to be just an overly formal thing I mean I think there's places with different starting points here. And a lot of people have looked at Philadelphia, for example is you know their green city clean waters effort. I looked like to look across the river at Camden, New Jersey, which is a place that has tremendous environmental justice issues, economic issues, but they have really interesting work. I've talked to their utility there quite frequently on the Camden collaborative initiative where they brought together even informally. The utility with Rutgers with other community organizations to talk start talking about, not just sort of infrastructure but green infrastructure and visions moving forward so to the extent that there's people in place, talking about informal ways but informal ways I think is a step to go. Second, I'll be brief on these these next two. Second is is on measurement. And, and I kind of mentioned before sort of the there's data out there but how do we harness that information how do we start to apply it starts feeding into how we do these things in a repetitive way that just becomes obvious this is how we should do them. And how we just haven't done that. So looking at how places can incorporate these measures into their capital planning process, not just sort of in long range, comprehensive plans but capital planning how are they embedding these measures into how they judge the benefits and costs of different projects I think is important. I highly recommend for those who haven't seen Jan Whittington at the University of Washington has led some tremendous work on climate smart capital improvement planning. And I think it's really foundational work for for thinking about this. Third, I think, you know, being in Washington I can't not not say this, there's a federal moment right now, kind of impossible to ignore that I think has has certainly ramifications for the US but but even globally. And how, how our place is going to maximize this moment. And I think there's a real danger of just throwing more money at some of these things and, and, you know, kind of the sugar rush that some places have just doing projects and, and doing construction and doing the same old same old but, but how are we actually going to look at this hopefully the spike in spending in a way that's actually going to lead to some some renewed approaches ways to address some of our legacy systems that that Seema was was talking about. And, you know, it's going to require different federal agencies to be involved. SEC Treasury, for example, in addition to EPA and DOT, and in addition to other other public and private leaders across the country but but I'll stop there. Great, thank you Joe. Okay, continuing in reverse order. Todd, you're up. And Joe just for clarification, living in Southwest Colorado sometimes is quite healthy to just pretend Washington DC doesn't exist. So, but in all seriousness, three things that give me a lot of hope. You mentioned some of the capacity, both gaps and opportunities there. And that is a real thing we need to be looking at and job trainings and the like. I no longer believe that the availability of money is a limiting factor. If you look at green bonds that have been focused on urban NDS both in the US and Europe and increasingly in Latin America, they are all oversubscribed right investors are falling falling over themselves to buy them at a premium. And so, I think it was you actually, Joe mentioned before, you know, creating that pipeline of bankable deals, thinking about the combination of green infrastructure, along with gray infrastructure to get bigger, bigger deal sizes is going to drive more implementation examples, etc. So money is no longer the limiting factor we've just got to put good projects forward to attract that investment that is sitting on the sidelines. Unlike 10 years ago, we now have a plethora of successful cases to point to. And like most things in life, success breeds success. This is no longer, will it work. It has worked. And here's how you do it. Here's the mistakes that we made make different ones. And so I feel pretty good that we can go to utility directors infrastructure developers but have you and point to different places from large cities to like New York City, down to Little Rock, Arkansas, right, a couple hundred thousand folks and say, it's not just the big guys that can do this this can be deployed anywhere and everywhere from prosperous areas to two areas of low income. And again, this builds on what you said Joe is the monitoring side. One of the big challenges over the last decade plus has been, yeah, but does this really work right does it attenuate floods you know it doesn't provide the nitrogen reduction, and with the increase in technology from satellite imagery, and triangulating this kind of on the ground gauge measurement and even the increase in community science, right and another way to get the communities at this most impacted involved, we are getting better at saying it worked, it didn't work or at least we know the answer and can adaptively manage and enhance our models moving forward so what were three critical data points lack of money right lack of examples of success and lack of examples of do we have the data to prove that it worked. So we're beginning to overcome all those things that gives me great hope for the scaling replication in the, in the years ahead. Thanks. That was does make me feel good to being in this field so that's great. Seema, your turn and then Eric and time and chat. I'll also give three examples of, you know, sort of different ways that you know communities are and and local governments are addressing the sort of the risk of green infrastructure driven gentrification. And they're kind of, you know, top down