Many of our environmental problems originate from local issues that manifest into global environmental problems. One area of notability is the construction industry. Construction has been completed at break neck pace for the past couple of decades throughout the country in a manner that does not promote good resource management; instead it actually encourages high resource use. The current design of many of the communities in most countries worldwide encourages consumption, bigger homes, larger vehicles, living on larger plots of land, and eating higher on the food chain. All of these activities have harmful environmental consequences, some not as severe as others but all with a net increase in environmental degradation if not approached in the correct way. The problem in the past has been a nonchalant attitude my many people and nations about living sustainably. This attitude has begun to change in some big ways not only here in the United States but also internationally. There are countries that are leading the way in the sustainable development industry and we in the United States need to catch up. The goals of sustainable development are to reduce the human impacts on the environment such as climate change, to manage the increasing population of the world, and to live in a healthier and more equal world (Roseland, 2005). The wold will need to become more sustainably motivated in the future in order to stave off global climate change and other environmental impacts that, ounce started, will be hard if not impossible to reverse. One of the ways to go about reaching this goal is to build sustainable communities.
One of the first areas of concern when considering sustainable development in the future is food production. Food is a necssity for life, and the methods that huamns imploy in order to feed the entire population of the world have far reaching envrionmental effects. The use of ferilizers and other chemicals to treat crops can pollute waterways and ecosystems. The tilling of land and clear cutting of forests can speed up soil erosion which means that the land produces a smaller yield if any crops at all (Wright & Boorse, 2010). Sustainable food production pactices are needed in order to meet the growing populations need for food. The wold has just attained the 7 billion mark on October 31, 2011 which means there are more mouths to feed. The UN, in reaction to this historic event, has issued a call to action where they have laid out the goals of ensuring adequate food production as one of the pressing issues for global leaders to address (UN News Centre, 2011). The projected world population is set to increase to 9.2 billion in 2050 which is only going to add to the increasing number of undernourshed people of the world (Wright & Boorse, 2010).
In North American, the last half centruy has seen a reduction in the small, family owned farms. These farms have been converted from agricultural uses to nonagricultural uses in some instances, which decreases the area where food can be produced. This means that the remaining farmers have to produce higher yeilds every year in order to meed the food needs of the world. This coupled with the increase in the costs associated with farming, such as the costs for fertilzers and herbasides, have almost totally destroyed to economic viablity of small family farming.
The ultimate goal is to establish policies and pratices that can be both benefical economically and environmentally. This can be done but not without proper planning and a commitment to see the issue through to completion. This is going to require all levels of government to be activly invloved in the implementation of these practices. The developed nations of the world have a moral responsibility to the developing and undeveloped nation of the world to teach and pass on information through education about sustainable agricultural development. These responsiblites are important because the developing and undeveloped nations do not need to make the same mistakes that we did in the development process. The scope of the responsibility is not totally apparent at the current time, the issue of how to pay for the implementaion of sustianable agricultural practices is up for debate. What is aparent is that inaction is not an option.
Sewage treatment is one are that is often looked over when someone mentions sustianablilty and envrionmental protection. Here in the United States we have an aging waste removal system. This results in raw sewage that leakes or leaches out into waterway in which we collect our drinking water. One of the areas within this topic that is disturbing is when waste water that is contimated with
Transportation is huge in developed countries. The United States accounts for just 5% of the world population but emits about 25% of the green house gasses that are believed to cause global warming (Byck, 2010). This is an incredible amount given such as small population. But this, as it turns out, is not uncommon for industrialized nations. They consume large amount of energy, and a good portion of that is used for transportation. The population of the United States is on track to hit 340 million by 2050. A large portion of this increase in projected to take place in the suburbs around major cities such as New York City. This poses a land use problem that must be addressed now. We must integrate the community planned now to ensure that when we reach that 340 million population mark in 2050 that everyone has a livable place to reside. This is going to take city planners and local governments to think outside the box and integrate sustainable community planning into future policies. The cities of the United State are notorious for urban sprawl which requires many people to travel farther to work. This requires large amounts of energy consumption that results in traffic jams and smog, among other aspects.
One way to combat this is to strategically plan communities that increase the population density while still maintaining the comfort that we enjoy today. There are myriad ways to go about planning these communities. The city of Boulder, Colorado has been a leader in building sustainable communities in the United States. They have several communities that integrate different aspects of city living into one community. Of all the aspects one that sticks out the most is how they decided to orient the building to utilize passive solar energy to heat the homes. They also used green landscaping to trap storm water runoff to cut down on soil erosion and to provide shade trees to help keep the homes cooler in the summer. The transportation problem in as it applies to cities, has been addressed as well. They have integrated into the design of the community walkways that lead to preplanned businesses that are incorporated into the community itself. They also have build two story buildings with apartments on the top level that function as living spaces while the first story could be anything from an artist’s gallery to a internet café (City of Boulder Colorado, 2008).
