I think we need to create new models for industrialisation and urban design. We do need modern cities, but they should integrate conservation measures and food production and 'waste' disposal (all 'waste' is a potential resource).
I live in an an industrial city that 40 years ago grew more than 70% of its own vegetables. The car industry took control of Japan's infrastructure policies, and now we have a city where old farmers turn fields into car parking areas to support their retirement costs, and where mothers and fathers have no large open spaces to take their children, and where apartment building designers build as many car parking spaces as possible, and no green areas, on the assumption that residents will want cars.
The residents do want cars, because their local environment is so awful. They need the cars to go somewhere else to find space and spiritual relief. This is a positive feedback cycle for the car industry, and a negative feedback cycle for the world. Let's fly to Hawaii because in Japan, the beaches are treated as industrial rubbish dumps.
If Tehran could have a central square withour any cars, and with a Persian wheel quietly delivering water to a public fountain, this could be a symbol for combining modernity with tradition.... and maybe people would ride bicycles to see the wheel inside the city, and not use cars to escape from the city.
My brother, an oil exploration geologist, thinks that sunspot related cooling is going to be a greater danger in the near future than warming induced by human activities. Even if this is true, it seems that there are many other effects of CO2 and other gases that we have to worry about. Do you have any ideas about the sunspot/cloud cover cooling that is predicted?
Personally, I think we should be preparing for all possibilities - cooling or warming. One thing is certain - the world's climate has never been very stable, and we humans have never been very careful in how we use our limited resources.
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I live in an an industrial city that 40 years ago grew more than 70% of its own vegetables. The car industry took control of Japan's infrastructure policies, and now we have a city where old farmers turn fields into car parking areas to support their retirement costs, and where mothers and fathers have no large open spaces to take their children, and where apartment building designers build as many car parking spaces as possible, and no green areas, on the assumption that residents will want cars.
The residents do want cars, because their local environment is so awful. They need the cars to go somewhere else to find space and spiritual relief. This is a positive feedback cycle for the car industry, and a negative feedback cycle for the world. Let's fly to Hawaii because in Japan, the beaches are treated as industrial rubbish dumps.
If Tehran could have a central square withour any cars, and with a Persian wheel quietly delivering water to a public fountain, this could be a symbol for combining modernity with tradition.... and maybe people would ride bicycles to see the wheel inside the city, and not use cars to escape from the city.
My brother, an oil exploration geologist, thinks that sunspot related cooling is going to be a greater danger in the near future than warming induced by human activities. Even if this is true, it seems that there are many other effects of CO2 and other gases that we have to worry about. Do you have any ideas about the sunspot/cloud cover cooling that is predicted?
Personally, I think we should be preparing for all possibilities - cooling or warming. One thing is certain - the world's climate has never been very stable, and we humans have never been very careful in how we use our limited resources.
Cheers, P.
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