Powering the Sustainable Society

Since the industrial revolution, the majority of our power comes from a centralized approach coupled with a distribution grid.  This method can be traced back to the discovery that energy could be generated by burning coal.  Once the environmental footprint and health issues of burning coal began to surface, alternative technologies began to be researched and used.  At the heart of sustainable development lies the search for the best alternative energy source.  First, the reduction in our consumption of energy needs to be addressed.  Many alternatives fail to compete with fossil fuels because of the high demand for energy.  Secondly, it may be critical to implement local power sources through a decentralised approach rather than the traditional centralized approach.  Some of the decentralised alternative energy sources being explored and implemented today are solar and geothermal, energy from waste and wind.  There are many benefits from the decentralised approach: large cooperations will begin to disappear and small local businesses will begin to supply their communities with power.  Currently, in Canada only 1% of our energy sources are renewable. 

Reducing our Energy Consumption

Unfortunately, between 1990 and 2005 our energy consumption experienced drastic increases.  Even though energy efficiency was increasing our consumption was out weighing the efficiency.  This is largely due to the bigger, faster and stronger mentality retained by North Americans.  For instance, the size of home increased by 23m² even though family sizes decreased.  The number of televisions increased from 1 per household to 1 per person!  In addition, the number of light trucks on the road has also increased.  The advances in efficiency, unfortunately, cannot be seen until consumption habits have changed.   Look into how to make your home more energy efficient.

Local power Sources and the Decentralized approach

One reason local power works is that it puts jobs and money back into your communities.  Local businesses distribute the power to their communities, who pay for the power and the wages of the employees.  It also reduces lost energy through the large grid systems and reduces the need for generation stations.  Localizing power also allows the consumers to see exactly where their power is coming from and environmental impacts from the generation of power are directly experienced by the consumers purchasing the power.  This is important as it may lead to the public demanding “green” power.  In the centralized system, it is easy to pay your power bill without thinking about the environmental damage that was created by every kilowatt consumed.  If the Alberta oil sand’s tailings ponds were in your backyard, you would be forced to see the environmental damages. You would probably even pay more for energy if the tailings ponds could be removed and an alternative energy source utilised instead. 

The decentralised approach also encourages people to become creative in their power generation, implementing methods that are community specific.  The variety in power generation across communities may even contribute to the identity of communities, increasing the social capital of the regions.  This may even result in rapid technological advances as each community would be responsible for a cheap and efficient source of energy with minimal environmental impacts.  This will also encourage continual technological advancements.

The idea of microgeneration will wipe out the current centralised approach and with it the stride towards nuclear power, which despite some advocates claims, is not the answer to alternate energy.  Nuclear power may reduce the amount of fossil fuels being burnt, but it provides more problems as it produces tonnes of nuclear waste that cannot be safely disposed of or renewed.  We need to forget about digging things out of the ground and using them for energy in a non renewable method! Haven’t we learned from coal and oil?  Things that were buried deep in the Earth’s crust were never meant to be in our hands.  

Diversity - The Underlying Theme of Sustainability

Currently, a great deal of research has been conducted on alternate energy.  It is important to understand that if the new form of energy is to be sustainable and able to resist change, it must not be ONE type of energy generation.  There is power in diversity, even in our energy sources.  If we learn one thing from the global use of fossil fuels for energy it should be that we should never put all of our eggs in one basket. 

Sustainable Cities: New Urbanism, Ecocities, Living Forests

What is the answer to making cities more sustainable?  Is there one urban design that can solve the car dependence of Canadian cities and get people walking, biking and using public transit?  Will we ever be able to find the solution to the design disaster of suburbia?  These questions are being asked by urban designers and engineers all over the globe. 

There is no one answer to creating sustainable cities as the design of each city is dependent on place and time.  In fact, most solutions are not relevant to all areas of the globe or in the vast diversity of regions in Canada.  In my blog addressing the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, I suggested the need for focus on community solutions in combination with globalization.  The natural diversity of the globe requires different designs for different regions.  I also addressed that the focus on sustainable communities will increase diversity making the globe more resilient to socioeconomic fluctuations, climate change and natural disasters.  Last week, many different designs to create the sustainable city were presented to me such as: New Urbanism (transit orientated developments), the Living Forest Communities in B.C. and the Ecocity.   

