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.

The infographic accompanies the Globe & Mail article, ‘Switch off the lights, here comes the sun’, which highlights a promising solution to increase the energy efficiency of buildings:

Technology being commercialized in British Columbia aims to transform building interiors — providing practical, affordable illumination by harnessing the natural light of the sun. It’s light that will be brighter, more attractive, less expensive and more sustainable than electric light, according to Tony Formby.

Mr. Formby is president of SunCentral Inc., a company developing technology based on breakthroughs made by University of British Columbia physics professor Lorne Whitehead. That technology uses computerized collector panels located on the sun-facing exterior walls of buildings to gather and concentrate sunlight, which is transported and dispersed inside the building by special light guides.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Infographic source: Globe & Mail)