middle out bottom up example so the first. And I'll just add the caveat that you know I, I used to work at trust public land and was on a team that was supporting different groups and cities around the country I haven't been in that role for over almost a year so I might be a little out of date in my kind of intimate knowledge of what's going on with these projects but so I'll speak a little bit of what I knew then and hopefully, you know we can, we can all catch up and research what's going on, you know, with the pandemic and everything, how these projects are going. So the first one I'm thinking of is India based in Shoreline Park in San Francisco. And this is a project and baby hunters point it's one of, it's a historically black community in San Francisco one of the kind of few affordable places left in the city and there's a little bit of approval to kind of completely revitalize the shoreline there. And really it was the leadership at the local level, Bill Ginsburg the director of the parks department, basically, you know, said like we can't this can't just be a traditional parks project we need to be thinking about the broader actual development of this community because this project does have the potential of completely changing the neighborhood. And so, you know, I think the city, along with kind of nonprofit partners has developed a system where like they have engaged a fill up Randolph Institute which is a local on the ground racial justice group. And like given them a big grant so that they can show up at the table and really guide, you know it's not just community engagement led by the city, the community engagement actually led by the community supported by the city. So they have been working on this actual development plans. That's addressing housing and jobs and economic development and transportation and really looking at how this park is going to change all aspects of the community. And it really came from the leadership at the local government level to say, Okay, we know we need to do this. And how are we going to change the process to make sure that happens. So the project is the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington DC, which, you know, with the help of a like really tenacious nonprofit group, working for many years, but have both raised, you know, $16 million for the physical infrastructure of this park that's going to the river connecting a more affluent part of DC to the Anacostia neighborhood, which is also a historically black neighborhood, lower income neighborhood in the city. And they've also raised $60 million of community development fund. So they're working on job training programs, developing a community land trust report to preserve housing affordability, increasing food access, education resources, small business investment. And really that was led, you know, I think a bit more through the like nonprofit sector, raising a lot of money, both from public sources, but a lot of private philanthropy to make sure, and they've been doing all of these community development investments before like they haven't even broken ground yet on the park itself, but there's been, you know, five, seven years of organizing and developing these programs to make sure that, you know, as more investment comes to the neighborhood, it's, you know, a healthy, sustainable community that can thrive with those with that new investment as opposed to being kind of steamrolled by them and pushed out. And then the last one which was more bottom up that I'll mention is the LA River open space and housing collaborative La Rosa, which is a collective of really grassroots environmental justice groups and housing justice groups that have come together to realize that this conflict between like land for housing and land for parks is putting these two, like essential needs against each other and they've come together to say, Okay, how do we advocate for these things together. If we're going to be building a bunch of new housing in LA, you know, that housing needs to be affordable, it also needs to be close entities that people need to live healthy, you know, happy lives and so they are collectively, you know, targeting, you know, all of the like state funding opportunities, legislative actions on the ground organizing and really just trying to find ways to constantly be advocating for parks and housing together. And, you know, are starting to make inroads and sort of like from a legislative and a funding perspective like how do we create funding models that support the joint development of those things and then on the ground, advocating for those projects as they come up throughout the community. So those are all, you know, extremely places where I am really looking forward to seeing how those things develop and grow and hopefully they can be case studies that aren't just one off and we can learn from. Thanks, Eva. Eric, you're up and I know you have to leave soon looks like you might be in a some sort of station of some kind, large hanger. But for those that if you have questions specifically for Eric, please put them in the chat now because he has to leave soon so go ahead. Thanks. And so I thought I'd talk a bit about not so much the strategic level of planning but practice instead. And I find it interesting that some of the things that we've talked about as challenges can also be if not solutions that at least a promise for moving forward. I mean, the segmentation sectorization, and so forth. It is a problem but you can also look at it as a type of diversification because working through nature based solutions is a way of creating opportunities for more people to be involved and empower people to make a solution for themselves engineered technical solutions tend to be there. Well, they require a