About 3.5 billion people live in an urban environment out of a world total of 7 billion. Not only is this total rising fast but the consumption of resources and production of waste per person is rising, thereby putting a dangerous stress on our biosphere. So it is good to know that we do not have to rely wholly on governments to deal with this problem - two worldwide initiatives at local community and city level have been under way for several years.
TRANSITION TOWNS
These are led from the bottom up, and range from villages to
cities.
Transition towns started about 8 years
ago when Kinsale Town Council (Ireland) adopted a plan to integrate human
activity with natural surroundings. A couple of years later Totnes in Devon, UK, developed the
idea further. Since then the movement has taken off worldwide. There are now
over 300 officially recognised Transition Towns in the USA, UK, Ireland, Italy,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and
Chile.
The idea of sustainable communities grew out of the
permaculture concept in which high yielding fruit and vegetable
plots are cultivated in cities, so that whole urban communities can avoid
depending on the energy-intensive import of food. The plots can be, for example, in window
boxes, on waste ground, in gardens or on
the roofs of offices. Low energy high tech life styles, recyling and efficent
waste disposal together form part of the
concept.
There is no fixed way to run a TT but one of the intentions
is to bring more cohesion across the social spectrum during dislocation when oil production peaks and starts to decline while demand continues to rise.
This approach to living should have an even wider appeal if
food, energy and waste disposal costs escalate worldwide.
C40 CITIES
These adopt a variety of measures, each suited to a
particular urban situation and are led from the top by mayors and urban
managers.
in 2006 some 40 cities in various countries, having a combined population of over 300 million, signed to join the C40, known as the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group. 18 additional cities have joined the scheme. The USA, e.g., has ten C40 cities:
Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle,
Austin, Houston and New Orleans. With
most of the projected growth in world population concentrated in cities the
need for more sustainable ways of living in them is particularly pressing.
Examples: switching from private cars to greener, more
efficient public transport or cycling, roof gardens, retrofitting of homes and
offfices for energy efficiency, composting, recycling, and energy generation
from waste.
As with transition towns the fact that adopting green
measures means lowering the cost of living is a great incentive. In the C40
case much of the cost saving will show up in local tax reductions – or at least
the increases in taxes will be less than they would have been.
So overall we can be grateful that these two worldwide
movements are equipping us to withstand not only food shortages, energy
shortfalls and climate change but are in a sense improving the fabric of
society and setting up new community structures for solving a whole range of
problems that could arise in future.
John
Author, 2077 AD
