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Do you think that urban planning can play a role in combating global warming?
Cities are responsible for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, so taking action at the urban planning level may have a significant impact on reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
I am a town planner in johannesburg (South Africa), and my answer would definitely be 'yes'. Urban planning can play a critical role in combatting global warming.
Here are some ways I think it is possible:
Encouraging sustainable transportation: Urban planners can promote sustainable transportation options such as walking, cycling, and public transit. This can involve improving infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists, investing in public transit systems, and promoting car-free zones in urban centers. By reducing the number of cars on the road, urban planners can reduce the carbon footprint of cities.
Promoting energy-efficient buildings and infrastructure: Urban planners can promote energy-efficient buildings and infrastructure such as green roofs, solar panels, and low-energy lighting. This can involve updating building codes to require more sustainable practices, offering incentives for developers to build green infrastructure, and retrofitting existing buildings to make them more energy-efficient.
Encouraging sustainable land use practices: Urban planners can encourage sustainable land use practices such as urban farming, green spaces, and nature-based solutions. This can involve incentivizing developers to incorporate green spaces into their projects, encouraging community gardens and urban agriculture, and preserving natural areas within cities.
The Urban Heat Island effect (UHI) is a well known phenomenon. Even the ancient Romans intuitively knew about it, with the rich abandoning the city for their suburban villas in the warm months of summer...Those scientists who avoid herd-think have analyzed the temp records and have found a good deal of the measured rise in world average temps lately can be atributed to the artifactual influence the urban temps have on the calculation.
The effect is usually attributed to the increased amount of heat holding pavement & roofs further aggravated by the loss of cooling effects of greenery. An under-researched aspect is thee extra heat generated by furnaces, ACs, engines and just plain old body heat.(Coming from a large Italian family, I remember those Christmas get-togethers always involved opening all the windows to keep the indoors temp tolerable.)
The suggestions above are all good from the conservation standpoint, and anything that reduces energy consumption will be translated into lower heat generation in the involved local spaces. Whether or not that helps in offsetting "GW" (are you aware there has been essentially no warming this century and recent temps are falling?) remains to be seen.
Green spaces have additional, probably more important effects on social/psychological well being of the citizens, and help avoid the dehumanization of urban living, than their effects on temps. The same can be said for the cozy, friendly effects of pedestrian only zones.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto
The Urban Heat Island effect (UHI) is a well known phenomenon. Even the ancient Romans intuitively knew about it, with the rich abandoning the city for their suburban villas in the warm months of summer...Those scientists who avoid herd-think have analyzed the temp records and have found a good deal of the measured rise in world average temps lately can be atributed to the artifactual influence the urban temps have on the calculation.
The effect is usually attributed to the increased amount of heat holding pavement & roofs further aggravated by the loss of cooling effects of greenery. An under-researched aspect is thee extra heat generated by furnaces, ACs, engines and just plain old body heat.(Coming from a large Italian family, I remember those Christmas get-togethers always involved opening all the windows to keep the indoors temp tolerable.)
The suggestions above are all good from the conservation standpoint, and anything that reduces energy consumption will be translated into lower heat generation in the involved local spaces. Whether or not that helps in offsetting "GW" (are you aware there has been essentially no warming this century and recent temps are falling?) remains to be seen.
Green spaces have additional, probably more important effects on social/psychological well being of the citizens, and help avoid the dehumanization of urban living, than their effects on temps. The same can be said for the cozy, friendly effects of pedestrian only zones.
This is the main reason we have chosen to live 23 miles away from a big city, in a semi-rural/suburban area with old growth forests and 85-100' trees in our yards. We are also without any big box stores, and have many big parks and several lakes.
No. Most of global warming would still happen without humans. In the US, we could have made some difference in the human part of global warming, if we had continued and expanded the beginning efforts of energy conservation almost five decades ago. We didn't. Now we're starting to take a faster and messier route down to using less. Europe is using less now, and may be using much less later. But China is using more.
If humanity ceased to exist tomorrow and hence zero carbon emissions from human activity, the computer models say the planet will continue to get warmer, and won't return to today's temperature for about 147 years.
The solution to global warming is geoengineering.
We need to disperse reflective particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect about 1% of the sun's solar radiation back into outer space. This mimics the effect of volcanic eruptions: When Mt. Pinatubo erupted a few decades ago, the reflective particles cooled the planet by over 1 degree C for 3 years running.
We need to outfit transoceanic ships with pumps to spray sea water upward, and by doing so increase the marine layer of clouds, which will reflect some solar energy from the sun back into outer space.
Unfortunately, there is a certain segment of the nation's dominant political party that does not want to solve the problem. It wants the problem to continue to exist, and use its ongoing existence to do stupid things like implement a carbon tax - which gives the government more tax dollars to spend.
This assumes global warming is a problem that requires "solving(TM)" to begin with.
The solution is simple - air conditioning.
Air conditioning, at least using current technology, is greatly counter-productive. A/C units pour out more (Freon? or whatever) into the atmosphere, which actually warms the planet even worse. High-ceilinged theaters are chilled in summer so cold, you need a sweater.
And hotels with high lobbies/ atriums are especially wasteful, as well as big churches, big-box stores, supermarkets, stadiums, and department stores with high ceilings - in the case of churches and stadiums, they're sometimes only used a few hours a week. In the "Downtown Disney" part of Disneyworld, Florida I saw a souvenir shop with EIGHT separate entrances, each doorway 10 feet high and 20 feet wide. All EIGHT of them were kept wide open all day, with chilled air constantly pouring outside. Thousands of tourists walked by all day and didn't even notice. I was shocked and appalled. The overly high utility cost obviously adds to the cost of everything tourists pay for there.
Air conditioning, at least using current technology, is greatly counter-productive. A/C units pour out more (Freon? or whatever) into the atmosphere, which actually warms the planet even worse. High-ceilinged theaters are chilled in summer so cold, you need a sweater.
And hotels with high lobbies/ atriums are especially wasteful, as well as big churches, big-box stores, supermarkets, stadiums, and department stores with high ceilings - in the case of churches and stadiums, they're sometimes only used a few hours a week. In the "Downtown Disney" part of Disneyworld, Florida I saw a souvenir shop with EIGHT separate entrances, each doorway 10 feet high and 20 feet wide. All EIGHT of them were kept wide open all day, with chilled air constantly pouring outside. Thousands of tourists walked by all day and didn't even notice. I was shocked and appalled. The overly high utility cost obviously adds to the cost of everything tourists pay for there.
Why don’t you just worry about you and let everyone else worry about themselves. If you think A/C units spew freon then you are completely uneducated about how they work.
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