As much as specific blogs and particular websites have started to shape our collective intake of news, events and perspectives, it is always gratifying to notice when the mainstream media writes an article precisely about one's interests. The leader and the feature article provide an excellent overview of the potential of market-based forces for environmental change.
It is good to see the Economist put its best foot forward -- I assume for Earth Day -- and to advocate "free-market environmentalism". One obvious problem with an absolute definition of sustainability is its all-encompassing nature, and different sectors of the environment, economy and society will certainly all require different solutions.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Sustainability: the Journal & the Journey
WorldChanging.com has a comprehensive post today on the new open journal titled "Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy", a much-needed forum for discussing exactly what sustainability is, and might become. The first issue features a lead editorial by E.O. Wilson, plus an article on the "Role of Local Ecological Knowledge in Sustainable Urban Planning: Perspectives from Finland".
I am glad that WorldChanging is such a sharp-eyed resource, and posted this; I am glad that the journal exists; and I am even glad that there is some sustainable urban planning going on in Finland!
At the same time, being a relatively goal-oriented person -- OK, let's admit it, absolutely goal-oriented person -- I am easily frustrated by hard-to-define problems, and achieving sustainability is probably the mother-of-all-definitional problems. It is hard not to succumb to a general feeling of panic about the state of the environment, but to maintain a useful sense of urgency, and therefore agency. Occasionally I have the fanciful wish that we could be (already) collectively engaged in the implementation of sustainability -- whatever it might be.
I am glad that WorldChanging is such a sharp-eyed resource, and posted this; I am glad that the journal exists; and I am even glad that there is some sustainable urban planning going on in Finland!
At the same time, being a relatively goal-oriented person -- OK, let's admit it, absolutely goal-oriented person -- I am easily frustrated by hard-to-define problems, and achieving sustainability is probably the mother-of-all-definitional problems. It is hard not to succumb to a general feeling of panic about the state of the environment, but to maintain a useful sense of urgency, and therefore agency. Occasionally I have the fanciful wish that we could be (already) collectively engaged in the implementation of sustainability -- whatever it might be.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
A Peak in Peak Oil Titles
The meteoric rise in oil prices over the past year has led to renewed discussion of "peak oil", or as it is known among geologists, "Hubbert's Peak".
What many of the books written this year on the subject certainly share is a common desire for the least mysterious titles possible, including The End of Oil and Hubbert's Peak, with the literal yet ominous subtitles, "On the Edge of a Perilous New World" and "The Impending World Oil Shortage", respectively. The title of another book, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil mixes a dim metaphor with a historical yet redundant assertion. At least James Howard Kunstler went through the trouble to give his new book an actual title, though he tries a bit too hard to coin a catchphrase for the impending peak oil era: he names the era, and his book, The Long Emergency, a title which evokes something between the highly contrived television series "24", Clan of the Cave Bear, and an after-school special. You can also read excerpts in the recent issue of Rolling Stone.
Of course, the blogosphere has its own notable contributions to the peak oil discussion. One of the few titles I actually like is Rob McMillan's Peak Oil Optimist. An article purportedly by an "anonymous oil industry insider" in Energy Bulletin in February spread like wildfire across the web across various environmental expert blogs, in part because of its mix of unverifiable facts and the ranting tone of one seriously unhappy oil dude at the bar.
I generally prefer the less alarming titles put out by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), including the plain but clear document titled "Long Term World Oil Supply Scenarios". The subtitle -- "The Future is Neither as Bleak or Rosy as Some Assert" -- manages to take issue with everybody else, while promising real factual analysis. That's my kind of title!
Why are titles important? Isn't this, I am sure the various authors would respond, a truly frivolous point to be making when this could be the end of civilization as we know it?.
Well, without rehashing the whole debate about the "Death of Environmentalism" (ably summarized by Grist), there is something to be said about the attitude of these doom-reinforcing, gloom-peddling titles. Oil is a finite resource, to be certain, and therefore there will come a day when we reach a point of peak production capability, followed by an inexorable decline. However, what titles like this don't do is to add anything to the actual debate about how to control our consumption of oil, or even what it means for us, as a society, to be unable to control our use of resources.
