By Peter Newman, Visit Amazon's Timothy Beatley Page, search results, Learn about Author Central, Timothy Beatley, , Heather M. Boyer
Half the world’s population now reside in towns. within the subsequent two decades, the variety of city dwellers will swell to an anticipated 5 billion humans. With their inefficient transportation structures and poorly designed structures, many cities—especially within the United States—consume countless numbers of fossil fuels and emit excessive degrees of greenhouse gases. yet our planet is speedily operating out of the carbon-based fuels that experience powered city progress for hundreds of years and we appear to be not able to diminish our greenhouse fuel emissions. Are the world’s towns headed for inevitable collapse? The authors of this lively e-book don’t think that oblivion is unavoidably the future of city parts. as a substitute, they suspect that clever making plans and visionary management will help towns meet the upcoming crises, and glance to present projects in towns worldwide. instead of responding with worry (as a legion of doomsaying prognosticators have done), they select desire. First, they confront the issues, describing the place we stand this day in our use of oil and our contribution to weather swap. They then current 4 attainable results for towns: ”collapse,” “ruralized,” “divided,” and “resilient.” according to their situations, they articulate how a brand new “sustainable urbanism” may possibly substitute today’s “carbon-consuming urbanism.” They deal with intimately how new transportation structures and constructions may be feasibly built to switch our current low potency platforms. In end, they give ten “strategic steps” that any urban can take towards better sustainability and resilience. This isn't a publication full of “blue sky” concept (although blue skies may be a welcome results of its recommendations). quite, it truly is full of sensible rules, a few of that are already operating in towns this present day. It frankly admits that our towns have difficulties that would irritate in the event that they usually are not addressed, however it means that those difficulties are solvable. And the time to start fixing them is now.
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Extra resources for Resilient cities: responding to peak oil and climate change
Example text
These societies then spread west and east from the Fertile Crescent, and as the climate warmed created the settlements and agricultural areas in Europe and Asia as we know them today. 18 But at no stage did the people in these cities go back to Eden, to the hunter-gatherer existence. ”19 One of the key ideas being presented as a response to peak oil is that our cities will create a more sustainable semi-rural lifestyle, and each city will be responsible for producing a large proportion of its own food.
Lewis Mumford talked about Necropolis as the city which is destined to collapse and described its characteristics: “ . . above all, the massive collective concentration on glib ephemeralities of all kinds. . ” After all the pain and death of collapse, we attempt to rebuild such cities and sometimes learn from the lessons. 8 Commentators like Jacob Bronowski in The Ascent of Man, see the growth of cities and industrial change as a continually upward journey that brings more and more knowledge with all its potential to create a better world.
The international treaty called for phasing out the production of substances that are harmful to the ozone layer. In subsequent UN conferences the requirements were reexamined and tightened. 7 Global governance worked because of partnerships between industry, community, and governments across the globe. It should be a great source of hope to us. But we should keep in mind that peak oil and climate change require much more significant changes in how we live, and are a bigger test of our faith in human civilization and our ability to make cities work.
