[stextbox id=”info”]“Why should I care about future generations?   What have they ever done for me?”   Groucho Marx

Some people want to save the tiger and other endangered species, whilst others want to save the rainforest.  Some want to “save children’s lives” in Africa whilst still others want to end hunger and poverty and war.

Many people want to do something to improve the living conditions of other less-fortunate people and everyone wants to put their mark on the world in some way, and leave some sort of legacy so that future generations may remember and honour them as “great” or “worthy” individuals.   In doing so people seek to achieve some form of eternal life.   This constant thinking about the future (and the past) encapsulates the most crucial difference between humans and animals – understanding the concept of time gives us the ability to think about the future, plan for eventualities, and hopefully ensure that future generations will live better lives than in the past, and that every generation will have improved conditions than the one before.

Meanwhile, the mass media and the abundance of cheap overseas flights to “exotic” (read “poor”) countries has enabled millions in the West to appreciate their good fortune to have be born in a country where almost everyone has too much of everything.   In fact many feel so intensely guilty about this that, conveniently forgetting that their “good fortune” is almost entirely due to capitalism, they have readily embraced the Marxist theory that the West is somehow to blame for 3^rd world poverty.

So many who live in rich countries feel guilt for their relative wealth and want people in poor countries to enjoy all the benefits that we take for granted in the West.   This means that all 7 billion people should have not only have decent housing, clean water supplies, hygienic sewage disposal, a huge variety and an unlimited quantity of good food, but also an unlimited power supply for heating, cooling, cooking, TV’s, computers, stereos, and every other electrical gadget that we take for granted.   In fact, so we are told, in order for “them” to reduce their population growth it is in our own best interests to build up their economies through the financial wizardry of globalisation and free trade, and of course democracy.    – thus expediting their climb onto the ladder of consumer-culture as that is the only proven way to bring down high birth rates.

Anything less than advocating a 1^st world lifestyle for 3^rd world people would be immoral and obscene and, even worse, racist..!

But there comes a point when all idealism must be set aside.    War is one such time.   Famine is another.    Economic Depression is yet another.   Climate Change, or to impart a greater sense of urgency – Catastrophic Climate Change – will not just mean hotter weather and England becoming a leading wine-producer

desertification in other areas.

most likely trigger war, genocide, famine, and probably the total collapse  of the world economy.  – and probably a new dark age in which the world population could plunge 90% or more.   There are those who claim that CC is not really happening or, if it is, then it is a natural cycle (cue the Ice Ages or the Medieval Warm Period) about which we can do nothing, so we can all safely Carry on Polluting..!   (pity they’re not still making “Carry On” movies, that would have made a great title).

 

I accept the premise – which I believe to be an overwhelming probability – that humans are the main cause of Global Warming (GW).   But even if humans are NOT the main cause of GW – and we won’t know conclusively until its too late – the time for re-considering some of our priorities is well overdue and if it takes GW (or even full-blown) CC to achieve that then in some sense it could be a good thing.

When I say “we”, I am of course speaking as a life member of the “Fortunate Fourteen % Club” – the approximately 1 billion (mostly white) people who, until very recently, consumed about 50% of the world’s resources in particular fossil-fuels.

 

It is more than likely, if not intuitive, that if we continue releasing poisonous gases into the atmosphere at the present rate, our even rather less than the present rate, our planet may become virtually uninhabitable in 100 years, sooner according to some projections.   Of course everyone is waiting and hoping that alternative (green) energy is going to ride, US Cavalry style, to our rescue in the shape of cute little electric vehicles (EV’s).   Great, so instead of the existing world fleet of around 900 million internal-combustion engines (ICE’s), in 20 years time (allowing for rapid vehicle-ownership growth in China and India) we will have at least 2,000 million vehicles – perhaps 1,000 million ICE’s and 1,000 million EV’s..!   Problem solved?   No, new problem created.  Why does nobody ever talk about all the materials which go into these one-hour-operating-per-day vehicles?    And what about the 100 million + worn-out battery-packs to be disposed of every year?

 

Is it realistic to expect that the 2 great green hopes – solar and wind – are up to the job of replacing fossil fuels in the near future?  

Sadly NO..!   It is a NOT realistic expectation because our auto-based consumer society demands far more energy than could be met by solar and wind, both of which are intermittent sources with a VERY LOW ENERGY DENSITY compared to gas and petroleum.   So, barring a major technological breakthrough, e.g., the elusive and perhaps mythical holy grail of “cold fusion”, a green-tech powered future will not be achieved without a drastic reduction in our energy consumption.

