Contribution to Book
Adapting National Preservation Standards to Climate Change
Toward Sustainability and Equity: Envisioning Preservation Policy Reform
(2022)
Abstract
When it comes to the human ability to respond to climate change, laws matter. To slow the global warming that poses an existential crisis for our species, we must be willing to dramatically reshape our laws and legal institutions to encourage or require better behaviors. Within the areas where sweeping reforms are needed, it would be easy to overlook the rather narrow field of historic preservation law.
But recalibrating the way we treat historic places is essential in the climate crisis. This essay centers on the “what and how” of preservation when someone wants to make a physical change to a site that has already been designated historic. When certain physical changes are proposed, very often a foundational set of standards is applied: the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties (“the Standards”). The Standards are widely accepted as the measure by which such proposed changes should be judged. Indeed, the Standards have been adopted into law by state legislatures, tribal governments, and local historic district commissions all over the country. For that reason, what they say and how they are interpreted have ripple effects on preservation at every level.
In the view of many preservationists, the Standards have capably protected physical fabric within a broad interpretive framework. Unfortunately, the Standards do not adequately address climate-related building adaptations, such as installing energy-efficient windows or solar panels, raising sites, or moving structures. The Standards’ omission or lack of specificity about such features has made things difficult for people interpreting them. Too often, interpretations reject such features, and therefore miss opportunities to reduce the environmental impact of the people occupying historic places or of the places themselves. This essay explains the significance of the Standards, analyzes their inadequacy in the climate context, and suggests reforms that recognize the intertwined fate of our tangible heritage and our warming planet.
Keywords
- Historic Preservation,
- land use,
- federal,
- secretary's standards
Publication Date
2022
Editor
Erica Avrami
Publisher
Columbia
Citation Information
Sara Bronin. "Adapting National Preservation Standards to Climate Change" Toward Sustainability and Equity: Envisioning Preservation Policy Reform (2022) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/bronin/55/