Though I suspect I agree with the overall intention of the authors, at the same time, the various alarm- (and hackle-) raising titles of their books are as much as function of the market as our appetite for oil. I question whether the year's past rise in oil prices is actually connected to any growing widespread appreciation of peak oil, or whether the opposite is true: the rise in oil prices has spawned numerous books on peak oil. The OPEC embargo and recession of the Seventies kicked off a decade of high energy consciousness, which were immediately followed by the Eighties and Nineties, and when oil prices went low, so did our consciousness about energy issues.
There is a larger debate to be had about what kind of society, or market, allows the unfettered consumption of resources without any consideration of the future. The true essence of sustainability, I think, concerns a presently absent comprehension of the earth and the resources that sustain our existence on this planet. The authors have all chosen oil as their subject because it is connected to our daily lives, but does this make global warming, losses in biodiversity, or substantial modification of the earth any less important?
These are also precisely the issues that we may feel able to ignore because they occur beyond lifetimes, or because we implicitly envision an earth that is framed entirely by the needs of humans. It is either almost quaint -- or else downright alarming, where we started -- to think that Bill McKibben wrote about this a full ten (!) years ago in The End of Nature. I think his point then, as now, is still valid: we certainly will have lost something when we have eliminated nature, or what it means to be wild, or that which is outside of humanity for its own sake. The question is, how do we start this discussion?
What many of the books written this year on the subject certainly share is a common desire for the least mysterious titles possible, including The End of Oil and Hubbert's Peak, with the literal yet ominous subtitles, "On the Edge of a Perilous New World" and "The Impending World Oil Shortage", respectively. The title of another book, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil mixes a dim metaphor with a historical yet redundant assertion. At least James Howard Kunstler went through the trouble to give his new book an actual title, though he tries a bit too hard to coin a catchphrase for the impending peak oil era: he names the era, and his book, The Long Emergency, a title which evokes something between the highly contrived television series "24", Clan of the Cave Bear, and an after-school special. You can also read excerpts in the recent issue of Rolling Stone.
Of course, the blogosphere has its own notable contributions to the peak oil discussion. One of the few titles I actually like is Rob McMillan's Peak Oil Optimist. An article purportedly by an "anonymous oil industry insider" in Energy Bulletin in February spread like wildfire across the web across various environmental expert blogs, in part because of its mix of unverifiable facts and the ranting tone of one seriously unhappy oil dude at the bar.
I generally prefer the less alarming titles put out by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), including the plain but clear document titled "Long Term World Oil Supply Scenarios". The subtitle -- "The Future is Neither as Bleak or Rosy as Some Assert" -- manages to take issue with everybody else, while promising real factual analysis. That's my kind of title!
Why are titles important? Isn't this, I am sure the various authors would respond, a truly frivolous point to be making when this could be the end of civilization as we know it?.
Well, without rehashing the whole debate about the "Death of Environmentalism" (ably summarized by Grist), there is something to be said about the attitude of these doom-reinforcing, gloom-peddling titles. Oil is a finite resource, to be certain, and therefore there will come a day when we reach a point of peak production capability, followed by an inexorable decline. However, what titles like this don't do is to add anything to the actual debate about how to control our consumption of oil, or even what it means for us, as a society, to be unable to control our use of resources.
Though I suspect I agree with the overall intention of the authors, at the same time, the various alarm- (and hackle-) raising titles of their books are as much as function of the market as our appetite for oil. I question whether the year's past rise in oil prices is actually connected to any growing widespread appreciation of peak oil, or whether the opposite is true: the rise in oil prices has spawned numerous books on peak oil. The OPEC embargo and recession of the Seventies kicked off a decade of high energy consciousness, which were immediately followed by the Eighties and Nineties, and when oil prices went low, so did our consciousness about energy issues.
