City Living may lead to Greener World- Straits Times

[munsterkings]

Came across this while reading up on carbon sequestration.

I remember someone was proposing we should put all the text in the post, rather than the link.

My own view is that it's too much, and can clutter the thread if people are 'replying' to it.....I think it's better to post the 1st few para's and then the link if people want to complete article. Anyway, here's the whole thing...................

 

MunsterK

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...nforests_2.html

 

Cities Trap More Carbon Than Rain Forests, Study Says

Mason Inman

for National Geographic News

September 8, 2009

 

There may be something more to the phrase "urban jungle."

Compared with tropical rain forests—the densest natural ecosystems—cities store more carbon, acre for acre, in their trees, buildings, and dirt, a "surprising" new study says.

With Earth's temperature rising due to increased emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, scientists are taking a closer look at all the places that naturally store carbon—and how to lock up more.

 

"Everyone thinks about the tropical forests, but I don't think people consider cities as a way to store carbon," said study leader Galina Churkina of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research in Germany.

Although a lot of studies have focused on carbon in forests, grasslands, and other natural ecosystems, looking at cities—which now house half of the world's population—is relatively new, Churkina said.

Intentionally storing carbon in cities could be one approach to counter global warming, she said. (Get global warming fast facts.)

 

Carbon Cities

 

Churkina and colleagues pulled together previous evidence looking at various stores of organic carbon—carbon that comes from living things, as well as from such as plants and animals, wood, dirt, and even garbage.

Cities—including both dense metropolises and sprawling suburbs—store about a tenth of all the carbon in U.S. ecosystems, the study estimated.

In total, U.S. cities contain about 20 billion tons of organic carbon, mostly in dirt, according to the new study to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Global Change Biology.

Some of this carbon-rich topsoil is in parks and under lawns, but it's also sealed underneath buildings and roads—a remnant of grasslands or forests that were there before development.

Of all this urban carbon, about three billion tons are locked up in human-made materials—two-thirds of it in garbage dumps, and the rest in building materials such as wood.

 

Tree Power

 

Many cities have already launched ambitious plans for turning gray to green, such as Los Angeles' Million Trees LA project, which aims to plant a million trees in the Californian city over several years.

Trees take up CO2 and turn it into carbon in their trunks, branches, and leaves, so planting more trees helps counter some of the excess CO2 in the air.

Likewise trees also cool cities and reduce the need for air-conditioning, according to urban forest expert David Nowak of the U.S. Forest Service in Syracuse, New York.

By planting trees around buildings, he added, "you avoid about four times more CO2 emissions than the trees sequester."

Study leader Churkina added that "people could [also] try to store more carbon in gardens by smart management of the land. The carbon storage in lawns is quite amazing."

 

Tricky Balance

 

However, figuring out whether more lawns or trees in cities would actually fight global warming "can be tricky," said earth scientist Diane Pataki of the University of California, in Irvine.

"Managing urban soils to store more carbon can use energy, and those fossil fuel emissions have to be taken into account," said Pataki, who was not involved in the research.

For example, the process of making fertilizer typically burns a lot of natural gas. Later, when the fertilizer breaks down in the soils, it releases nitrous oxide—also known as N2O, or laughing gas.

(Related: "Laughing Gas Biggest Threat to Ozone Layer, Study Says.")

Since N2O is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, fertilizer can offset some or all of the carbon gain, Pataki added.

Study leader Churkina agreed. "You have to follow the whole life cycle of things, and cannot just think of carbon storage."

 

Waste to Energy

 

Building wood houses instead of using concrete could also help, said Leif Gustavsson, an expert on sustainable technologies at the Mid Sweden University in Õstersund.

However, the main benefit comes from better use of waste from wood industry and construction, not the carbon stored in the structures, said Gustavsson, who was not involved in the new research.

Of the wood harvested for building materials in Sweden, his research found, only about 25 percent winds up in the buildings, while the rest becomes waste.

"We should use all of the byproducts to replace fossil fuels," he said, burning them instead of coal, oil, or natural gas to generate electricity or heat.

Bricks and concrete also require a lot of energy to create, the new research suggests, whereas harvesting sustainably grown wood uses much less energy—another carbon savings.

(Related: "Hot New High-Tech Energy Source Is ... Wood?")

Overall "it's a good thing if you can increase the carbon stored in society," he said.

"Everything makes a small difference."

 

© 1996-2008 National Geographic Society. All rights reserved.

[Jake]

You ask an interesting question - Can cities survive a Long-Emergency-economy, where various countries move Beyond Financial Collapse?

 

I think it depends on politics.

 

I think it depends on survival. Beyond Financial Collapse. Cities will break down into chaos, looting and anarchy. If people have any place to escape to, they will. Just like the war.