lot of expertise they require specific skills. Well, yes. So, do you need to be solutions but they are more open to us all to be involved in hence many of the solutions will be collective solutions and they of course is not necessarily so that they would naturally address all the problems of the inequitable access to means funding processes of decision making and so forth but just by being more open to people getting involved. I think there's a great promise here. Nature and nature based solutions and this goes back to the question and post before, if we see ourselves as part of the solution not just a solution as something we put there and then leave it there but nature based solutions need continued and just plant and installed but they need continued maintenance management and so forth and this is something that will could involve many of us and to discuss on what terms and in what ways we can be involved. There's an opportunity there to build something that is grounded in multiple interests, multiple different needs, multiple different understandings of what nature based solutions are and in what ways they could contribute to our quality of life and our neighborhood. There's a promise there of course diversity is hard to harness, but still diversity is also, or it does provide opportunities for people to be part of the solutions. Great, thank you. And then, hopefully we can get some questions and before you have to go time to close it out. Thanks I'm going to, I'm going to pick back up on my earlier point about health which we haven't talked a lot about and I want to. You know, where we see some opportunity space I think one of the things that hundreds if not thousands of medical studies that have shown the importance of nature on mental and physical health have been picked up by some sectors right so if you look at both retrofits and new hospital development, the mounting of evidence around how fast post operation recovery happens. It's improved when you're in a courtyard that has green space, the way in which our mental health effects are physical health and therefore being able to see plants outside or even have plants inside your recovery room has changing the way that hospitals are both building new hospitals and the way in which they're retrofitting. So, everyone wants to have a post op recovery room that's a little courtyard or access to courtyard or views out the window, because you can measure the benefits both from a health perspective and the economic benefits of less time spent in the hospital that mounts up X number of bills. So I think there's some real opportunity to think about how we can apply what that sector has learned in our schools into our residential buildings into our commercial spaces, and when we start to amplify that because it's incredible to me how fast this is taken off the monetary benefits to go along with the health benefits have been able to mobilize new finance a new just prioritization of nature in those kinds of spaces how do we do that a lot of others and I think this is one of the things that unlocks potentially massive amounts of finance not only in US context as we're a little focused on here today it seems like, but in many other contexts all around the world, and just to anchor that point. If you think about that cost in the United States context for healthcare, upwards of three and a half trillion dollars being spent on healthcare every year. The action of that could be put instead into investing in nature based solutions in the city all across all aspects of the city that could lower our health care costs. And if we did that, and what would that be, maybe that's a trillion a year that we need to really come to the scale of the of the challenge that we're facing and investing in a way that can be more inclusive because the piecemeal approach is is going to keep having equity problems in terms of how it's prioritized we need an order of magnitude shift in the investment in nature and solutions. And there are ways that we should be able to mobilize that finance especially we can better demonstrate the diverse values and, and to my mind, the gap in the mental and physical health value which perhaps might be the largest monetary value of any of the many benefits that they have. I want to jump to a quick point if I can because I think it picks up on this that Oliver raised in the chat. And feel free to cut me off Eric if you if you want to. But there's this question that Oliver had about how do you not displace people when you're investing. And I think Seema pointed to some really great examples of the way in which you can couple housing and other priorities with nature based solutions I think this is one of the key issues that we have to do a better job of and it goes to this question of siloization as well. And so maybe we can talk a little bit more about, you know, how do you get this done without driving, you know, increasing gentrification or driving other forms of displacement. And one would be that we scale up the investment so massively that everyone can benefit. I think the other is really, you know, the governance side and the implementation side is coupling. And that's a challenge for us right that is about not, but we have this challenge where we've been spending decades arguing that nature based solutions matter that we want to invest in green infrastructure and now we realize that we can't do it by themselves you can't just put it in by itself it has to be coupled with energy security and food security and housing security, and those together have to be solved. And I think that perhaps is maybe our bigger challenge. How does this get out of the realm of the colleges advocating for urban nature, or, or us advocating from a health perspective. I want to throw