I recently watched a great TED talk by James Howard Kunstler addressing the “Tragedy of the Suburbs” which I encourage you to watch.  Kunstler presents a humourous lecture on his idea of the disaster he calls “the national automobile slum”.  I think Kunstler is right on the mark here as he addresses the dismal cities poor urban designs.  He suggests our current design does not incorporate nature, but instead tries to put on a “nature bandaid”.  Nature makes people feel good, but trying to encorporate the rural into the urban areas was ultimately an urban design failure.  It lead to the creation of suburbia and urban sprawl as people had a need to become reconnected with the land and nature.  Kunstler presents a solution that he believes will be increasingly important as we approach the end of oil and vehicle reliance.  He suggests downscaling drastically, growing food closer, living closer to one another and our work, reconstructing cities, smart development and the creation of “meaningful places”.

The following video is a trailer for the film "The end of Suburbia".  The full video if you are interested can be found on Amazon for $1.99 and is also available in parts on youtube.com.  The trailer provides the basic premise behind the creators opinion on the future of suburbia.

Yet, there are still some people who believe that suburbia will live on, just in another form.  This video was created to contrast the opinion showcased in "The End of Suburbia".  It explains the change that can occur in the suburbs to ensure they flourish as a radically retrofitted, food producing suburbia.

New Urbanism focuses on constructing cities similar to how they were constructed traditionally.  I think they had it right as older cities created a great sense of community, increased the social interaction between residents, the sense of safety and of place.  New urbanism focuses on compact building, range of housing opportunities, decreasing car dependence, incorporating pleasant walkable neighbourhoods and a variety of transportation choices.  They also focus on making distinct communities, mixed land use and preserving open space.  The design below shows an example of New Urbanism design that could be coupled to a rapid transit link resulting in a transit oriented development (TOD):

One example of new urbanism is Copenhagen, Denmark.  In Copenhagen, they have created a new influx of residents living in the downtown core by creating a community with many of the aspects of new urbanism.  They have tried to increase the aesthetics of downtown, increase walkability and bike riding and restrict a large amount of automobile traffic by creating pedestrian only streets, heated bus stops, bike rentals and vegetation.  To learn more about Copenhagen’s attempts to create a more sustainable downtown core visit the Community Research Connections’  website by clicking this link.

Living Forest Communities have been erected to save the forests from intensive logging by turning to sustainable selective logging.  These communities focus on increasing the benefits of logging while protecting the integrity of the forests.  The picture below is of the living forest community called Everwoods on Cortes Island near Vancouver Island, B.C. where 15 home sites are placed on 150 acres of forested land.

This method may not be able to be used in places of the world where it is needed the most as it is very site specific.  Some countries may not have the slow pace of growth that the living forest communities require and must use other methods.  The Ecocity is a feasible design to insure sustainability in rapidly growing populations for example, the Tanjin Ecocity in China.  They invision the city running 100% on solar and geothermal power with 90% of the population using public transit for their primary source of transportation.  Wetlands will be implemented to help treat wastewater and runoff and increase the biodiversity of the area.  China needs to implement the development of sustainable cities as they are experiencing great stress caused by rapid population growth and a recent influx of people into the inner cities.  The Ecocity design hopes to prevent slums from occurring in the inner cities in China. 

The following video showcases William McDonough, a world-renowned architect and designer on Ecocities in China:

There is ongoing research into how city planning will solve the disaster of urban sprawl and the reliance of the automobile.  It is increasingly important to note that time and place are of importance when designing sustainable cities and communities.  If we can start the sustainable community trend and decrease our reliance on the automobile, the impact of the end of oil will be less devastating. The influx of people into the inner cities must be managed to insure there are a variety of housing types and communities to provide socially equitable development.  These ideas presented above are only a few of the sustainable city designs, some which are waiting to be discovered.  As the demand for environmental and urban planning and innovation increases, we can expect the future to hold a multitude of solutions for a variety of places across the globe.

Population or Consumption? How About Both!

Often it is suggested that over population is the source of our environmental emerging problems affecting sustainability.  Around the dawn of agriculture, the human population began to exponentially increase and continues today.  As the population increased, the world began to  divide into developed and non-developed regions.  Today, the number of people living in undeveloped regions greatly outweigh the number of people living in developed regions.  The main cause of this delineation is human welfare.  Even though the death rates are high in non-developed countries due to AIDS and malnutrition, the population continues to increase exponentially.  In developed nations, the death rates are low and our population is stabilized.    Poor living conditions and uneducation women can lead to having more children.  Human welfare also corresponds with a region's ecological footprint.  Initially the ecological footprint will increase as a country develops and the quality of human welfare increases. Once human welfare increases to a certain point the ecological footprint starts to decrease as there is money to put into making production more efficient and sustainable.

