In connection with the progressing process of global warming, the importance of creating and implementing eco-innovations, including architectural eco-innovations, is growing.
Currently, projects are being created: City of tommorow, Eco City, Vertical Forest etc.
Will humanity manage to realize these projects?
Will the global warming effect of global warming lead to the disaster of many urban agglomerations?
Please reply. I invite you to the discussion
Unfortunately, more and more data and research centers scientifically confirms that progressively progressing global warming has become a fact. First and foremost, human activity influences this. The impact of natural factors is significant, however, the progress of civilization, industrial development, greenhouse gas emissions in the past few decades has increased significantly and continues to grow. The biggest problem may be the inability to reverse this process even if all of the industry, energy and transport are now switching to renewable energy sources.
In connection with the progressing process of global warming, the importance of creating and implementing eco-innovations, including architectural eco-innovations, is growing.
Currently, projects are being created: City of tommorow, Eco City, Vertical Forest etc.
Will humanity manage to realize these projects?
Will the global warming effect of global warming lead to the disaster of many urban agglomerations?
In view of the above, the current question is: Is it possible that man with the help of modern RES energy technology would stop the greenhouse effect on Earth?
Please, answer, comments. I invite you to the discussion.
Many urban agglomerations are already a disaster without the need for global warming. All those proposals for ecological cities, vertical forests, etc. they will only be accessible to a small part of the population. The majority of the population will continue to live in unhealthy agglomerations, without basic services, without access to work and without a future. Besides, what is the point of destroying nature to reconstruct it artificially, subject to architectural design?
Sustainable Green City of The Future Belmont of Bill Gates concept
Architectural ecological innovations according to Bill Gates's concept
Transitions are difficult. We transitioned from Horse to Car early in the 20th century (peak Horse was 1915), and this transition triggered (directly or indirectly) all of WW1, Roaring 20's, Great Depression, and the beginning of WW2. It took about 40 years for the ripples to work their way through Western society.
The next transition comes from the End of the Age of Oil, and the start of Something New (details still unknown). We've already seen peak Conventional Oil (in 2008), and we expect that by the early 2060's that we will be seeing peak Usable Energy (eg, consumption x efficiency), as the EROI of fossil fuels keeps dropping. No economic growth will be possible based on fossil fuels after that.
Urbanization requires both Technological and Social Innovations. We can focus only on the technological, and then community is reduced, and we will see populist governments and short sighted, transactional politics rule the world stage. We can focus on the social, and then run the serious risk of infrastructure decay that can then not support the existing levels of consumption (let alone growth). Somehow we need to focus on both, and neither at the expense of the other.
Now lets add in climate change. We're going to see something like 60 million ecological refugees per year in a short time period (some will be the same refugees, shifting again and again). We had better figure out what we're going to do about that. That is primarily a social problem, not technological (although technology can be used to buffer the problem somewhat). Climate change is going to drive some nails in the coffin of Conventional Agriculture, which in a short time won't be able to feed the world's population, and that would wreck global economies until sufficient alternatives are available. Urban agriculture may be a necessity, which will require both social and technological innovation. Without Unconventional Agriculture (boundaries currently undefined), there will be hundreds of millions of economic refugees following right behind the ecological ones.
So, to answer your question: Will Humanity be able to realize the potential architectural marvels? Yes. But only for those communities that are able to embrace both the technological and sociological innovations required, at the same time.
Dear Friends and Colleagues of RG Do you agree with my opinion that in the context of the projected acceleration of the global warming process, humanity in order to avoid a global climate catastrophe should take as a priority in the 21st century a change in the classical economy on the new green economy to develop economies according to the concept of sustainable pro-ecological development, including replacing classic energy sources based on the combustion of minerals for renewable energy sources. In addition, in economic processes should be implemented as soon as possible and possibly the largest funds programs for reduction of greenhouse gases?
Please reply
I invite you to the discussion
Best wishes
Article Global Warming Mitigation Through Carbon Sequestrations in t...
Architectural ecological innovations - Futuristic artificial island.
Sustainable buildings. An ecological zero-energy housing estate. Dubaj Project district-One
Architectural ecological innovations - Futuristic artificial island
All these example future cities are lovely and such, but how are these going to be achievable in a low energy intensity future? After Peak Fossil Carbon, after Peak Usable Energy, you're not going to be able to build, operate, feed, and handle the wastes of these creations. Until you've got a way to address the Post-Transition existence, this is just dreaming.
All of the infrastructure we are building today will get it's first major maintenance in that low-energy-intensity future, and we aren't building for that reality. We will end up with enormous quantities of infrastructure that we can't afford to maintain, which means we will cease to use it, and cease to gain the benefit to our quality of life that we are getting today.
How do you design buildings that can be built (not just operated) with solar energy? How do you gather, transport, distribute, process, and cook the food, and then return the nutrients back to the farms, using renewables alone? We know how we did just that 200 years ago - we lived very close to the farm, in many small communities, in significantly smaller populations, using locally sourced biomass. How can that work 100 years from now? The only solar panel that is made with solar energy is a tree (or blade of grass, or algea, or.. well, plants)..
Add the existential issues, such as climate change, open oceanic fisheries collapse, soil loss, mass extinction, etc - and the stakes are raised, and the flexibility and opportunities that we have relied on in the past just won't be there in the future.
If we don't depend on some technological revolution (say Thorium reactors), then there isn't a way of building bigger, smarter cities that will make life better for everyone in a no-carbon future. And depending on clever people in the future to solve some problem we create today is precisely how we got into this mess. So we have to approach the problem at the root, and not at the end of the branch. Start at the beginning.
First - stop thinking about the city in isolation of the rural land that it support and is supported by it. The cities provide the professional services (education, health care, etc), and factories for goods.. The rural areas provide the ecological services (clean the water, grow the food and fibre) and the non-renewable resources. They can't operate in isolation of each other - they have to be considered together as one planning unit. We don't do that, and that has to change first.
Second - ensure that we can meet everyone's needs today, using only the ecological services, resources and skills available in the combined planning unit. If you can't make it locally with locally sourced materials, then at some future time, mismanagement by someone else will mean those resources will cease to be available for use. If you need it, make sure you have it available in perpetuity, or develop co-management relationships with other communities to ensure continued access.
Third - figure out how to operate these communities in the absence of economic growth - once the EROI drops low enough, there won't be enough to support our current economic and political systems. What will provide hope instead? The answer is likely by focussing on meeting people's needs specifically, people's quality of life will go up, even if the economy declines. But that's not automatic and it will take careful planning.
Fourth - after all that is done you can invest in technological development. But it has to be tested to demonstrate that the development is sustainable. Will people be able to meet more of their needs, more effectively, once over-consumed resources cease to be available, as a result of the technology? How are you going to measure that and project it into the future far enough to be meaningful? 40 years is short term from a Sustainability perspective, and 150 years ago we could never have imagined where we are today. Somehow we have to plan for more than the next 100 years, and make good choices today to take us through the coming transitions.
I really don't think it's by getting more efficient. Sure, that plays a part, but generally when efficiency is increased, resilience is decreased. Better would by getting more effective. How does eco-architecture improve effectiveness?
Dear Douglas Nuttall, I totally agree with your reasoning.
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Ecology