 

This is an uncomfortable thought because countries with low energy consumption are the ones which have very low living standards.

 

LOW ENERGY USE COUNTRY = POOR COUNTRY.

We often talk about a world divided into 2 kinds of countries – those which are considered to be “Developed” (DC) and others which are said to be “Under-Developed” (UDC).  Actually we are not allowed to call them “Under-Developed” any longer since this apparently implies that they will remain that way, like a permanent underclass.  Now we have to call them “Developing” which apparently implies that like a growing child, they will one day – hopefully soon – join their place in the ranks of the fully “Developed”.

 

The starkest difference is that DC have high rates of resource consumption and low (or even negative) rates of population growth, whilst UDC have the exact opposite – high population growth and low resource consumption.    Population and Resource Consumption both result in Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (CAGGE).   The debate as to which is the more responsible has caused a lot of friction between the rich and the poor countries, although now that China has become (or is about to become) the biggest polluter, closely followed by India, criticism of the West may have slackened off lately.   However, their high resource usage puts the West at a big disadvantage

 

 

 

RE-CYCLING SCHEMES ARE (MOSTLY) A LOAD OF RUBBISH

Assorted greenies propose frugality – walk to work instead of using a car – or share your car with others – adjust your thermostats – take a shower not a bath, and make it a quick shower too, no lingering..!  And don’t forget to fit a water-saving shower nozzle.    Re-cycle more everyone says, but how?    It seems to me that council-collected re-cycling schemes are simply a tax-payer funded feel-good exercise.   The alternative whereby dutiful citizens package-up and deliver their stuff to an out of town “re-cycling centre” is perhaps an even worse “solution” if one factors-in all the vehicle miles.    I have seen a line of cars beetling down country lanes miles out of town delivering their re-cyclables.  If someone offered to take it for them and charge a fiver for the service most of them would refuse.  IMO re-cycling is RUBBISH unless it’s done the japanese way.

 

Frugality, enforced or otherwise, does not sell well – and low living standards most certainly don’t.   

 

And “selling” is the operative word – democracies can’t force their people to

 

THE PARADOX AND PREDICAMENT OF PROSPERITY  

“How do we greatly reduce our demands on nature whilst maintaining 1^ST world-type living standards?”

back at the ranch – the Cloudy Sky Ranch – there is a lot of barking up the wrong tree as many seem to have mistaken London for Libya.

Up and down this cloudy country well-intentioned folk are embracing the future by fitting expensive (but government-subsidised) PV panels on their roofs and getting excited at the prospect of being paid for trickling a few puny Kwh into the vast national grid.   Others, having been duped by the exaggerated claims of the makers, are attaching (virtually useless) mini-wind generators to their gables.  Still others are retro-fitting their old draughty houses with (government-subsidised) cavity-wall insulation and triple-glazing, whilst still others again have gone back to the past by collecting rain-water from their roofs.

 

Note the irony of this situation.   These upstanding citizens who want to “help save the planet” all live in HOUSES in low population density suburbs, ie, they collaborated in the enablement and proliferation of URBAN SPRAWL..!    And now they are trying to alleviate some of the negative effects of sprawl – massive energy wastage due to the infrastructural inefficiencies of low-density housing – a sprawl their chosen lifestyle helped create in the first place..!!

 

In building up a residential rooftop PV industry Britain is belatedly following in the footsteps of Germany which went down the same road some years ago and in 2011 now has about 18 GW of PV-generating capacity.   Which sounds very impressive till you realise its only about 2% of total German electricity generation and has cost €50-60 billion..!

 

Of all the sources of GGE and waste – waste of time, waste of land, waste of energy, waste of materials, waste of efficiency – sprawl is the biggest culprit, yet it has received the least attention perhaps because so many of us are complicit in it.    Single-family residences with double and triple garages linked via roads and highways to shopping malls and recreational centres with vast parking lots on city perimeters. The automobile shapes and epitomises our lifestyles more than we think or care to think about.

 

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH?

 

Many of them would have seen “former next US president” Al Gore’s eco-movie “An Inconvenient Truth” which highlighted the threat posed by Global Warming (GW).   Not everyone believes in GW – some claim it is an anti-capitalist plot whilst others say it is a natural cycle and not the result of human activity.   But methinks they are like the proverbial shepherds who chose to ignore the boys repeated cry of “wolf”..!   The doubters may be right, but if doubts are used as an excuse to do nothing and 20 years later they are proved wrong, by then it will probably be too late to prevent runaway GW, assuming it is not already too late.

