Save Eco Destinations

Let’s review.

Essentially, the “green cities movement” comprises loose groups of cities focused on becoming and remaining sustainable. Green cities, I joyfully report, are sprouting worldwide, albeit only in urban areas thus far.

Their point is, as I’m sure you’ve guessed already, to lessen their environmentally destructive impact. Green cities do this by reducing their waste, recycling it, and reusing materials. Their goals are lowering emissions and increasing housing density, green spaces, and sustainable local businesses.

Remember Gothenburg’s ecotopia?  Same concepts, although Gothenburg’s are more evolved.

Examples

Curitiba

I was surprised to learn that a typical green city is located in Brazil: Curitiba. This city went green back in the 1970s!

Curitiba has a high-tech bus system and has worked to increase population density around transit hubs, enabling other areas to become green, open land instead of stimulating urban sprawl.  I’m not sure why this city counts as green when it has such a long way to go, but if it’s the best Brazil’s got right now, I’ll take it. It’s got a lot more than many cities can boast, after all.

And remember Iceland? Reykjavik relies on geothermal and hydropower for heating and generating most of its electricity. This city has the largest geothermal heating system in the world. In fact, it was ranked 1^st in Grist Magazine’s “15 Greenest Cities” list. On the other hand, it’s got large scale urban sprawl and one of the highest worldwide per-capita ownerships. Public transport consists of an unpopular hydrogen-powered bus system.

Rekyjavik

We should note that Reykjavik plans to go fossil fuel-free by 2050, though. Cheers to that.

Other green cities include Sydney, Copenhagen, Portland, and Seattle. More on that coming up.

The gorgeous prefabricated WeberHaus Passive House

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever known about – if you live in Germany or Scandinavia, you could be living in a house that keeps you comfortable without heat or AC, no matter the temperature. You’d be saving more energy (and money) than you’d know what to do with!

Passive houses, as they are called, adjust to temperature. These homes use one-twentieth the heating energy of typical German homes. While architects outside of Germany and Scandinavia are working to achieve something similarly spectacular, barely any passive houses have been built in other countries. So far, these houses cost just 5-7% more to build than typical ones. This system is also being implemented in Frankfurt schools. I am swooning.

The key to the amazingness of passive houses is ultra-thick insulation and doors and windows with complex airtight mechanisms that keep cold and heat from entering and exiting the structure. The house heats up via sunlight, the use of appliances, and bodies! The central ventilation system keeps mold and stagnant air out.

Passive house in Ireland

“The European Commission is promoting passive-house building, and the European Parliament has proposed that new buildings meet passive-house standards by 2011,” the New York Times reports.

Sweet. And the U.S. Army might build passive house barracks. Who would’ve thought the army would be this progressive? Not me, that’s for sure.

Hey, Obama! Turn the White House into a passive house!

More:

Passive Houses FAQ

Check out passive houses resources and builders around the world

The Passive House Institute US

Promotion of European Passive Houses

Passive House (Passivhaus) Standard for Energy Efficient Design

How to design a passive house in a specific climate

Photos of beautiful passive houses!

More photos (Weberhaus)!!

And more still!

Renewable energy sources are harvested within the city and markets are omnipresent

The Swedish are taking another amazing step toward green living and sustainability.

Kjellgren Kaminsky Architects have come up with the Super Sustainable City. The plan is to turn the Swedish city of Gothenburg into an ecotopia.

It would be dense and interconnected, an urban land where less space is necessary and more is done with it: people have to travel less, fewer materials are needed for building homes, and more people can be placed in smaller spaces. Rooftops hold lush gardens for internal climate control and to serve as a local food source, wind turbines and solar panels (even as art!) abound, and roadways harvest energy! All this while preserving the city’s architectural heritage-it will feature yellow bricks, granite pavements, and myriad canals and markets.

Once they realized that by 2020 Gothenburg will be growing at a rate of 8000 new residents per year, they decided that the city’s lateral sprawl can’t go on, and it is time for a new architectural paradigm, so to speak.

The Super Sustainable City’s new design will house about a third of the city’s population until 2020 while simultaneously strengthening the link between the banks of the site’s river.

The aforementioned farmed rooftops will be energy-efficient, reducing the need to lower and up living quarters’ temperature. Many roofs will even contain small-scale wind turbines! Gosh, I wish my building had some of those! At least my apartment!

Further, sustainable transportation will consist of an emission-free personal rapid transit system and bike-friendlier roads and highways. Said paths will also serve to collect rainwater and solar energy. Hooooly JeZeus.

Now all that’s left for me to do is take Swedish lessons and save money to move over there within the next few years. Who’s with me?

Rape has been used as a weapon of war in both the First Congo War and Second Congo War. (Picture by USAID/Leah Werchick, 2001)

In the ecotourism microcosm and the green world in general, we speak a lot of green transportation, greener choices, polluting less, and so on. Switch to a hybrid, offset the carbon footprint of your flights when going on vacation, and so on and so forth.

We’re lazy.

Honestly, some of the best things you can do are:

(a)    Stay home!

(b)   Walk

(c)    Ride a bike, rollerblade, skateboard, and so on

(d)   Swim-and always leave the motorboats and jet skis in the store (think of the coral reefs, sea turtles, etc., whose populations are diminished yearly by these machines)

(e)    Did I mention stay home?

Think of what would happen if we actually stuck to these principles. Because, you know, it’s we who are polluting and ruining the planet. We-privileged, middle-to-upper class people with access to the internet and enough education and spare time to inform and educate ourselves about ecological issues. We are the ones with enough money to travel and the resources that allow us to choose how and when we will do it.

Not indigenous tribes in Venezuela, in the Amazon Forest, the sort of people who coexist harmoniously with their green surroundings. And we can’t ask the poor women in South Jordan to switch to energy-saving light bulbs, the raped women refugees in eastern Congo to implement low-flush toilets, or those left homeless in Tartagal to incorporate solar panels into their homes when if they get to rebuild them.

But we can ask our friends to be more conscientious in their choices-because they have choices-when they shop, travel, use electricity, eat, discard, and even when they vote if we spread the word about key bills and laws and work together to support or protest against them.

Pick up trash if you see it in the street and take it home to recycle or at least toss it in a trash can. Reuse containers instead of throwing them away and buying new ones. Cut down and eventually abolish meat and animal products from your diet. Get your lighting fixtures taken care of if they don’t take energy-saving bulbs. Stop buying Cif and bleach and switch to vinegar, baking soda, and alcohol for all your home cleaning needs. Turn off and unplug all appliances when not in use.

And on and on.

If you, who gets to choose and make changes, don’t, then you can’t complain when, several years from now, you find yourself having to move out of Florida and into a home farther from the coast and higher and higher than sea level. And don’t even start about how first class has gotten more expensive-focus on what’s important. Green travel is no travel unless it’s on foot, bike, or by other ecological means.

Let’s help people walk the talk.

Your life will be cleaner, greener, simpler, cheaper, healthier, and better.

Read a compelling article about this at Worldchanging.

What tips do you have?

What do YOU think?