I think you may be kidding yourself if you think Megalopolises are going to be islands of security in a BFC situation. You want to be OUT of these areas ASAP IMHO.

[Jake]

Here's an excerpt from the NY Times review of Owens' book:

 

Owen, a staff writer for The New Yorker, makes a convincing case that Manhattan, Hong Kong and large, old European cities are inherently greener than less densely populated places because a higher percentage of their inhabitants walk, bike and use mass transit than drive; they share infrastructure and civic services more efficiently; they live in smaller spaces and use less energy to heat their homes (because those homes tend to share walls); and they’re less likely to accumulate a lot of large, energy-sucking appliances. People in cities use about half as much electricity as people who don’t, Owen reports, and the average New Yorker generates fewer greenhouse gases annually than “residents of any other American city, and less than 30 percent of the national average.”

 

And the carbon footprint of the hybrid-driving country dweller with her triple-paned windows, backyard composter and geothermal heat pump? Fuhgeddaboudit, Owen practically shouts: she’s still driving to work, to school, to shops and the post office. He doesn’t care if she’s powered by French fry grease or the juice of photovoltaic panels: “Wasted energy is wasted energy no matter how it’s generated.

 

And the carbon footprint of the hybrid-driving country dweller with her triple-paned windows, backyard composter and geothermal heat pump? Fuhgeddaboudit, Owen practically shouts: she’s still driving to work, to school, to shops and the post office. He doesn’t care if she’s powered by French fry grease or the juice of photovoltaic panels: “Wasted energy is wasted energy no matter how it’s generated.”

 

Even worse than the car itself is the sprawl and the energy-inefficient lifestyle that it enables — the duplication of infrastructure, larger houses with fertilized, irrigated yards, two-hour commutes. Spreading people thinly across the countryside may seem to decrease environmental impact (it certainly looks and smells better), but in fact it substantially increases that impact “while also making the problems . . . harder to see and to address.”

 

“Green Metropolis” challenges many cherished assumptions about easy-on-the-earth country living, though many of its revelations may not be revelatory to hardcore carbon counters, or to anyone who read Owen’s 2004 New Yorker article from which this book sprouted. Still, it contains some surprises (for example: it takes less energy and infrastructure to move people vertically, in counterweighted elevators, than horizontally). ”

 

/more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/books/review/Royte-t.html

 

 

 

Loved this bit

 

The more pleasant the city, the more people will stay in it, rather than fleeing to car-dependent suburbs — as Owen and his wife did when they left Manhattan for a leafy Connecticut town more than 20 years ago...

 

 

It sounds good on paper, but there’s always going to be a sticking point: human nature. We all yearn for our own personal space, a little fresh air and elbow room. Owen doesn’t want to give up his charming but energy-inefficient house in rural Connecticut any more than I would (if I had one). And so he does what anyone with some extra cash and a conscience must: he buys and installs more insulation.

 

LOL!

 

As I suspected another hypocrite telling the rest of us how we should all be doing while he himself is living it up in the country. Serously unimpressed.

[drbubb]

I am agreed Dr B. that suburbs are bad. Just the word gives me the creeps. And I would rather live in the city than the surburbs, esp like Singapore. But would you not say that if you are really wanting to live a greener life and save the planet's resources etcetera then jetting off around the world uses far more precious resources than running a car for a couple of years?

 

I wasnt flying in my own aircraft!

 

I want to have a life where I dont need a car, because I cannot see how it improves my quality of life,

so long as I live in a walkable city.

 

Also, how can a preach the virtues of a carfree life, unless I happily live one?

 

The more pleasant the city, the more people will stay in it, rather than fleeing to car-dependent suburbs — as Owen and his wife did when they left Manhattan for a leafy Connecticut town more than 20 years ago...

 

It sounds good on paper, but there’s always going to be a sticking point: human nature. We all yearn for our own personal space, a little fresh air and elbow room. Owen doesn’t want to give up his charming but energy-inefficient house in rural Connecticut any more than I would (if I had one). And so he does what anyone with some extra cash and a conscience must: he buys and installs more insulation.

 

LOL!

 

As I suspected another hypocrite telling the rest of us how we should all be doing while he himself is living it up in the country. Serously unimpressed.

 

I have no problem with the suburbs per se, its the extensive car transport that bothers me.

If you live in a suburbs or small town and can do that without a car, then you are living a carfree existennce.

This isnt easy in many American cities, but it is not impossible. The insulation is another good idea, if you want

a suburban existence.

