How Green Is My City?
By: David Biello
- Retrofitting is the best way to clean up urban living
- Even if every planned eco-city were successful, however, their effect on overall energy use and emissions would be minimal because the vast majority of urbanites would still live in existing cities
- Today’s cities are by many measures greener than suburbs—among other things, urbanites use less energy and emit less carbon dioxide per household than their suburban counterparts do
because they live in closer quarters and use public transportation - But it is not enough to be green. Cities need to be sustainable as well
- The United Nations’s World Commission on Environment and Development stated in 1987, to meet “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
- Existing metropolises will not be able to sustain themselves if left to operate on a business-as-usual basis—demand for resources will outstrip supply as the number of people inhabiting cities swells from more than three billion today to more than six billion by 2050
- In theory, new cities could have sustainability built into their infrastructure from the start
- A larger payoff would come from retrofitting existing cities for sustainability, given how many there already are
- That approach would be less costly than rebuilding cities from scratch and could still conceivably save enormous amounts of energy and water, allowing today’s cities to flourish for centuries to come
- Simple changes, such as training building superintendents in best practices, can also go a long way toward helping cities support us well into the future
- A key priority for cities adapting to a world transformed by global warming is increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to stave off even more catastrophic climate change
- A major focus of C40 is equipping old buildings with energy-efficient features
- Replacing their black-tar roofs with white roofs that reflect sunlight to keep buildings cooler in the summer or installing solar-thermal hot-water heaters
- This can translate into major energy savings: heating hot water accounts for 17 percent of the energy used by buildings in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy
- Existing cities might also benefit from installing transportation systems originally conceived of for planned eco-cities
- Using compressed natural gas rather than diesel, can both clean up the air and improve efficiency
- Cities must not only conserve energy and limit emissions but also diversify their energy supply
- Ensuring that sustainable supplies of freshwater continue flowing to growing urban populations is another daunting task facing the international community
- Large swathes of the world are already pushing the limits of water availability
- Research Institute estimates that about half of global grain production will be at risk because of limited water by 2050
- To help cities conserve, C40 has developed a list of best practices based on case studies of strategies employed by cities ranging from Austin, Tex., to Tokyo
- Water must also be clean. For most cities, meeting this objective will mean not maintaining the status quo but vastly improving on it
- According to the U.N, nearly a third of city dwellers live in slums, which typically lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation services, leaving them vulnerable to cholera and other waterborne diseases
- Poor waste management is not just a problem for water quality
- Recycling is not a panacea
- Even better than simply disposing of waste or recycling it, of course, would be making something useful from it
- In fact, capturing methane from landfills is one of the cheapest ways to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions while making a new “natural” resource
- Existing cities will need cutting-edge technology to help achieve their long-term sustainability goals
- Policy tweaks and low-tech solutions can play an important role, too—for instance, changing building codes to require more energy efficiency, which could be achieved with better insulation
- Cities are an expression of our collective will, a potent mix of economics and environment, private visions and public dreams
- Boosting their ability to provide clean energy, transportation, food, water and waste disposal will be key strategies to ensuring a brighter future for humankind
- When it comes to eco-cities, those efforts too often prioritize aesthetics over the real-world needs of people
- It is the people who ultimately make a city sustainable or not
In today's society, urban areas like cities tend to be more greener than suburban areas which is mainly because of the less usage of energy and carbon dioxide emissions that is due to living in tightly compacted areas and the access to public transportation. Cities must meet the criteria that “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” According to how we have made our infrastructures today, it shows us that existing metropolises will not be able to sustain themselves if left to operate on a business-as-usual basis—demand for resources will outstrip supply as the number of people inhabiting cities swells from more than three billion today to more than six billion by 2050. People often have misconceptions and not think outside the box about how cities can be created to suit for sustainability. The most important part in transforming cities into a paradise is that it can largely benefit us in the long run while at the same time saving loads of energy and water as those are crucial for our survival in many generations to come. We don't really have to make new cities as we can just fix the ones we have right now. There have been ideas and methods that can turn things around for our future to live better such as increasing energy efficiency and reducing emissions of gas to further prevent any more damages to the climate in avoiding global warming. In addition, by replacing the black-tar roofs on top of the buildings with white roofs that can allow cooling and reducing energy used during the summer. The disposal of wastes or recycling can be very difficult and expensive as it requires transportation to dump in landfills and other areas. By managing the wastes is necessary for clean water and regulations for how much water can be used is helpful in sustainability. Overall, all of these are reasons why we should take part in changing the lifestyle of cities into a brand new world for people to experience greatly and saving our planet's resources as it is the goal we need to achieve for everyone of the current and the future to live prosperous.
I am blown away by how many ways we can change the cities entirely to be built for the foundation for the people and also being very sincere of our precious planet. Starting the initiative to live sustainable such as those methods to conserve energy and water is extremely important. If we all keep doing this in the long run, resources can remain stable and that using less because of simple creativity such as putting white roofs to reflect sunlight rather than having plain ole black-tar roofs to provide cooling in the summer. I can agree to this because in the summer it is definitely hot. All we got to do is be more green-like and put in the effort to alter the way we live. Great things come to those who don't wait and that should be our motive to make a difference.