ECOCITIES

URBAN LANDSCAPES
20-8-19
Masdar City, designed
by Norman Foster, is an
eco-city being built near
Abu Dhabi, in the
United Arab Emirates.
As the Nobel prize-winning chemist
Paul Crutzen has said, we have
entered a geological epoch of our own
making - the Anthropocene. But it
remains to be seen whether we can
control the forces we have unleashed
• The current level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
- about 390 parts per million - is higher than at any
time in the last half a million years. And it is set to rise
still further. As the developing world rapidly
industrialises, the International Energy Authority
predicts that, from 2000 to 2030, humankind will
pump more carbon dioxide into the air than was
produced between 1750 and 2000. Some people may
still dispute the evidence that suggests we are
responsible for climate change. But what is beyond
doubt is that the planet is warming
• In the twelve years between 1995 and 2006, every year
except one was among the warmest, with 2010 equaling
2005 as the hottest year since records began in 1880." In its
2007 report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) predicts that by 2100 temperatures will rise by
anything from a modest l.1°C to a catastrophic 6.4°C. During
the twentieth century, Arctic temperatures were increasing
twice as fast as the global average. The Greenland ice sheet
is already beginning to melt and the sea level is rising at an
accelerating rate. It had already risen 0.17 metres in the last
century." 'It's hard to see west Antarctica's ice sheets
surviving the century, meaning a sea-level rise of at least one
or two metres,' says climatologist James Hansen, head of
NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
• There has already been a dramatic increase in the
number of weather-related disasters, such as floods
and droughts. Red Cross figures show a rise from
about two hundred each year before 1996, to over
seven hundred at the start of the new century. And, as
both global temperatures and the sea level climb
inexorably higher, the situation is set to deteriorate.
Coastal flooding caused by storms already kills more
people 'than any other natural hazard'.'" In the future,
low-lying coastal regions will be increasingly prone to
flooding. Wave heights around the southern and
western coasts of the United Kingdom are rising
steadily
• In the future, storms and flooding will threaten such
major cities as Tokyo, Osaka, New York, Kolkata,
Mumbai, Dhaka, Karachi, Manila, Shanghai, Tianjin,
Bangkok and Seoul. Coastal populations have doubled
in the United States in the last fifteen years. As the sea
level rises and the temperature of the oceans
increases, these people will face more frequent and
more powerful storms
• A warming of just I_3°C may even cause a decline in the
productivity of cereal crops, increasing the likelihood of
serious food shortages in the future and making radical
solutions, such as vertical farms in cities, more likely to be
adopted. Insects and animals will colonise new habitats,
spreading diseases such as malaria and dengue fever to
areas that have no evolutionary protection against them. By
2085, for instance, models suggest that five to seven billion
people will be at risk from dengue, compared to 3.5 billion in
a world without climate change
UHI
• In a world that is now predominantly urban, most people on the planet are
experiencing city climates. TocIay's megac ities are the largest artificial
structures ever built. They are awe-inspiring examples of humankind's ability
to control and transform its habitat. As well as changing the face of the
landscape, these soaring environments of concrete, glass and steel affect the
weather around them just like natural geological features, such as volcanoes
or deserts. Cities create their own unique zones of wind flow, humidity,
rainfall, air pollution and temperature. Cities form a distinct urban heat island
in the landscape. The average temperature in large cities is 0.6 to l.8°C above
that found in rural areas. High walls, dark roofs and concrete absorb the sun's
energy, radiating it at night. Industry, transport infrastructure and the dense
concentration of population in cities all contribute to the urban heat island.
• As a result there is less snowfall in cities, plants bud or bloom
earlier than normal and birds unfamiliar to the region flock
to urban areas. The higher temperatures lead to more
deaths In summer due to heat stress and increase the need
for air conditioning, but in winter urban buildings need less
heating than their rural equivalents. Cities also experience
increased rainfall and more intense storms than the
surrounding countryside. A study of south-east England
found that there were more thunderstorms over built-up
areas. In North American cities, there is 9-27 per cent more
summer rain than in rural areas. There is also a 10-42 per
cent greater incidence of thunderstorms and the frequency
of hailstorms is increased by 67-430 per cent.lO As cities
grow ever larger and the climate warms, the effect of the
urban heat island will become more pronounced.
• If cities influence their own weather, does this mean they are also
changing the earth's climate? Until recently it had been thought that
cities were the worst carbon sinners on the planet, responsible for up
to 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. However, as David
Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and
Development has shown, the real figure is likely to be nearer 30-40
per cent.ll Indeed, rural areas generally have higher carbon dioxide
emissions per person than urban ones, due to the fact that people
outside cities live in larger, detached or semidetached houses, drive
multiple cars and commute longer distances (cars are responsible for
12 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe and as much as 50
per cent in some parts of the United States). The regions with the
biggest carbon footprints in the United Kingdom are not the large
cities of Glasgow or London, but the mainly rural north-east of
England, as well as Yorkshire and the Humber
• Vertical Farms
• Cities of the future will certainly be more green. In an oil-poor future when
fertile land is increasingly scarce, fruit and vegetables as well as some animals
and fish may be produced within cities, in 'vertical farms'. Ultra-efficient
greenhouses can already grow crops on 10 per cent of the water used in
conventional farms. They are also more productive and require less land.
Using hydroponics, where plants are grown in solutions of nutrients,
vegetables and fruit could be cultivated in greenhouses on top of skyscrapers.
In 2007, a floating greenhouse in the Hudson River, called the Science Barge,
used solar power and recycled water to grow fruit and vegetables,
demonstrating that self-sufficient greenhouses were viable. New Yorkers eat,
on average, about a hundred kilograms of fresh vegetables a year. The city's
rooftops offer twice the amount of space needed to keep New Yorkers
supplied with produce grown in greenhouses.
• There are even plans for skyscraper farms. Dickson
Despommier, a parasitologist at Columbia University,
claims that a thirty-storey farm could feed ten
thousand people, supplying vegetables, fruit, eggs and
even meat to cities. Upper floors would grow
hydroponic crops and lower ones would house
chickens and fish that consume the plant waste. Heat
and lighting could be generated by solar or
geothermal sources. Despommier's goal is to allow
the 'city to behave like an ecosystem' and to produce
its own food
• We need to start seeing cities not as the problem, but as part
of the solution to climate change. During the last decade we
crossed a major threshold -for the first time in our history we
became a truly urban species, with more than half the
world's population living in cities. Currently 3.3 billion people
live in cities -more than the total population of the world in
1960. By 2030 that figure will reach five billion, with 95 per
cent of the growth in the developing world. In the next thirty
years, Africa's city dwellers will more than double, from 294
to 742 million, and Asia's urban population will double, rising
to 2.6 billion. Half of China's population is expected to leave
the countryside for the cities by mid-century and it was
recently estimated that some fifty thousand skyscrapers will
be built there in the next twenty years
• According to the United Nations, 'the battle for sustainable
development, for delivering a more environmentally stable,
just, and healthier world, is going to be largely won or lost in
our cities,.!l With temperatures and population levels
increasing, concentrating people in cities is a highly efficient
way of bringing clean
• water, sanitation, healthcare and energy to large numbers of
people, while minimising the per capita emissions of
greenhouse gases. Public transport systems, the creation of
walkable cities, as well as bicycle schemes such as those now
operating in Paris, Montreal and London, can all help to
reduce the reliance on individual cars in cities. By reducing
our carbon footprint, urbanisation might just save the planet
•Futuropolis