the official grace & cello blog

in the midst of all the eco-madness going on around us (and by this i mean the greening of our mainstream consciousness), has anyone stopped to ask if our environment is actually improving as a result, or the quality of our lives?

what about our cities, for example? all these new green products for sale, but the traffic is still thick on the main, and everywhere i step the ground is hard and lifeless. is this stuff working? is it too early for such questions?

for our spring 2007 line, we wanted to dedicate our energies towards the eco-city because we truly believe that a great sense of imagination needs to be invested in re-thinking how we design and live in our spaces. as a company specializing in a form of green design, we can attest to the fact that while it ain’t always easy, it is possible. we know that an act of will can change our cities for the better. and we know that by doing so, we’ll enjoy our cities more, and we’ll be healthier. not to mention that the planet will breathe easier, water will flow clearer, and the soil will sustain life more abundantly.

it’s clear that keeping the planet in a comfortably habitable form, rife with all the diversity and complexity that life requires and thrives upon, will only happen if cities are on the bus. the eco-bus.

this is clear because cities are magnets and all the global weight of population and footprint is stuck there: bigger and bigger cities, demanding greater and greater resources. i love that cities should be our ground zero in this battle to live better, however, because knots and gobs of people piled on top, around and beside each other make for a more focused audience. i mean, we know where everyone is, n’est-ce pas? that’s a big step.

can you picture a planet where 95% of people live in cities, and only the bare minimum stay out in the nether lands in order to harvest the resources that feed the cities? could that even happen? maybe there’ll be resource zones around the globe that maintain high levels of rural residents (i.e., africa, asia, the amazon), while other regions (north america, europe) empty their countrysides except for seasonal service industry types and the odd resource extraction worker who manages an automated infrastructure that does in hours what entire coal-mining towns took months to do a hundred years ago…

oh well, maybe i’m fooling myself. perhaps the balance will always rest about where it is today; i mean there’ll always have to be someone living in the country since cities need stuff from the countryside in order to feed its citizenry, fuel its industry and otherwise clothe, shelter and entertain the masses.

regardless of whether the split is 80/20 or 95/5, the fact remains that our world is urbanizing. that means that if we can manage to build and live in our cities in a manner that minimizes harm to the planet, we’ll have largely succeeded in creating the sustainable societies that so many have been striving towards for so long.

but can we live in cities in an environmentally responsible manner? there is so much waste in cities. have you ever tried to wrap your head around how many paper coffee cups are used in one day, in one city? i’ve worked in so many offices in my day (*sigh*), and it is CRAZY how many people drink coffee everyday (at least once; some 2 or 3 times) but never bring their own mug! why, i wonder?

it’s just a small example, but there you go: cities are wasteful; we are wasteful. we buy so much, we throw away so much, we consume so much: how can we ever live wisely enough to make a difference?

pulling together some examples for our eco-city rant was informative on a number of levels. the most revealing to me was that there is a shockingly small number of truly innovative urban planning initiatives taking place out there…at least that we could find.

there are eco pre-fab homes, eco-skyscrapers, eco-kabillion dollar homes, and eco-condos, but there is no larger scale eco-street, eco-neighbourhood, or eco-downtown that we could present (sorry, eco-suburbs don’t count in my book…oxymoron) as a possible way forward. maybe i’m naïve, but with all the eco-talk circulating out there i figured we’d have more evidence to piece together for the audience at home.

look at me! last time i was here i wailed that progress is key in environmental issues (and all social causes, really), and that black and white eco-options simply don’t exist yet. then, today i take to criticizing the lack of true eco-cities out there in the world…

i agree – progress is being made. we need to take comfort in that. we need to build on the positives, not harp on the negatives. i agree – i really do.

but i guess i feel a need to stick a bee in someone’s bonnet. our collective bonnet, perhaps. here in canada, our governments have been blowing a lot of hot (greenhouse-inducing) air lately concerning how we’ll (eventually…like in 2050) combat climate change.

these politicized proclamations disappoint me, i have to admit. we all know almost intuitively what needs to happen – and we know it needs to happen not much later than right now – yet still we huff and puff and blow and blow and blow…

here is one thing we clearly know, even if we don’t know exactly what to do with this knowledge (and i say we just face it, and figure out where to go next):

our cities need to be able to run without cars. cars are wasteful, stressful and they pollute the very air we base our quality of life on. we need cities without cars, but who is on this? who do we have figuring this out? how far along are we on this yellow brick, tree-lined road?

our governments won’t go near it, most people can’t even imagine it, and big business opposes it…but none of this changes the fact that this is what needs to happen.

so let’s start planning it, together…

bye for now,

c.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 6:19 pm and is filed under grace & cello. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.