Common-sense alone should tell us there must be a limit to the amount of carbon the atmosphere can safely absorb.   Since 1950 human population has increased 3-fold and a reasonable guesstimate would be that each person alive today is generating 3-5 times as much Greenhouse Gas (GG) or Carbon Emissions CE) as those alive back then.   The atmosphere is therefore being polluted with approx. 12 times as much gunk (GG/CE) as it did just 60 years ago.   And in 1950 the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide had been creeping up since the dawn of the industrial age.

 

Although Al’s movie did a pretty good job in raising  public awareness, he failed to offer any solutions aside from issuing the usual hopeful band-aids – switch off your electrical stuff when not in use, replace incandescant light-bulbs, walk more and drive less, re-cycle more, use less hot water, turn down thermostats a notch, and so on.   Famous naturalist David Attenborough made a similar programme for TV that ended with a virtually identical set of “to-do” trivia.

 

Its helpful to try and do those little things, and more besides, but I suspect that many people who saw the movie would have left with the impression that if we all co-operated by doing our little “save the planet” duties then the problem could be largely, if not entirely, solved.   To the best of my recollection not once did Gore, the environmental crusader who lives is a 20 room mansion, mention SPRAWL as the source of so many problems.   If he did it was only as a passing aside.    He also gave no estimate of the % amount of GG/CE reduction that might be required to put a serious dent in the problem.

 

THE REALLY INCONVENIENT TRUTH

 

Well here it is – 80%    Yes, you heard that right – an 80% reduction in GG/CE is what is required to have any hope of staving off catastrophic GW.  This is the consensus opinion of most experts, whilst some even say 90%.   In Oct 2008, in recognition of this, the UK govt made a pledge to cut GGE by 80% (from 1990 levels) by 2050, to be achieved largely by a massive building programme of off-shore wind power and nuclear.

 

Now that the Japan tsunami has put nuclear back in the dock I very much doubt this target can be achieved, especially with the existing strategy largely based on catering for projected power demands.  This is the wrong way to go – Britain (and all other 1^st world countries) need to start investigating whether they really need to use so much energy in the first place.

 

This 80% required reduction is the Real Inconvenient Truth that Al Gore seemingly dared not speak of.    Why not?   I can only assume because such a high target is just too daunting and none of the usually-cited “solutions”, like solar and wind power and electric cars, are going to come close to achieving it – at least not for the foreseeable future.

So, barring the discovery of a limitless holy-grail type source of renewable energy (e.g., the elusive “cold fusion”) gifting us with an undeserved rain-check, an 80% reduction seems an impossible target especially as the BRIC’s (Brazil, Russia, India, China) would have to do their bit too, which seems highly unlikely.  So, should we sit back, wash our hands of the problem, and leave it for future generations to solve?     The problems seem so intractable that many people think it pointless to try and prevent GW – in fact I suspect that to some degree the naysayers are purposely ignoring the evidence for man-made GW so that they can wash their hands of the problem.  But meanwhile…

 

SHOULD CHANGE BE FORCED UPON US? 

 

In his best-selling “Heat”(2006),  which advocates a 90% reduction in CE, Guardianista eco-warrior George Monbiot says GW cannot be restrained unless “we persuade the government to FORCE US to change the way we live”..!    Note he says “we” must do the persuading – but who is the we?   It cannot be a majority that he is talking about because if it were then there would presumably be no need of force – because if a majority wanted to “change the way we live” then they could presumably elect a government with just such a programme.   Obviously Monbiot knows that his self-righteous gang of eco-fascists (the “we” who want to be “forced”) are a minority but he wants the government to FORCE everyone else – for their own good of course – to think as sensibly as he does.

 

“Forcing” cannot be the solution besides no democratic government could contemplate doing so.

 

Any solution to the problem of CE would need to be so clearly and enticingly advantageous that people would happily and voluntarily embrace it.    The proverbial better mouse-trap.

So, you rightly ask, how could an 80% reduction in non-renewable energy use be possible without a drastic lowering of living standards?

WHEREIN LIES THE WASTE..?