The United Nations has produced 4 scenarios related to global population growth in its Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.  It has been predicted that the global population will level out around 9 billion.  The manner in which we chose to manage the environment and the future development of the world can be inferred using four scenario models:

1)      The Adapting Mosaic

2)      Global Orchestration

3)      Order from Strength

4)      TechnoGarden

These scenario models can be related to own another by the table below:

Ecosystem Management	Global Development
	Globalization	Regionalization
Proactive	TechnoGarden	Adapting Mosaic
Reactive	Global Orchestration	Order from Strength

The Adapting Mosaic

This model uses a proactive approach to ecosystem management by increasing regionalization and developing local or regional solutions which will lead to increases diversity.  Increasing the diversity will make the communities more resilient to environmental, economic and social disasters.  Some outcomes associated with the adapting mosaic model are:

1)      Rise in local ecosystem management strategies

2)      Strengthen local institutions

3)      Improving knowledge about ecosystem functioning and management

4)      Trade barriers for goods and products are increased

5)      Barriers for information nearly disappear

6)      Subject to the tragedy of the commons

7)      Built on successes and failures of communities and trading of information

Order from Strength

This model represents the regionalized and fragmented world.  Nations will close their doors to each other as a form of protecting their economic stability.  This model focuses primarily on countries looking out for number one resulting in strong regulation and policing of the movement of goods, people and information.  This model uses a “Darwin Theory” approach as only the strong nations and people will survive.  Some outcomes associated with the Order from Strength model are:

1)      Expanding the role of government

2)      Technological change slows (from the decrease in trading of goods and information)

3)      Increases global inequality

4)      Degradation of global commons (Treaties are not weakly implemented)

5)      Increased gap of rich and poor within countries

6)      Shortages in food and water in poorer regions

7)      Decreased diversity  

Global Orchestration

This model incorporates a globally connected society with open markets with equal participation and equal access to goods and services.  The design aims at reshaping economies and governance.  This model also focuses on improving human welfare by: global public health and education.  Global Orchestration outcomes:

1)      Lack of focus on ecosystem management increases vulnerability to unexpected environmental situations

2)      Global environmental issues can be dealt with

3)      Expand into a global middle class (ending poverty)

4)      Increases global consumption

5)      Decrease in ecosystem services (water, food, recreation)

6)      Increase in ability to find substitutes for ecosystem services

7)      Expansion of abrupt, unpredictable changes in ecosystems

TechnoGarden

This scenario focuses on a globally connected society focused on technology to develop our ecosystem services.  Solutions are developed to protect both the economy and the environment.  This model uses the surfacing of property rights to reduce the amount of ecological damage by paying for emissions.  Ecological engineering is the key to managing ecosystems in this model.  Some outcomes of the TechnoGarden are:

1)      Increase in Green Technology

2)      New markets for ecosystem services associated with agriculture (tradable nutrient runoff permits)

3)      Environmental entrepreneurship expands

4)      Forms a global middle class (ending poverty)

5)      Loss of local culture, customs and traditional knowledge

6)      Reliance on technology creates new problems (often from old solutions)

7)      Growth of companies and cooperatives providing technologically developed ecosystem services

In conclusion we can compare these models and their effect on population, human welfare, malnourishment and the number of ecosystem services.   All these comparisions were made in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.  Below is an example relating the 4 scerarios to the effect they will have on change in ecosystem services.

These models all indicated that in order to reduce population we need to increase the human welfare globally by providing education, health and nourishment.  This will also increase the rate of consumption as people gain knowledge and money to buy the things they want and need.  As the rate of consumption increases so does our ecological footprint.  Hans Rosling has spoke about this situation very clear in a TED talk you can find by clicking this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTznEIZRkLg&feature=relmfu

In conclusion, both consumption and population need to decrease in order to live within the carrying capacity of the Earth.  Consumption in the developed nations has gotten out of hand.  Where as population growth in non-developed countries has increased.  Both situations need remedies as the Earth continues to get smaller.  I would like to end this blog with a video of Prince Charles advice for the 21st Century.  It is about 40 minutes long, but very enjoyable.