It has pretty much become universally accepted that global warming is having an effect on global ocean levels. With sea levels rapidly rising, millions of coastal and island inhabitants are threatened to loose their homes. Major cities including London, New York and Tokyo are seen as being at huge risk from oceans which could rise by as much as 3ft by the end of this century. To be prepared for this, new solutions must be found.
The ultimate solution to rapidly rising sea levels are so called “Lilypad Islands” by the award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut. Based on the design of a lilypad, they could be used as a permanent refuge and a new place to live for those whose homes have been covered in water.
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General @ 31 Jul 2008 07:20 am by Robert Schmidl
Urban civilizations continue to evolve and history is testimony that great civilizations have crumbled either due to the onslaught of natural disasters or gradual shift in economic trends. Environmental Graffiti, a blog with an eclectic mix of the most bizarre, funny and interesting environmental news on the planet, takes a look at such cities in the United States that may be endangered. News editor Ben Ray explores cities, which in the distant future could be reclaimed by nature. Like before, climate change and changing economies continue to influence the state of our cities.
In the latest article on Lost Cities of the Future, five American cities were listed. According to Ben Ray, these cities are:
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While I was participating in The European Sustainability Summit in May in Berlin, I was listening to a very interesting keynote speech by Sir David A. King. That speech was on “Climate Change and the Built Environment”, and King, as the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford and former UK Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office of Science, was introducing the Foresight sustainable energy management an the built environment project.
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C40 Cities (originally C20 Cities), also known as the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, is a group of cities committed to the reduction of urban carbon emissions and adapting to climate change. The group believes it has an important rule to play as cities contain around 50% of the world’s population, consume three quarters of the world’s energy, and produce 80% per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions.
In October 2005, representatives of 18 leading world cities met in London to discuss joining forces to tackle global warming and climate change. The representatives saw the need for action and cooperation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pledged to work together towards achieving that goal. At the end of the conference, a communiqué was signed which recognised the need for cities to take action and to cooperate on reducing climate emissions. The cities also promised a number of action points, including most notably the creation of procurement policies and alliances to accelerate the uptake of climate-friendly technologies and influence the market place.
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General @ 05 Jun 2008 12:27 pm by Robert Schmidl
German Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) has observed the phenomenon of young and well-educated woman leaving their home regions (mainly rural regions) in East Germany in a report called “Women – men – spaces”.
The political change in Eastern Germany and in Eastern Europe 16 years ago was the beginning of dramatic social and economic transformations with impacts of demographic change in Eastern Germany. There has been a significant change in the population structure. The biggest labour migrant group included those between 18 and 35 years old, most of them women, and many well-educated. Besides the fact of a generally sinking birth rate in Germany as a whole (with the most severe decline experienced in the regions of the former GDR), labour migration impacts have narrowed the base of regional population pyramids - especially rural areas and in smaller towns. Not only are there greater numbers of older people than younger people but also fewer children today mean even fewer in the future. As a consequence, the population of eastern Germany is aging rapidly and cities are shrinking.
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General @ 19 May 2008 08:27 am by Robert Schmidl
Our world is rapidly ageing. According to the United Nations, when the percentage of population of people over 65 years old is more than seven percent, such a society will be called "ageing society”. Therefore, as the number of the elderly people increase, the demand for medical care and welfare services will increase, and it will be necessary to provide those services properly.
In our fast ageing world, older people are increasingly playing a crucial role - by volunteering work, transmitting experience and knowledge, helping their families with caring responsibilities or in paid work. These contributions can only be ensured if older persons enjoy good health and if societies address their needs.
But how can cities of tomorrow handle the challenges of an ageing society?
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Which infrastructural improvements do you anticipate for the districts, in which such arenas are going to be built?
Less infrastructure. More on site sustainability. More functional off grid built space.
Which personal benefits could be a result, in your opinion, from potential changes in social structure and job market situation?
Individual and community independence. Live and work.
In how far does a new arena change the skyline of a city? Do you know any example personally?
The skyline i see does not extend above the canopy. I see most of the built space in the US to become non functional in the next thirty years minus discovery of new energy source equal to oil.
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Ever since our cities became areas of continuous interaction and ever-expanding exchange the term “exotic” - understood as counterpart to the “local”, the “native” or even the “authentic” - has become a rather vague term. Who – in actual fact - is still able to distinguish between the one and the other, between the exotic and the local? Who would be interested anyway? Yet, once again, there seems to be an increasing fascination with, and interest in, importing and seeing certain urban elements from other parts of the world in our own cities. There are, apparently, more Japanese people visiting the fake Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas than the original in Paris. What makes this displacement so interesting today?
The fascination with the “exotic” and its appearance in our cities has a long history, although at first merely going in one direction: from the “West” to the “East”. Interest in the exotic by the Western World was first stimulated by trade with the Eastern World back in the 16th century. But right from the start there has always been this intriguing contradiction in the term “exotic” as being on the one hand associated with fantasies of opulence and barbaric splendour, yet on the other hand considered as integer, uncorrupted and tasteful. The charm of the unfamiliar with its thrill of menace hasn’t lost its attraction even today and has been turned into a global phenomenon that can no longer be discussed within the narrow-minded Orient – Occident dialectic. These days, all kinds of foreign urban elements evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands all over the world. A finish sauna can be as exotic in Sao Paulo as Islamic ornamental motifs on a building in New York City.
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These days everyone is talking about the current environment problems and how to solve them. Everyone is advised to behave in an earth friendly way. Actually you can find a “Combating Global Warming Mind Map” which outlines approaches to solving Global Warming. The focus is on doing something.
Map © Jane Genovese
This works well for every single one of us. It is easy to understand and more or less to implement these hints in everybody’s everyday life.
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