Here are my notes on the implications of a great piece that Alex Steffen wrote (click here for original):

• Most of of the transition challenges are far upstream, and can only be changed through societal engagement in policy and systems design (my italics)
• We cannot expect to get away with isolating ourselves in pockets of ideal living - we have to engage in the large-scale (re)design of our living places, particularly cities and their bio-regions
• "the proper scale at which to design resilience is not at the household, but in a mesh of urban districts (incorporating energy innovations and transit-orientation) and regional watersheds, foodsheds, transportation systems and energy sources"
• need for compact, dense cities surrounded by farmland that can meet local needs
• There is no avoiding significant climate catastrophe now. "To live in this future, we'll need a few things. We'll need a model of urban prosperity that can be accepted as equitable and shared by all. We need tools for sharing innovation and spreading that model quickly to everyone. We need alliances and international agreements that will help soften the blow where its landing the hardest, help refugees, stabilize failed states, prevent wars, stop genocides, preserve global public health systems and essential governance tools (like nuclear non-proliferation agreements) and so on. And we need to be rugged enough to make it through the very hard times that we know are coming."
• "We need to have the capacity to change quickly, to reinvent, to distribute innovation and explore new realities. ... we'll need to get faster and more creative, not slower and more traditional; we'll need to get bigger and more systemic, not smaller and more spread out; we'll need to get networked and more complex, not simpler and more isolated."
• "Maybe we need less relinquishment and doomerism, and more radical vision and confidence. Maybe we need to start to take responsibility for all of it, and get big enough inside to handle that gracefully. To live in the future we've made, we need to make ourselves people of the future, not reflect imperfect idealized understandings of the past."
• "Forget gardening suburban lawns -- help us redesign urban foodsheds for millions. Forget cohousing -- help us retrofit an entire districts with green buildings, clean energy and green infrastructure. Forget biodiesel -- help us plan a whole new regional transportation systems. Forget ecocity ideas about making your neighborhood look like nature -- help us densifying our existing cities, changing how they connect to ecosystems so they work like nature. Forget light green frugality, household tips and small steps -- help reveal the backstory of the lives we lead and trigger a revolution in sustainable design, post-ownership and genuine prosperity. Forget countercultures. Make the real culture better. Get the new context, embrace the new tools, apply your hard-won insights to the new problems. "

sustainability, urban, cities, alex steffen

Last updated 770 days ago by Peter Merry