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A sustainable city , or eco-city is a city designed with consideration of environmental impact, inhabited by people dedicated to minimization of required inputs of energy, water and food, and waste output of heat, air pollution - CO 2 , methane , and water pollution. Richard Register first coined the term "ecocity" in his 1987 book, Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future . [ 1 ] Other leading figures who envisioned the sustainable city are architect Paul F Downton , who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd, and authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann , [ 2 ] who have written extensively on the subject. The field of industrial ecology is sometimes used in planning these cities. There remains no completely agreed upon definition for what a sustainable city should be or completely agreed upon paradigm for what components should be included.
Im Rahmen des Transition Town Movement (etwa "Bewegung für eine Stadt des Übergangs/Wandels") proben seit 2006 Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitsinitiativen in vielen Städten und Gemeinden der Welt den geplanten Übergang in eine postfossile, relokalisierte Wirtschaft. Die Bewegung, initiiert von dem irischen Permakulturalisten Rob Hopkins , lässt sich dem v.a. in den USA weit verbreiteten Gedanken des "Eco-Communalism" zuordnen, einer Umweltphilosophie, die angesichts schwindender Rohstoffe und negativer ökologischer Auswirkungen der Globalisierung die Idee des "einfachen Lebens", der Regional- bzw. lokalen Wirtschaft sowie der Nachhaltigkeit und der wirtschaftlichen Selbstversorgung propagiert. Eine wichtige Rolle spielen auch die Gestaltungsprinzipien der Permakultur, die es insbesondere landwirtschaftlichen, aber auch allgemein-gesellschaftlichen Systemen ermöglichen sollen, so effizient und energiesparend zu funktionieren wie ein natürliches Ökosystem.
‘Transition in Action’ is the UK’s first comprehensive Energy Descent Action Plan designed for and by a local community. It sees the changes necessitated by climate change, peak oil and the UK’s debt crisis not as a crisis, but as a huge opportunity for entrepreneurship, creativity, community, enhanced resilience and a greater quality of life. In these pages you will find not just a vision of a more resilient world, but practical steps to reach it, key research, inspired ideas and a glimpse into the town’s recent past and what we can learn from it.
You’ll remember Lee from the last Transition round-up , the young man in Prince Rupert in Canada who spoke out at a hearing about a proposed pipeline , and who is also active in founding Transition Prince Rupert. I recently interviewed him, and the content of that will emerge in a three separate pieces over the next few days. Originally it was to be part of the March podcast, but it was so interesting, that they will replace this month’s podcast.
Transition Towns (also known as Transition network or Transition Movement) is a grassroots network of communities that are working to build resilience in response to peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability. Transition Towns is a brand for these environmental and social movements “founded (in part) upon the principles of permaculture ” [ 1 ] , based originally on Bill Mollison ’s seminal Permaculture, a Designers Manual published in 1988. The Transition Towns brand of permaculture uses David Holmgren’s 2003 book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability . [ 2 ] These techniques were included in a student project overseen by permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins at the Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland. The term transition town was coined by Louise Rooney [ 3 ] and Catherine Dunne.
Permaculture is a branch of ecological design and ecological engineering , which develop sustainable human settlements and self-maintained agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems . [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Permaculture draws from several disciplines including organic farming , agroforestry , integrated farming , sustainable development and applied ecology . " The primary agenda of the movement has been to assist people to become more self reliant through the design and development of productive and sustainable gardens and farms. The design principles which are the conceptual foundation of permaculture were derived from the science of systems ecology and study of pre-industrial examples of sustainable land use. " [ 3 ] Permaculture as a systematic method that was first coined by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren during the 1970s.
Degrowth (in French: décroissance , [ 1 ] in Spanish: decrecimiento , in Italian: decrescita ) is a political, economic, and social movement based on environmentalist , anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideas. Degrowth thinkers and activists advocate for the downscaling of production and consumption—the contraction of economies—as overconsumption lies at the root of long term environmental issues and social inequalities. Key to the concept of degrowth is that reducing consumption does not require individual martyring and a decrease in well-being. Rather, 'degrowthists' aim to maximize happiness and well-being through non-consumptive means—sharing work, consuming less, while devoting more time to art, music, family, culture and community. [ 2 ] At the individual level, degrowth is achieved by voluntary simplicity .
How can education, at all levels, best contribute to the Transition process, building resilient individuals, resilient communities and resilient learning institutions? — More...