 

In no particular order, aside from the first named, here is a list of the chief energy waste suspects

 

• PRIVATE MOTOR VEHICLES (PMV’s) – if you could comfortably walk to work, shops, school, etc – why would you need to own one?
• INEFFICIENT ELECTRICITY GENERATION – 60% goes in heat which could be captured and used.
• TRANSMISSION PYLONS, TRANSFORMERS, SUB-STATIONS, etc, waste another 10%, and much more in some circumstances.
• STREET LIGHTING – traffic lights, hazard warning signs,  etc, etc.  Do we really need most of this?
• LEAKY OLD HOUSES emit heat through their roofs, walls, windows, and doors.  (newer houses are not always that much better)
• AIR-CONDITIONING – expels hot air which could be utilised.
• OFFICE BUILDINGS consume and expel lots of heat and often leave many lights on overnight
• FACTORIES & WORKSHOPS generate a lot of heat which could be captured.
• SUPERMARKETS waste a fantastic amount – space heating competing against open chest freezers, ultra-bright lighting (read George Monbiot’s “Heat”)
• BIG-BOX STORES – vast, high-ceilinged, poorly-insulated buildings leak vast amounts of heat.
• ILLUMINATED ADVERTISING SIGNS 
• COMPUTER CENTRES – generating masses of waste heat
• WATER SUPPLY INFRASTRCTURE – Dams, Treatment, Pumping Stations, Water Mains
• SEWAGE “TREATMENT” PLANTS – treatment being a euphemism for dumping and wasting a valuable resource.
• ROAD TRANSPORTATION – noisy, polluting trucks take advantage of a vast highway network subsidised by PMV’s.  Never mind they “create” jobs..!

The above list makes it clear that our homes, offices, shops, and factories use power very inefficiently – much of it emitted to the atmosphere either intentionally (aircon) or unintentionally (leakage).    If all that “waste heat” were collected it could be used, either directly for heating purposes, or indirectly converted back to energy.  Just one small example – all hobby potters will know of the enormous heat generated by pottery kilns – all of it wasted..!

 

ONE ROOF FITS ALL..?

 

Although a few green residential developments, e.g., “Bed-Zed” in SW London, have applied heat-recovery (HR) on a small scale, large power-hungry office buildings offer far more potential, and the bigger the building the more cost-efficient HR would doubtless become.    If it were possible to put an entire city complete with all its offices, shops, factories, schools, hospitals, etc – all under one huge roof – much of the waste heat that is now expelled into the atmosphere could be recovered and utilised.

Of course the sheer physical extent of our existing sprawl cities makes it impossible to put everything under one roof, or even ten thousand roofs.   However, as a solution to the sort of energy wastage I spoke of above, and the many other detrimental effects of sprawl, a few visionaries have proposed building entire new cities that would be contained within a single building.   The best known advocate of this idea is the Italian-American architect Paolo Soleri (b.1919) whose Magnum Opus “Arcology – The City in the Image of Man” (MIT-1969) contains intricately-detailed drawings of his suggested “Arcologies” – single buildings (mega-structures) projected to house from 100,000 up to 6 million people, with most tending to the larger end of that scale.

 

The objective of Arcology is to eliminate sprawl thus conserving land, energy, and resources whilst greatly simplifying the infrastructure and efficiency of cities. 

 

MUST ARCOLOGIES ALWAYS BE SO HUGE..?

 

Buildings (both commercial and residential) are well established as the single largest consumers of energy worldwide so, in theory, Arcology makes great sense – especially given the SCANDALOUS waste and inefficiency of sprawl, not to mention its many negative social effects.  However, by making them so outlandishly enormous, Arcology advocates have been their own worst enemies.   For example, Wikipedia’s entry for Arcology describes them as “enormous habitats (hyperstructures) of extremely high human population density“, highlighting the 750,000 population Shimuzu Mega-City Pyramid “as featured on Discovery Channels Extreme Engineering”.  

 

What irritated me was the way it was presented throughout as if it were a “done deal” and building was about to start.    Only at the end did an architect appear and admit, rather sheepishly I thought, that such a building would not happen for “at least 100 years..!”.    They should have said so at the outset, but they obviously presumed their audience were all idiots.

 

 

More recently in 2008 the Ziggurat of Dubai, covering 2.3 sq km, and intended to house one million people, was proposed for (no prizes for guessing) Dubai.

 

 

And, although Vincent Callebaut’s more modestly-sized “Lilypad City” was for only 50,000 (wealthy Climate Change refugees) – it was intended to do just what lily flowers do, that is to float……. off Monte Carlo in this case..!!