There is a larger debate to be had about what kind of society, or market, allows the unfettered consumption of resources without any consideration of the future. The true essence of sustainability, I think, concerns a presently absent comprehension of the earth and the resources that sustain our existence on this planet. The authors have all chosen oil as their subject because it is connected to our daily lives, but does this make global warming, losses in biodiversity, or substantial modification of the earth any less important?
These are also precisely the issues that we may feel able to ignore because they occur beyond lifetimes, or because we implicitly envision an earth that is framed entirely by the needs of humans. It is either almost quaint -- or else downright alarming, where we started -- to think that Bill McKibben wrote about this a full ten (!) years ago in The End of Nature. I think his point then, as now, is still valid: we certainly will have lost something when we have eliminated nature, or what it means to be wild, or that which is outside of humanity for its own sake. The question is, how do we start this discussion?
Modelling Cities
Interesting videos via WorldChanging.com, showing a computerized system developed in Germany, with the rather tortuous acronym of ARTHUR (standing for Augmented Round Table for ArcHitecture and URban planning -- yuck). Though the acronym is wretched, the idea of developing real-time visualization models for cities is compelling.
The immediate question, of course, is whether or not these visualization models are connected to formal models that predict any of the flows out of actual land-uses, such as pedestrian or traffic behavior, or pollution flows. Though there is numerous evidence regarding the influence of physical form on human behavior, I am inherently skeptical of any "grand-unified theory" that can predict human behavior within an environment as complex as the city.
I've written before about space syntax, a theory that tries to explain too much. There is also a rich tradition in computer modeling of urban environments. The history of SimCity is detailed in my friend Daniel's paper "A city is not a toy", published by the London School of Economics. Other contemporary urban modeling efforts include UrbanSim, which is being developed at the University of Washington.
More academic reviews of models of urban growth can be found in a number of papers, including:
I also found an excellent list of annotated links about agent-based modeling.
The immediate question, of course, is whether or not these visualization models are connected to formal models that predict any of the flows out of actual land-uses, such as pedestrian or traffic behavior, or pollution flows. Though there is numerous evidence regarding the influence of physical form on human behavior, I am inherently skeptical of any "grand-unified theory" that can predict human behavior within an environment as complex as the city.
I've written before about space syntax, a theory that tries to explain too much. There is also a rich tradition in computer modeling of urban environments. The history of SimCity is detailed in my friend Daniel's paper "A city is not a toy", published by the London School of Economics. Other contemporary urban modeling efforts include UrbanSim, which is being developed at the University of Washington.
More academic reviews of models of urban growth can be found in a number of papers, including:
Allen, P. and Sanglier, M., 1978, "Dynamic models of urban growth". Journal of Social and Biological Structures, 1:265-280.
Berling-Wolff, S., and Wu, J., 2004, "Urban growth models: a historical review". Ecological Research, 19:119-129.
I also found an excellent list of annotated links about agent-based modeling.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Urban Universities
Lots of articles yesterday on the positive impacts that urban universities have on their surroundings, including an award for the University of North Carolina and Otis White's April 1st column titled "City Planning 101".
Longer articles have been appearing in the big newspapers as well, particularly for major urban universities like Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Berkeley. After years of poor town-gown relations between Yale University and New Haven, the university out of necessity was one of the firsdt to embark on a series of direct and indirect programs to revitalize its immediate surroundings, titled the "Yale-New Haven Initiative". Though the effectiveness, and intent of the initiative have been questioned, New Haven is finally benefitting from population influx and rising real estate prices.
This impact of Harvard University on Boston is also an ongoing topic in the Boston Globe, given the university's major plans for expansion into the Allston neighborhood in Boston. There is also a terrific article in the Gotham Gazette about the overall impact and state of universities in New York.
Columbia's Manhattanville expansion is particularly controversial given their desire to use New York City's powers of eminent domain to acquire properties for the university, a private entity. Articles have been appearing over the past year or so, including in the New York Times, with the seemingly ubiquitous Norman Siegel representing another New York neighborhood against the use of eminent domain.