 

There's some MORAL imperative in my own mind, but most will not listen such an argument, so I leave it to

the economic arguments to try to persuade people. The main problem now is the RISK EXPOSURE

 

+ If oil prices rise, driving and heating will become more expensive,

+ If oil prices rise, the VALUE of a suburban home will fall, as people start discounting the transport & heating cost

 

From the article:

After laying out what’s wrong with the car-dependent lifestyle, Owen offers some nifty but politically challenging prescriptions. For mass transit to work, he writes, cities must not only achieve a threshold of mixed-use density, but driving must become an exceedingly unpleasant alternative. Bring on the double-­parked Fed-Ex trucks, the jaywalkers, potholes and scaffolding; reduce road capacity, banish free parking and raise bridge and road tolls. Traffic jams, he writes, “actually generate environmental benefits, because they urge drivers (and cab riders) either into the subways or onto the sidewalks.”

 

And don’t get Owen started on high-­occupancy-vehicle (H.O.V.) lanes: they mostly just ease traffic! (The author considers anything that makes driving more agreeable, whether hands-free cellphones or recorded books or drive-through Starbucks, an environmental negative.) The real way to make an H.O.V. lane work, he says, is to eliminate regular lanes, increase the number of occupants required to enter the H.O.V. lane, and then charge those single-occupant cars, forced into slow-moving lanes, tolls. Then pray they’ll give up and join a carpool.

 

I like these ideas.

 

Since it is not practical to hit everyone wanting to drive a car with bricks (as I have half-jokingly suggested- but the "brick" I have in mind is a higher tax on oil), then Owens' ideas may be worth a try. Why not try them?

 

My idea:

TAX oil consumption heavily beyond a tough minimum per capital amount. I would measure that taxfree amount of energy use at whatver the planet can generate from renewable energy.

[drbubb]

I think it depends on survival. Beyond Financial Collapse. Cities will break down into chaos, looting and anarchy. If people have any place to escape to, they will. Just like the war.

I think you may be kidding yourself if you think Megalopolises are going to be islands of security in a BFC situation. You want to be OUT of these areas ASAP IMHO.

 

 

SOME cities will be liveable IMHO, but not all.

[drbubb]

"...people left the city to escape a confiscatory tax regime. At least in the country (on a farm) the government did not find it easy to take a tax bite out of food that was produced and consumed inside the farm. They could only tax 'output'."

 

Has this occurred en-masse with modern currency crises, I wonder?

 

While not exactly the same thing, cities like: Berlin and Detroit are depopulating,

and so is Japan as a country.

 

An interesting contrast is Singapore, which has a LOWER birthrate than Japan,

but is gaining population because the government welcomes young foreigners who have talent

and professional skills to contribute to society

[Jake]

SOME cities will be liveable IMHO, but not all.

 

I think you may be right(er) with city states like HK or Singapore. They are very much an exception, it seems to me. Would you put NY or LDN in there too? Or any other 'sustainable' cities?

 

BTW I wasn't having a go at you personally, rather articles like Owen's when he himself lives in leafy Connecticut! He also likes to belittle the efforts of the hybrid driving, photo-voltaic, compost making classes, when he himself is probably a part of that class. A case of 'We hate that which we are'.

 

He also says nothing about environments for kids, education, recreation pursuits etc. I also have a hard time coming to terms with ideas like city dwellers use less energy than non urban dwellers. Pants! City dwellers know nothing of integrating sustainable energy use into their homes. The insulation and buildings they are used to is probably all fossil fuel based, they have no rainwater harvest and few have solar water panels. Their air is polluted to hell so many have asthma and other disorders. The water is undrinkable, allowing children to play alone, unthinkable. And all for what? So that we may live on top of one another on some landfill. Where does your trash go in HK btw and where does your water/rice come from.

 

I just dont think it is a closed book nor an ideal to strive for. No shangri la shall we say. Still I am happy for people to pile into these cities should they feel it right for them. I bet more than 50% want out as soon as they can though.

 

In a BFC scenario I would be interested to hear of your or any theories of how it would work. I also imagine being a foreigner would leave you at the mercy of others xenophobias.

 

Your MORAL case I am very interested to hear about too. This is a good thread for it, so give me the gist and I willfire back (unless you shoot me down first).

 

 

[drbubb]

I think you may be right(er) with city states like HK or Singapore. They are very much an exception, it seems to me.

Would you put NY or LDN in there too? Or any other 'sustainable' cities?

 

I suppose it depends on how much of their own food they grow

 

He also says nothing about environments for kids, education, recreation pursuits etc. I also have a hard time coming to terms with ideas like city dwellers use less energy than non urban dwellers. Pants! City dwellers know nothing of integrating sustainable energy use into their homes. The insulation and buildings they are used to is probably all fossil fuel based, they have no rainwater harvest and few have solar water panels. Their air is polluted to hell so many have asthma and other disorders. The water is undrinkable, allowing children to play alone, unthinkable. And all for what? So that we may live on top of one another on some landfill. Where does your trash go in HK btw and where does your water/rice come from.