that out as a challenge to consider a little bit more but also because I think, you know, one of Seema's examples is sort of a perfect example of what's already happening. And how we're starting to solve that by by coupling these together and really bring the community voices and it says no, we need the housing, and we need the mobility, and we need the green space. Okay, time and just in case Eric is still on it looks like he may have actually left but I wanted to pick up off of the sort of the community engagement question this is something that's come up in the story that I brought up at the beginning and a couple questions on the, the panel just sort of when there is engagement and just sort of combating sort of the, the last loudest voice sort of dominating. Maybe a special interest or things and just sort of what kind of these broader community engaged visions that you just laid out time and and Seema. And maybe the work of the seas of the Anthropocene I don't know if time and you've been involved in that at all. It's a process for sort of that I wonder if you could could speak to a little about some of the kind of mechanisms that might be used when this kind of a whole bunch of money and opportunity is coming. How do we then kind of prevent these sort of special interest from from preventing progress using these engagement tools so that's the groups want to talk a little bit about that that would be great. I'd be happy to jump in. I mean I think it's sort of unfortunate we use the word community engagement for like such a broad like spectrum of activities. You know there is like what I kind of think is like the typical community engagement is where you like set out like a notice on the city website you hold a meeting at 2pm at city hall and you know you get a bunch of like, you know, old predominantly white retirees who show up because they are the ones that have the time and the interest to show up. And you know that like those are the places where you get those like loud voices, or the sort of more unofficial in community engagement where, you know, you open yourself up to like developers and you know hearing from the people who make the decision to figure out how to make sure that they get heard, because they have a financial interest. And, you know, so like that is considered, you know, community engagement some ways but then also like, you know, there's really like a whole world of community engagement processes where you're really going out to the community proactively and like going to events that are already happening asking everyday people. You know, they want to like what they want to see in their future how they want to prioritize things in their built environment and it really requires it does take a lot of time and a lot of energy, a lot of cultural awareness. So going out and asking people and giving them the opportunity to not just say, Okay, here's a really narrow set of questions, can you please fill out my survey, but actually like engage them as people and, and then also do the work of, you know, making sure that people like see the feedback loop of what you've, what you've heard from them and making sure that people get to see what other people said to say, Okay, hey loud community voice that wants X. Let's talk to 50 other people who want who want why, and help the community understand, you know, how they are collectively prioritizing things. And, you know, kind of think about how that conversation gets shaped and, and make me sure that you reach out to the people who are the most vulnerable the most potential have the most potential for being impacted, and then also, you know, through that process and, through the city where I'm working now, like we have this whole process that we call like the city makers community engagement process where we're thinking about how are we engaging citizen, not just about the particular project that we're talking about, but how are we giving them the tools and the knowledge to be more engaged in the future. So, like, teaching them teaching community members like how to have impact in their local government, in addition to just getting feedback on, you know, the thing that we're looking at and so I think it's like these processes build on top of each other and once you have good community engagement and people know that you're listening, and that what they say actually makes it in, you know, whether it's not like doesn't necessarily have to make it into the final design, but it has to be make it far enough that it was considered respectfully. And then you'll get more voices, and hopefully be able to to get, you know that more kind of comprehensive look of what the priority should be. But if I could just really jump in really quickly, I think similar raises important point of, as we think of engagement, not only in the planning process, but in the actual, you know, how we manage these assets over time and and where I've seen going back to the some of the workforce issues I was describing before communities that have done really well as providing visibility and awareness of what these these projects even are. I think there's not a universal understanding when when a rain garden is installed, for example, of what is this, you know, it's not just different landscaping but it's actually an asset for the community and it provides visibility for even students and younger community of workers in this space to understand what is, what is a green career, you know, I mean, a lot of our water infrastructure is buried and invisible to a lot of people they think it's a dirty job. Why why would it be a career of choice and what yet when they see a demonstration project or or the value that these systems provide for their community. It's a key in road to to many