 

                       

 

There are several others I could mention –

 

Proposals of this scale and type are so implausible both financially and technically it is perhaps no surprise that arcologies are not being seriously considered as a practical solution to the environmental mess we are in.

 

This is more than an unfortunate omission by environmentalists, it is a mental blind-spot, because there are no good reasons why Arcologies need be anywhere near as gargantuan as they have always been projected and are thus always assumed to be.    As undesirable as sprawl is, Soleri’s patented “cure”- shrinking a sprawl city of (say) 100,000 buildings down to a single building with one enormous roof – is an over-reaction bordering on megalomania.    It would be like learning to run before learning to walk.   Or as un-necessary as running for a bus which is nowhere in sight.   Even if it were financially and technically feasible (which I very much doubt), the resultant building would be so huge that most residents would have to live deep inside and would need to walk a considerable distance in order to enjoy the encircling nature zone.   Mega-structures of this size would also need some form of public transport within the building, thus contradicting one of the objectives of Arcology, the simplification of city infrastructure.

 

NEVER MIND THE CLIMATE CHANGE, HERE’S A BETTER WAY OF LIFE  

 

Rather than the mammoth mega-structures proposed by Soleri, et al., the objectives of Arcologies – conserving land, energy, and resources whilst greatly simplifying the infrastructure and efficiency of cities – could be achieved with Smart Communities (mini-arcologies) comprising homes, shops, work places, and community facilities for between 5,000 and 10,000 people, and separated from each other by attractively landscaped parkland.  Whilst being an integral part of a larger entity each component would be a cohesive community in its right.   Such a Smart-City would occupy only 10 to 15% of the land area of an equivalent population urban sprawl, and yet 60% of that area (the 10 or 15%) would be nature zones..!

The Smart-City concept would not just achieve an 80% reduction in per-capita energy consumption – as a bonus it has a quite amazing number of societal side-benefits.   

 

Even if there was no GW and we could fuel our cars with water, we would need Smart-Cities because they will offer a far better quality of life..!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, unlike resort hotels – temples to hedonistic frivolity – DP is designed for living, working, and playing.  And, unlike various mooted “eco-cities” like Dongtan (China) or Masdar (Abu Dhabi), it is not a one-off design for a specific site or an egotistical exercise in green “one-upmanship”.   DP is a template that can be replicated and adapted to any part of the world almost regardless of the geography, the culture, or the climate.   Arguably it is, they are, or they will be, the most beautiful buildings the world has ever seen, and surely equally beautiful to live in?   Why wouldn’t they be when they will be…Peaceful, Secure, Healthy, Comfortable, Creative, Community-minded and they incorporate Workplace, Schools, Shops, Restaurants, Culture, Recreation, and almost everything else that you need, all just a short stroll away.

So why does it not yet exist..?   Why is nobody talking along such lines?  Why did not Al Gore propose such a solution in his widely acclaimed “Inconvenient Truth”?

I have pondered this often and can find no good reason aside from maybe some kind of inhibition related to an irrational fear – encouraged by sci-fi movies – of high-density futuristic cities.   Yet paradoxically we dream about the world cruise (tiny living quarters but great lifestyle) or we eagerly seek-out the excitement and beauty of a crowded historic city in Europe.  A critic would counter by saying “well its nice for a holiday, but I wouldn’t want to live there all the time.!”   My answer – how does he know..?

Many people will look at the picture and assume it would it be too expensive for all but a wealthy elite, a rich peoples refuge from the riff-raff.  I have no engineering qualifications, but I cannot see any technical reasons why DP could not be built for a reasonable price.    And with such an iconic venture possibly it/they could be built (at least partially) by the volunteer labour of prospective citizens?  When you factor in the efficiencies of compact size, and the surely much lower per-capita cost of service and utility infrastructure, it could or should be a lot cheaper than sprawl, with its many hidden costs that are conveniently ignored.

Future DP residents (I prefer to call them “citizens”) who are used to houses will have to make just one compromise – to agree to live in smaller spaces, maybe 50 m2  per couple, or 80 m2  for a family of 4.   Who really needs more?

Sorry, did I forget to mention that every apartment will have a panoramic view..!

A Small Space in a Stunning Place….life could get worse, eh?

So, as Teddy Roosevelt said to critics of his Panama Canal project – “Build it, and they will come..!”    

And of course they did…….