Continuing the Green British Invasion, there’s an incredible article in this week’s issue of New Scientist magazine. (I love this mag- it fulfills the science dork in me.)Entitled Ecopolis, it’s all about cities of the future. There are numerous gorgeous computer illustrations of future eco-cities: What they might look like and how they might work, as well as lots of yummy infographics, a special feature on how cities can feed themselves, a mini-article on Dongtan, the planned green city outside Shanghai, a model and sidebar page on how much cities of the future might sprawl, and more.
The premise of the main story is that cities are a good place to keep people since their waste and energy use is concentrated (and can therefore be more easily cleaned and greened). Really worth picking up the paper version of this for the images alone.
I remember reading an interview with an eco-luminary in, I think it was, 1990, and the expert predicted that over the next century in order to keep sizable numbers of wildlife and wild places intact, we would have to essentially “carve” up the planet in terms of how we manage it. People would be heavily concentrated in cities, which would hopefully keep greening, while certain parcels would be for agriculture and others would be limited for recreation. Others would be essentially hands-off to people, serving as wildlife sanctuaries.
Of course, global warming can monkeywrench such a plan because cities could be inundated by rising seas, wildlife sanctuaries could change climates from desert to rainforest or vice versa, and farm fields could be rendered useless. Many challenges ahead!
06/22/06 » 10:33 pm »
All the articles are online for the same price as the print edition. In fact if you go to http://www.newscientist.com you get full access to the entire New Scientist website for a month for only just $4.95.
06/23/06 » 4:30 am »