Hurdle for future cities: human habits - Technology will not solve all green problems, some say.

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/06/06/hurdle-for-future-cities-human-habits/

Hurdle for future cities: human habits

Technology will not solve all green problems, some say.

By Tom A. Peter | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor / June 6, 2008 edition

Among the United Arab Emirate’s seemingly endless construction sites, developers outside of Abu Dhabi have broken ground on perhaps the most ambitious green-city project in the world. With government support, the Masdar Initiative will create a carbon-neutral city capable of housing 50,000 residents. Upon completion, the city will act as a living test site for the latest in sustainable urban innovations.

While Masdar has ignited curiosity beyond the nation’s borders, it has elicited limited enthusiasm from a key audience: locals. For many Abu Dhabians, the concerns range from weak air conditioning to limited access to automobiles – car culture is deeply entrenched in the UAE.

Though designers hope the final product will dispel concerns, the project has done little to impress green city planners not connected with the venture. A utopia spawned by petro-dollars is not a practical solution to real-world emissions problems, they say. Current cities must address political and social concerns that are irrelevant to the UAE experiment.

Masdar designers and scientists argue that the project’s value as an urban model works on several different levels. The Masdar Initiative invites other cities to take lessons from its smaller innovations, like real-time energy calculators that allow consumers to see exactly how much it will cost to lower the thermostat; and its larger applications, like a city layout that takes advantage of building shadows to cool city streets.

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[ladjf]

1. The acquisition of an enlightened philosophy by the majority

of people is the key to solving the energy problems. The principles are simple to follow as soon as
most people realize what the situation is. Figuring out the remedies is simple. Putting them into
place will require some hardships but not much worse than we are now going through.

[XemaSab]

2. I disagree

We're all human, and no matter how enlightened your philosophy, when it's 90 out, most humans are going to crank the AC and drive to the store for cold beer. :shrug:

Asceticism is just not how most people can live. :shrug:

[ladjf]

3. I'm afraid that my expressions regarding the energy situation were

to sparse to be understandable. I should have gone into more detail about what I had in mind.

In the short term, your views are exactly in line with human nature and are true.

In the long term, and after profound failures with the old paradigm, the human race will be forced to
seek better answers for the energy dilemma.

A couple of billion years ago, blue/green algae solved their energy problems by inventing photosynthesis. That was the most important innovation ever made by a living organism. They converted
sunlight almost directly into usable energy.

We can do that now. However, the costs are somewhat higher that current coal powered generation.
The differences seem significant now. But, in the future, its just a matter of process. The processes
of generating usable energy will be developed and the human race will be the better off because of it.

The prolongation of our attachment to fossil fuels has largely be due to shrewd and relentless efforts by those who are now profiting from such fuels to hold off the flood tide toward alternate energies. On this board alone, there are dozens of full timed misinformation posters representing
fossil fuels and nuclear interest. (Check out a dozen or so alternate energy posts by such id's as
"OKISITJUSTME" and then notice the same detractors, time and time again with their negative cliche's.)

I've sort of wandered off of my main point which simply stated was that the human race will eventually catch on to the fact that they are being held hostage by the oil, gas, coal and nuke
industries. At that point changes will be made.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. One point about those algae...

They created an absolute mess of their environment. They weren't able to cope with all of the waste O₂ they'd pumped into the atmosphere! (At least not by themselves.)
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/first_billion_years/first_billion_years.html

However, that was not the end of life.

Other life emerged which (like us) rather liked O₂.

[ladjf]

5. Never the less, none of the life as we know would have been

possible without it.

(Hate to argue with one of the champion good posters on DU. Keep up your great work on spreading the
word about alternative energy.)

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. That was precisely my point

Those algae are still around, as are we (and other O₂ breathers.)

What first appeared to be a devastating blunder, sure to exterminate them all, allowed for greater diversity of life!

[kestrel91316]

7. I can walk to get beer, but now the beer is too expensive....

I am getting a baby gate for my front doorway so I can open up and get cross ventilation so I don't need to turn the AC on until it tops 90. But we get 4+ months of temps over 90, and it has reached 119.

I'll give up food before I'll give up a little AC.