individuals and and I mean I'm going down to grade example of kids just understanding what what is the meaning of this for for our community for our climate I want to be involved in this. It becomes a real path of choice and so, you know Louisville Kentucky is a great example. They hold an annual event called can you dig it which I just love the title of that. So we have other high school students and younger students primarily from disadvantaged communities throughout Louisville to understand what our careers in this space actually talking with contractors and firms that are working on these projects so there's, there's a real synergy of not just while we're doing these projects and we need public input but we actually want you to be involved from the get go of what projects we even think about doing in the future, and that you have a place here. We have a place in the community to. All right great I think we're going to shift now to kind of the more open and kind of just general questions. So I'm going to start with one from from Taylor. He's been asking for basically the kinds of policy and community initiatives that could be used to like what kind of information from the scientific community would be helpful. And pushing some of those policies forward, like we heard some some examples from time and Joe what kind of information you think could be helpful and kind of informing some of the policies and solutions that that you kind of mentioned earlier. And just generally Eric in terms of, of policies or. Yeah just sort of like how to kind of translate the research and findings and kind of turning that into some sort of incentive or even a, you know community engagement opportunity from both ends. I'll say, federal, starting at the federal level and kind of working down. I mean we need more experimentation, clearly. I mean that there needs to be more, not just sort of one off, you know, pilots and it's great to, you know, I, I could point to San Francisco in the Bay Area for so many things but if you go to middle America and say San Francisco is doing this it's like, All right. Like, how do we do this right and so replication, and the willingness I think, not just a planners but a political leaders to, you know, put their necks out there and do this as a priority that has got to happen in more places and to the extent that that our policy frameworks at a federal level can build that capacity and that flexibility for state and local experimentation where a lot of this is happening. You know, something I've heard a lot is pre development assistance right is there a way as part of existing federal grants or loans via EPA, FEMA, etc. Is there a carve out right for for thinking of not just doing green infrastructure projects but actually the planning involved of getting community members together, doing better measurement, thinking of new financial approaches like that takes time and and you know that has to be part of the experimentation here so we need to think of experimentation in addition to modernization to have we have a lot of stuff already built out, I mean in the US I know that's true in a lot of other countries to. And so it's not just building a bunch of new stuff as much as you know that's I think where the political appetite still is of the ribbon cuttings and you know, all that but I mean, you know we don't have ribbon cuttings when we repair a pipe for, or, repair some of our existing assets which is where I mean we're in an era of repair and replacement for the most part for our spending and so to the extent that it's new experimentation but also experimentation on existing assets. I think ideally with some of that pre development support would be helpful in terms of our policies. If I could just jump in and make a federal program. It is more traditionally oriented to sort of the working rural landscape, but NRCS has the conservation innovation grant program. Once a year and it's, I'm not sure what the number is but you know about $1520 million average grants are about 500,000 that does exactly what Joe was describing right it's that sort of pre feasibility. So it's a great stage to engage the relevant stakeholders to kind of figure out what your project looks like and to set the stage for implementation and financing so NRCS CIG. Thanks. If I could follow up with one from the Q&A box that is linked which is, are there financing mechanisms that have not been fully explored or taken advantage of that can help fund nature based solutions in cities so that was one Todd and you talked about funding bonds. Are there other things that we can point towards here. Sure. Well, and so I spend a lot of time in the space of innovative finance, and it's my least favorite word sort of the innovative, like we all want something new and different and like what investors want is vanilla. Right what has worked. And how do we maybe do a little bit of a tweak to make it relevant for nature based solutions so look I'm all about trying new things but I think that there is still a long way to go to fully utilizing traditional debt instruments to fund our urban infrastructure right this. So we need to get infrastructure developers investors project partners very comfortable with utilizing debt and what that means and what credit worthiness is. We don't necessarily need new things. Now when it comes to eventually paying back investors right just like a mortgage, you get the money up front, you can do the implementation and you pay the bank back over time. That's what we need for for infrastructure. What we need to understand is how you monetize and where the cash flows come from when you're putting in rain gardens when you're creating additional open space right. It's very clear the data, the health benefits of access to nature. How