They dont need to know about those things, which is exactly his point.

Much of our water comes from the sea, it is used to flush toilets.

Food is imported from China, were they use far too many pesticides

 

I just dont think it is a closed book nor an ideal to strive for. No shangri la shall we say. Still I am happy for people to pile into these cities should they feel it right for them. I bet more than 50% want out as soon as they can though.

 

In a BFC scenario I would be interested to hear of your or any theories of how it would work. I also imagine being a foreigner would leave you at the mercy of others xenophobias.

 

Your MORAL case I am very interested to hear about too. This is a good thread for it, so give me the gist and I willfire back (unless you shoot me down first).

 

I think that Jim Kunstler may be ride, and many will opt for the Small Town solution,

provided they can b e redesigned to make living-without-cars easier- that's where big efforts and investments

should be going IMHO

[nicejim]

Kunstler's take on it

 

 

Inspired by David Owen's book "Green Metropolis," James Howard Kunstler examines the idea of Manhattan as a "green" city. Kunstler believes that, during his lifetime, New York has never been in as good shape as it is now. But he also thinks it will never be in as good shape again. Financial and energy problems in the future may turn our newest skyscrapers into one-generation buildings, outlandish monuments built during the twilight of an empire. Of all the boroughs, Kunstler thinks Brooklyn may fare the best because of its higher quality urban fabric.

 

 

http://media.libsyn.com/media/kunstlercast...tlerCast_85.mp3

[drbubb]

Kunstler's take on it

 

Inspired by David Owen's book "Green Metropolis," James Howard Kunstler examines the idea of Manhattan as a "green" city. Kunstler believes that, during his lifetime, New York has never been in as good shape as it is now. But he also thinks it will never be in as good shape again. Financial and energy problems in the future may turn our newest skyscrapers into one-generation buildings, outlandish monuments built during the twilight of an empire. Of all the boroughs, Kunstler thinks Brooklyn may fare the best because of its higher quality urban fabric.

 

I will listen with interest.

But I dont think that skyscapers need be the evil that JHK believes they are

 

"higher quality urban fabric" - i.e walk-up buildings?

[Jake]

I will listen with interest.

But I dont think that skyscapers need be the evil that JHK believes they are

 

"higher quality urban fabric" - i.e walk-up buildings?

 

Ｉ　ｈａｖｅ　ｔｏ　ｃｏｎｆｅｓｓ　ｔｏ　ｂｅｉｎｇ　ａ　ｂｉｔ　ｃｏｎｆｕｓｅｄ as to what JHK is actually proposing (if he is proposing anything). I see his contraction of the cities and suburbia losing its reason to be. I have heard about the small walkable urban sustainable talk but can't see too many of these places referenced. Perhaps they don't really exist yet. What I imagine best would be the British/European market towns and villages supplied by farming hamlets/communities. Is there anywhere where I can find JHK's template for the future. (Have ordered his books). I confess to liking his rants and delivery, frustration is a great source of his creativity IMO.

Re cities and smarmy city types extolling their smaller use of energy I noted the comment about NewYork where a line of 12 miles long of garbage trucks leave the city DAILY, ferrying their trash to the landfills. I bet this is just the start of it too.

[drbubb]

... I have heard about the small walkable urban sustainable talk but can't see too many of these places referenced. Perhaps they don't really exist yet.

Townhouses near the business center- ie walking distance

 

What I imagine best would be the British/European market towns and villages supplied by farming hamlets/communities. Is there anywhere where I can find JHK's template for the future. (Have ordered his books). I confess to liking his rants and delivery, frustration is a great source of his creativity IMO.

Re cities and smarmy city types extolling their smaller use of energy I noted the comment about NewYork where a line of 12 miles long of garbage trucks leave the city DAILY, ferrying their trash to the landfills. I bet this is just the start of it too.

Small towns, with mainstreets including shopping, where locally produced foods are available. That works too, I suppose.

Maybe you need to read his: World Made by Hand novel

 

[Jake]

Townhouses near the business center- ie walking distance

 

 

Small towns, with mainstreets including shopping, where locally produced foods are available. That works too, I suppose.

Maybe you need to read his: World Made by Hand novel

Yes, it is on its way. I am looking forward to that. Have you read it? Before I read it my thoughts are what happens to all the people who fall out of the contracting cities? I mean this idea of 'World made by hand' is surely only possible after a substantial reduction of population. Does he foretell of how the pop shrinks? War? Insurrection> Starvation?

 

Also a recent huge find of oil through much of US suggests that a World Made By hand is decades away...As for the Uk on the other hand...