The University of California at Berkeley, a hotbed of Sixties-protest, has recently found itself (again) on the defensive, this time against the City of Berkeley's opposition to their long-range expansion plan. A summary of the history of their plans for expansion by a Berkeley faculty member, and Oakland resident, appears here.
These university expansion plans also illuminate the particular role of universities within cities. As one of the oldest and most persistent institutions in Western society, urban universities physically concentrate the intellectual activity and institutionalized knowledge associated with the growth (and rationale) for cities.
Many universities and cities also highlight the role of the academic sector in local economic development. The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges has a survey of economic impacts here, eight universities have documented their economic impact to Boston here, impact of the University of Texas system on Texas is reported here and here, and the celebrated University of California system is analyzed here.
(Unfortunately, I haven't found any economic impact studies not released by the public affairs offices of universities. However, before we get all excited about research bias, we have to ask ourselves who would actually be able study this issue if not for higher education).
The impact of universities to economic development can be broken down geographically and socially. At first glance, the benefits of research universities would appear to be their ability to attract national and private sector research funding to targeted local areas, and the spin-off benefits of these funds. Of course, the primary mission of universities has always been to produce highly educated individuals, and this is thought again to be a highly desirable feature to attract more young, highly educated professionals.
Universities themselves also exert significant impacts on the growth and development of cities. Columbia and NYU are among the largest landowners and employers in New York City, and have always been controversial neighbors, either recently or in the past.
Another interesting question would be the impact of universities to ex-urban or rural areas. I suspect that one could examine the development of areas like Davis, California; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Austin, Texas; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; flourishing small cities all.
Longer articles have been appearing in the big newspapers as well, particularly for major urban universities like Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Berkeley. After years of poor town-gown relations between Yale University and New Haven, the university out of necessity was one of the firsdt to embark on a series of direct and indirect programs to revitalize its immediate surroundings, titled the "Yale-New Haven Initiative". Though the effectiveness, and intent of the initiative have been questioned, New Haven is finally benefitting from population influx and rising real estate prices.
This impact of Harvard University on Boston is also an ongoing topic in the Boston Globe, given the university's major plans for expansion into the Allston neighborhood in Boston. There is also a terrific article in the Gotham Gazette about the overall impact and state of universities in New York.
Columbia's Manhattanville expansion is particularly controversial given their desire to use New York City's powers of eminent domain to acquire properties for the university, a private entity. Articles have been appearing over the past year or so, including in the New York Times, with the seemingly ubiquitous Norman Siegel representing another New York neighborhood against the use of eminent domain.
The University of California at Berkeley, a hotbed of Sixties-protest, has recently found itself (again) on the defensive, this time against the City of Berkeley's opposition to their long-range expansion plan. A summary of the history of their plans for expansion by a Berkeley faculty member, and Oakland resident, appears here.
These university expansion plans also illuminate the particular role of universities within cities. As one of the oldest and most persistent institutions in Western society, urban universities physically concentrate the intellectual activity and institutionalized knowledge associated with the growth (and rationale) for cities.
Many universities and cities also highlight the role of the academic sector in local economic development. The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges has a survey of economic impacts here, eight universities have documented their economic impact to Boston here, impact of the University of Texas system on Texas is reported here and here, and the celebrated University of California system is analyzed here.
(Unfortunately, I haven't found any economic impact studies not released by the public affairs offices of universities. However, before we get all excited about research bias, we have to ask ourselves who would actually be able study this issue if not for higher education).
The impact of universities to economic development can be broken down geographically and socially. At first glance, the benefits of research universities would appear to be their ability to attract national and private sector research funding to targeted local areas, and the spin-off benefits of these funds. Of course, the primary mission of universities has always been to produce highly educated individuals, and this is thought again to be a highly desirable feature to attract more young, highly educated professionals.
Universities themselves also exert significant impacts on the growth and development of cities. Columbia and NYU are among the largest landowners and employers in New York City, and have always been controversial neighbors, either recently or in the past.
Another interesting question would be the impact of universities to ex-urban or rural areas. I suspect that one could examine the development of areas like Davis, California; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Austin, Texas; Eugene, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; flourishing small cities all.
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