do you turn that into a revenue stream to pay back investors and that that's difficult and complicated and. Time and again. She mentioned her work with a bleached up trust Republic lands. You know they've done a ton of research on what bond measures and ballot measures pass open space and water pass 80 plus percent of time. We need to get more ambitious and get over this, this false belief that most communities won't tax themselves right for good stuff when the data shows that they will. If we can clearly communicate what it is, what the benefits are, and, and, and what they're going to get for it and that's blue and red districts, so it's not just sort of a liberal big city thing it can be rural America as well. Yeah, actually a question came in from from Mary wondering about the opportunity sort of picking up on your points taught about kind of piggybacking off of those sort of popular programs. And kind of, you know, we've heard a little bit about the kind of benefits of green space, particularly during COVID, kind of leveraging this sort of goodwill on some of the kind of known benefits of green infrastructure to kind of, you know, support some of the less well known, like more experimental. You know, services that were kind of unsure about the sort of idea that we could kind of do the experimentation sort of with something that's more bankable, like the water resources, for example, I mean are there opportunities that we could kind of explore stack benefits that way as a way to kind of get a foot in the door so to speak. Yeah, that makes sense to anyone happy to jump in unless one of my colleagues wants to. I think that, again, it's the point of which of these benefits is sort of the anchor benefit that realistically can drive a repayment reality, and oftentimes that is water right so stormwater risk production water quality enhancements that can somehow be tied to water bills can be built into the rate structure. And do it in a way that noise and air pollution can also be addressed access to nature and equity issues can be dressed. Those may not be things that we can monetize even if we can value, but they can be covered. If we come up with a strategic way to build nature based solutions into our water approach. So one last thing I'll say is very rarely are we seeing large scale examples, just on the nature side, where we're seeing a lot of success are these hybrid approaches right where you're already making an investment in a new tunnel. And what have you for the city. Let's add on the nature based part, it reduces risk for investors it increases the overall size. And there's a lot of economies of scale of that approach. Thanks. Anyone from an attendee in the Q&A and I'll direct it to you time in adverse heat effects on health have been more prominently featured in the media, would you recommend piggybacking on a currently popular or health related issue like this, or coven like your recent paper, as a strategy for community organizers to increase green spaces in urban environments. I think I think we have to use every tool in our toolbox and the, you know, the disproportionate impacts of air pollution flooding heat waves on communities of color and low income communities and indigenous communities is stark. The media has finally started to wake, you know, wake up to this even though it's been well documented over and over and over. And so this is a window of opportunity we need to walk through that door, and make the case that one of the solutions to that is a nature and because it's multifunctional because it can provide multiple and it's simultaneously, but to I think some of the other points have been made here, it needs to be coupled with other structural changes that are driving those kinds of legacies of displacement and that have been happening for decades and decades and decades. And so I think this gets back to Todd's point to, it's probably going to be more successful if we can couple it with, you know, the need to also address housing issues and the need to also address food issues in those places and where they are and we're not going to be able to do everything at once. But if we can find the right couplings are going to work in that particular case but I definitely think there's the need to take advantage of the opportunity when the media is, is having a voice loud that our decision makers are hearing it, and we can use that to open the conversation for perhaps rethinking it and and in the US context I think that there's something really important happening right now with the infrastructure bill. We have a rethinking of what infrastructure is, we haven't fully cracked open that narrative, like it should be that urban nature is critical infrastructure because it provides critical services, housing provides critical services transportation provides critical services, nature provides critical services. And so we have an infrastructure bill, we have a social infrastructure bill, we need an ecological infrastructure bill to, and it needs to be at that scale, it needs to be another trillion dollar bill. So, we can use going back to this question, these issues about disproportionate heat impacts, or other kinds of climate impacts, I think there's a way to really make that point and argue it more strongly. And I don't know if we'll get all of the change that we want the next two weeks of what hopefully will be, you know getting passed on the house here, but I certainly think there's still some work to do on the narrative side to pick up on narratives that are having agency now and to use those to shift the way in which we think about urban nature as not this other thing or it'd be nice to have but no it's critical. It provides fundamental services for urban livelihoods. Thanks, time and anybody