The designers of the sustainable communities in Boulder have also addressed the issue of shopping by designing shopping areas into the community as well. They integrated small shopping areas into the buildings that are within walking distance of every home. This allows the resident the choice of walking or riding a bike vice driving to the store. The communities also have many biking trails available for exercise and as a mode of transportation as an alternative to driving cars. Although it is unlikely that city and community planners can design out the need for cars and other vehicles, they can greatly reduce the need for everyone to have one.
Zip car is a company that offers an alternative to owing a car. They have a fleet of fuel efficient cars that are placed around some large cities such as Chicago. They allow people to rent the cars on an hourly or daily basis. You have to register online to receive a special card that, once you have submitted for a rental, you hold the card to the windshield and it unlocks the doors. Inside you will find the keys and off you go. This can reduce the need for cars in the urban environment reducing the amount of city traffic congestion and smog. The idea behind Zipcar is simple yet very effective. It is steadily gaining more and more popularity and has expanded to more than 33 cities and universities in three countries (Zipcar, 2011).
The issue of solid waste disposal has been around for as long as many can remember. The phrase “Not in my backyard” comes to mind when many think of landfills and solid waste disposal. Landfills can only be used so much until they can no longer accept any more garbage. The areas that can be used as landfills are often thwarted because of residents in the surrounding areas objecting to having one in their backyard and all of the smell and varmints that come with waste disposal. Recycling is one way to reduce the amount of solid waste that ends up in landfills across the world. It is also a business that creates jobs and new products from former garbage. Many people the world over recycle aluminum cans because they see an instant profit. But a lot of times that is where it ends. The need to recycle more and throw away less is mounting as landfills reach capacity. There are many things that can be recycled but are not because the common perception is it takes too much energy and is a bigger hassle than it is worth. That mind set is wrong and there needs to be more done to change the public’s at large mindset on this issue. If you were to purchase small containers to organize trash and garbage into to plastic, paper, steel, aluminum, and other items as available in your own area, it becomes easier. The integration of this into city development would make for a more sustainable community.
Another component of solid waste disposal is that of vegetable waste and composting. Composting has two obvious benefits, one being the fertile soil that is produced from composting vegetable wastes, and the other being reducing the amount of needless waste entering local and regional landfills. A lot of people think that composting is smelly, dirty work that requires large bins and land to get any usable amount of soil. From personal experience this is not the case. There are small 5 gallon bucket composting kits that are available from local gardening shops to online retail and specialty sites. The premise is, that if you can recycle a large portion of the vegetable wastes that are produced every year, you could use that to grow your own flowers or vegetables, reducing the need to purchase food that has traveled, on average 1500 miles, to your local grocery store (Byck, 2010).
In designing a sustainable community I would construct a similar community to the one built in Boulder, Colorado, where there is a diverse set of incomes and social classes included in the design. The community would have included in the design, places to work within walking or biking distance. The placement of the community would be paramount, having to have access to jobs, recreation, and shopping within close distances. That would require a different approach to city development that has rarely been seen in the world today. There would be polices in place to encourage energy conservation and reduce the amount of solid wastes introduced into local landfills. Schools and community buildings would be incorporated into the area with smaller more functional buildings being utilized for not only the residential buildings but any commercial buildings as well. The building codes would have to be written to encourage smaller more energy efficient homes, and as builds become larger they would have to increase the amount of green credits that would have to be installed or in place to offset the larger impacts of bigger homes and businesses. The community would also have permeable concrete and rain and community gardens to control storm water runoff as a source of food production and community involvement. The overall considerations when considering developing a community would be how can one make a small area livable, comfortable, affordable, and environmentally friendly while still being profitable. With all of the options available to developers now, it is hard to see why anyone would want to build anything other than sustainably. The answer, to me, lies in the bottom line. The high upfront costs of building sustainably can be hard to overcome but with the right investors and the backing of local communities and the population in general, the results can be well worth the extra cost initially.
In conclusion, the integration and implementation of sustainable policies and practices is crucial in maintaining good order and quality of life in our world of increasing populations as well as increasing environmental impacts those increasing numbers of people have. It is with good leadership and those leaders thinking outside the box and outside the oil drum that we will find our own, individual answers to the energy needs of the future. With all that we have learned over the last couple of hundred years, thorough today, with increasing technology and global commerce, we need to vigilant on what we do and the effects of those actions on our planet and future generations. We need to get back to the ideas of our forefathers, and try, really try to leave our cities and communities better than when we received them from previous generations. Not only better, but now, we will need to leave them in better shape due to the inactions and incompetence’s of the preceding generations. We can only accomplish so much with only a few really trying to make a difference. The responsibility lies most heavily on the developed world to educate and help integrate the strategic resources and planned that will allow our species to reach such a high number without causing widespread disease and famine due to inadequate environmental oversight and sustainable practices.
References
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