planted city

Tools for Change: ‘Collective Intelligence: Cities as Global Sustainability Platform’ (Video)

From TEDx via YouTube:

Social media and collaborative technologies—layered with smart systems combining geo-location data with human experience—will make cities the driving sustainability force in a dawning planetary era. Cities will anticipate new risks with rapid urban systems innovation based upon crowdsourcing, virtual and physical communities, and transparent markets sensitive to full carbon and resource costs. Creatively leveraging collective intelligence for clean energy, low carbon mobility and sustainable food and water, the new urban grid will enable high local quality of life, lifelong learning and vibrant green economies.

The speaker, Warren Karlenzig, is a leader in the movement to build globally sustainable and resilient cities and the president of Common Current, a consultancy that advises cities, governments, and businesses. He’s got a great, insightful blog here. His most recent post recounts his trip to Japan to engage communities about rebuilding post-Fukushima.

From Reuters:

China will plough $372 billion into energy conservation projects and anti-pollution measures over the next three-and-a-half years, part of a drive to cut energy consumption by 300 million tonnes of standard coal, the country’s cabinet said Tuesday.

…

The central government’s drive to reduce China’s insatiable appetite for fossil fuels is aimed at improving the country’s future energy security, and is a central plank of its policy to slow down growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, plans to cut its CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.

…

Seven Chinese cities and provinces will launch CO2 emissions trading schemes over the next two years ahead of a national scheme later in the decade, as China seeks to move away from traditional command-and-control measures to combat spiraling carbon emissions.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• Video: ‘China’s environmental issues in a global context’ (Asia Pacific Memo)
• ‘China remains most attractive country for renewable energy development’ (Sustainable Business)

(Photo source: Reve)

From Al Jazeera English:

In the early 20th century the American city of Detroit was a booming industrial powerhouse and world leader in car manufacturing, with a population that reached nearly two million people.

But since the major car companies closed their factories, more than a million taxpayers have moved out of Detroit, leaving behind more than 100 square kilometres of vacant land, and nearly 40,000 abandoned houses.

Now after decades of urban decay, Detroit is undergoing something of a revival as a centre for a new trade - urban farming.

In this half-hour special Russell Beard meets a group of visionary residents who see the city’s vacant land as fertile ground for an urban agriculture revolution.

Check out the rest of the article here. 

Related:

• ‘Detroit: rejuvenation through urban farms, sustainable living and innovation’ (The Guardian)
• ‘Detroit: The Center of Urban Farming’ (Care2)
• ‘City Farmer News’ (website)

The opening paragraph of The Guardian article, ‘US wind energy industry breezes past 50GW milestone’.

Related:

• ‘Setting the Record Straight on Oil and Clean Energy’ (Huffington Post)
• ‘Obama slams Romney’s opposition to wind energy tax credit’ (Los Angeles Times)
• ‘IEA Forecasts 40% Growth in Renewable Power Generation in Next 5 Years’ (Clean Technica)

(Photo source: Clean Technica)

Feeding Cities:‘Urban farming shows its “Growing Power”’ (Video) 

From CBS:

While driving through Milwaukee, Will Allen saw a plot of land that would bring him back to his childhood roots of working on a farm. Byron Pitts reports on his mission to bring healthy food to the inner city and to create jobs in the community.

Related:

• ‘Soil survivor: An interview with urban farming legend Will Allen’ (Grist)

Resilient cities: ‘Vancouver plans to face climate change head-on’ (Video)

From The Vancouver Sun:

The city of Vancouver has designed a climate change “adaptation” strategy to tackle a potential increase in street flooding, sewer backups, damaged forests and heat-related illnesses by 2050.

The strategy, scheduled to go to council for approval in principle Tuesday, suggests nine measures to address the potential impacts of climate change, which is expected to bring more intense rain and windstorms, hotter and drier summers and rising sea levels, affecting the city’s economic prosperity and livability.

…

The move is part of the Vancouver’s Greenest City plan that is aimed at reducing greenhouse gases by 2020. The specific measures include:

• Complete a coastal flood risk assessment;

• Amend flood-proofing policies;

• Develop and implement a citywide integrated stormwater management plan;

• Continue with sewer separation;

• Develop a backup power policy;

• Continue to implement water conservation actions;

• Support and expand extreme heat planning;

• Include climate change adaptation measures in the next Vancouver Building Bylaw update; and

• Develop and implement a comprehensive Urban Forest Management Plan.

Check out the rest of the article here. You can read the adaptation plan here.

Related:

• ‘Conserving water key, cities warned’ (Vancouver Sun)
• ‘Paying the price: The economic impacts of climate change for Canada’ (NRTEE)
• Photo: ‘Visualizing climate change in Vancouver’ (planted city)
• ‘Study: Many U.S. cities unprepared for future heat waves’ (Washington Post)

(Video: Global BC)

(Photo: planted city)

From USA Today:

China is building more eco-cities designed to be low-carbon and energy-saving than any other country, according to a survey by the University of Westminster in London. The USA ranked second.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• ‘What’s an Ecocity and Why Should We Care? (Green Flow)
• ‘China’s eco-cities: Sustainable urban living in Tianjin’ (BBC Future)

Climate Cartoon: A Big (Oil) Barrier to a Clean Energy Future… 

(Source: Dayton Daily News via The Oil Drum)

Related:

• ‘The Great Carbon Bubble: Why the Fossil-Fuel Industry Fights So Hard’ (Grist)
• ‘Clean Energy Switch to Cost Fossil Industry $4 Trillion by 2020’ (Clean Technica)
• ‘Today, ALEC Hosts Legislators & Big Oil — Topic? Undermining Clean Energy’ (Clean Technica)
• Memo: Group Wants To Create Fake Grassroots Wind ‘Subversion’ Campaign That ‘Should Appear As A Groundswell’ (Climate Progress)

From The Washington Post:

Right now, renewable energy sources like solar and wind still provide just a small fraction of the world’s electricity. But they’re growing fast. Very fast. Three new pieces of evidence suggest that many policymakers may be drastically underestimating just how quickly wind and solar are expanding.

1) Solar is growing exponentially.

2) Official agencies keep underestimating the growth rate of renewables.

3) Using only current technology, renewables could technically provide the vast bulk of U.S. electricity by mid-century.

Check out the details and the rest of the article here.

Countries will be asked this summer to sign up for 10 new sustainable development goals for the planet and promise to build green economies at the first earth summit in 20 years.

According to a leak of the draft agenda document seen by the Guardian, they will also be asked to negotiate a new agreement to protect oceans, approve an annual state of the planet report, set up a major world agency for the environment, and appoint a global “ombudsperson”, or high commissioner, for future generations. Dozens of heads of state, political leaders and celebrities are expected to go to the UN’s Rio+20 sustainable development meeting, to be held in Brazil in June.

…

Unlike the 1992 earth summit when over 190 heads of state set in motion several legally binding environment agreements, leaders this time will not be asked to sign any document that would legally commit their countries to meeting any particular targets or timetables. Instead, they will be asked to set their own targets and work voluntarily towards establishing a global green economy which the UN believes will reduce poverty and slow consumption. 

(The Guardian)

Collage source: Rio+20