else want to chime in on that theme before we pick a new question. I'll just pick really quickly up time and on the, the federal bill thing because I feel like I am close to that unfortunately at the moment and you know what I think people don't understand is the politics or the politics they're happening right now. Where the real potential is, is in terms of implementation. So, if, if you know knock on wood. The, the, the bipartisan bill plus the reconciliation package cross sort of the political finish line if you will in Washington. That's really just the start to what's going to be a multi year. It's a really important process from the federal level but crucially down to a local level of how are we going to arm ourselves we had this money right we've been kind of calling for for years. How are we going to use that money and harness it in ways that's going to require like address some of these issues including heat island effects etc. And so I would just say, like, don't like limit ourselves to like whatever is like, like in the legislation and what's like reported in the headlines but think this is just the beginning to like when the headlines die down and like the boring stuff kind of comes to like no one like is really reporting on it but it's like that's the really important stuff of like, how are planners going to do this right how are governors and mayors going to get on the table with all this stuff. So it's, it's really just the beginning, which is why I think this is the time where we really have to conversations like these are so helpful because that's what's going to provide the momentum and the knowledge that's so needed to rethink some of the ways in which these things have slowed in the past and and have been targeted. Yeah, I, I, I hesitate to move us from the US discussion right now because I think we really are having a moment about infrastructure in the US right now and I feel like there's so much we could talk about in this country in particular and we've lost Eric in this moment, but I would like to ask particularly time in and Todd to talk a little bit about your experiences collaborating with others in other parts of the world, maybe reflecting on the moment in the US. What are some ways in which we can learn from the experiences of countries that are so far ahead of us in terms of thinking about these questions. Let me jump in first, and I did see one of the questions there was a specific question about Indonesia, and coincidentally, last night way too late US time. I was on a panel with government officials from Jakarta, who have recently implemented two policies. One is to increase the urban tree canopy. And the other is to ensure that by I think it's 2030 every neighborhood in Jakarta has green space. Now, as Joe just mentioned, what implementation looks like we'll see, but there is a lot of recognition and enthusiasm, especially in the major cities globally, that this is important and something they should be doing. They're looking to the US, for examples, but we also need to have some humility in the US and say, as you were saying and what can we learn from from what they're doing. The World Bank, I think, is is they get a lot of criticism, some of it, you know, rightly deserves some of it a little bit unfair. Since 2018, they have increased their investment in greenery infrastructure by $2 billion, not just in the cities but in rural areas as well. And that one both as a as a as a kind of proof point that this is starting to happen at a meaningful scale, but also because of the World Bank's mandate. They are equally focused not just on the ecological side, but on the poverty alleviation and human uplift side. And I'm not going to pretend it's 5050, but it's much more evenly weighted than in the US where, as we've all sort of said in various forms and that equity piece the poverty piece. It traditionally has been an add on to the project right the last 10% and we've got to figure out how to make that right alongside the ecological components as well. Yeah, I'll pick up maybe just give a couple examples though. There are other forms of global finance that are being mobilized. And I think it'll be interesting to see, you know whether there's any new surprises or commitments to come out of 2026, which is the major climate conference coming up very shortly in Glasgow in terms of focus on natural climate solutions as sometimes now called another word for nature based solutions with the climate focus. But we're seeing things like the mobilization of funds for, for example through the green climate fund or other other major funds around the world, where climate mitigation sources are going into natural climate solutions. Now how much of that's really coming into urban areas. Not so much as far as you can tell and that makes sense if your goal is really about absorbing carbon. The opportunity, but, but slow shift a need for a larger shift to really position climate adaptation as a way of mobilizing funds for investing in urban in BS, because of the impact that they have directly on people's lives in the places where infrastructure economies and people are most concentrated. And so the most impact, I think from those kinds of funds will be there. And you mentioned countries that are far ahead of us. If we look at it from a spending perspective, I mean the European Commission spending hundreds of billions on in BS implementation. I haven't added this up. I'm kind of curious if you go city by city all across the United States what that adds up to because their city level as opposed to you know a large federal structure that's putting that level of investment in. And I also don't know what the city by city is all across the EU in terms of that funding, but it seems to be a major difference in terms of the amount of commitment to working on working working with nature based solutions as a source of solutions to multiple challenges and so I think there's a lot to learn there. And because it's to some extent not only more invested in, but a longer history of work of implementation of testing experimentation. There's some learning there and I believe they're starting to work on these process issues of how do people have a voice in the process, you know what what does equity really look like. And, and also understanding that the, there is no one size fits all for any particular nature based solution that we really have to understand the local context. And that's harder. That's more expensive. That's more time consuming. And therefore you're going to have to have more political will and more resources put behind that, and we're starting to see that mobilized as well, especially in the European context of the European Commission, but I'm glad that Todd you. You happen to be on this call in Jakarta last night, because there's so much that we can learn from other parts of the world who are doing their own experimentation. And, you know, it's not that there's going to be a general answer for everyone, but we all have to be learning from each other because these contexts are unique, and also not. There's a lot of aspects that are not unique, but the experimentation and the learning from implementation in Latin America, whether it's Medellin or other places, someone that's going to be useful in our US context. And the same thing I think from the massive investments being made across China and other parts of Asia, they're going to mess some things up and they're going to get some things right and we need to be learning from that as well. Okay, one last question I think I'll, I'll pose it first for Seema, like as we kind of move forward I think it's kind of bringing it back to the structural inequities and making sure we know as all this effort comes in we kind of avoid that I guess Seema you brought this up. So what are some, how do we kind of make sure that we don't lead to, you know, increasing green gentrification what are some tools that you use, kind of how do we make sure that has these new, you know, this opportunities of green infrastructure go that it's equity done. Okay, so I mean they're, the gentrification question is interesting because there are like a ton of policy solution policy levers to address gentrification. It's just, you know, a lot of them are, it's just about building the political will and it's about sort of like really questioning like how real estate is developed how, you know, how we think about how we're investing in certain places. I mean, I have a, I have a list of them, you know, like you can think about like what is the relationship between green in like green investments and like think about like well what what happens in those surrounding neighborhood like what's happening in terms of home ownership, what's happening in terms of property taxes are, you know, who's who's getting take advantage and benefit from the increase in property values are rents going up too quickly. You know, what are the things that you can do to make sure that the people who have lived in those communities get to actually benefit from that those investments so whether it's through property tax relief or, you know, taxing developers for flipping homes in neighboring communities, or thinking about like what is the, like the makeup of jobs in that neighborhood can you pair investments in the built environment with investments in job training and education and childcare, you know, like all of these things it's it's not about limiting the investment that happens in a particular place but it's just making sure that the investment isn't happening just on the land but it's happening on people that are that are surrounding that physical place and making sure that like we think of that community, you know, a park a neighborhood park as like part of the community and an investment in the park needs to be paired with an investment in the community. So that the future is a more healthy and sustainable community from an economic perspective from a cultural perspective from a mental health perspective from a physical perspective, holistically, and there are like a ton of like, there's a lot of policy handbooks out there of, you know, there's like probably 100 ways policy solutions out there that different that could sort of counteract the pressure of gentrification and displacement. And, you know, they're being tried in bits and pieces here and there and I mean I think there's a long way to go in terms of building the political will to challenge, or sort of like traditional real estate is such an important, like, part of American capitalism and how wealth is derived in this country so it's, I mean I'm not going to say it's easy but it's, it's just a matter of prioritization. Well, I'm afraid that it's 930 Pacific time, and as much as I would honestly love to keep having this conversation all day we're going to have to wrap here. But this has been so much fun, I really want to thank each of our panelists for your wisdom and sharing your thoughts and experiences and I would love to find ways to keep this conversation going we started with challenges and focused on solutions at the end here, and I feel like this is really a key moment for this country for this planet. And I feel better knowing that you all are out there working on it those of you in the audience as well as those on the panel so round of applause for everybody and let's just keep working on this stuff. Thank you so much, and I will see you in various ways in this space. Thank you all. Thanks. Bye. Thanks, and thanks Eric. Yeah. Is there a way to save?