Climate change is happening, and we now need innovative solutions for how to deal with its increasingly disastrous effects. One example of a way to help spur creative answers to climate change comes to us from California. The Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a state agency, is preparing to launch a $125,000 competition calling for proposals from architects, planners and engineers to "climate-proof" the San Francisco Bay Area.
The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design writer John King wrote:
The aim isn't to stop climate change from happening, say officials, or to build impregnable levees. The goal is to get designers thinking creatively about how to prepare for a world where the sea level might climb several feet - inundating large portions of the developed region unless something is done.
"We are looking for ideas that can lead to future standards about how to deal with rising tides," said Brad McCrea, a development design analyst for the commission. "We want to move the discussion forward."
The commission Thursday approved a $25,000 contract with David Meckel to manage the competition. This means selecting the design jury as well as framing the rules - such as deciding whether design teams will be asked to look at specific sites or respond to broader issues.
"There's an opportunity to suggest ideas that can be applied to our bay but have universal access," said Meckel, whose design competition work is a sideline to his role as director of research for the California College of the Arts. "If one of the results is a solution for protecting low-lying freeways, for example, other cities are welcome to steal it."
The ideas contest will start in the spring and conclude at the end of 2009. Then the commission will choose the the top five "provocative and plausible" entries and award their designers with $10,000.
Regions around the world will be facing waterfront issues and will need to come up with innovative ideas to protect their shorelines as the sea levels rise. Perhaps this could this be the beginning of a new kind World's Fair? One that comes up with solutions to problems people all over the world will soon face?
Patently unsustainable human "overgrowth" activities are ravaging Earth. They could be regulated and limited.
With human population projections indicating that the human community will have 9+ billion members by 2050, perhaps it is time to open discussions here and elsewhere about the profound implications of a 40% increase in the human population in the coming four decades. After all, the frangible biological systems and finite resources of our planetary home make clear to a sensible observer that a planet with the size, composition, and ecology of Earth cannot indefinitely sustain the unbridled increase of human overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities.
Now for a question: Is it reasonable to conclude that the unbridled increase of the clearly visible and distinctly human global overgrowth activities we see overspreading Earth in our time cannot be sustained much longer, much less indefinitely, secondary both to Earth's limitations and humankind's "feet of clay"?
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
Posted by: Steven Earl Salmony on 20 Dec 08
Yes, definitely yes, some of the darkest of dark days are passing into history......finally. The future is about to begin.......mercifully.
An unnecessary and unjustifiable war at a cost of three trillion dollars; a crashing economy at a cost of trillions more; a degraded environment, a dissipated Earth.......priceless.
And people responsible for these nightmares want their 2008 bonuses......predictable.
Posted by: Steven Earl Salmony on 21 Dec 08
Fantastic! We need to think in and out of the box when it comes to climate change.We must anticipate that on a major sea rise scenario we have constructed our major power,water and sewage plants in a "safe" location. We must also plan for desalinization plants (Calif. is already constructing presently for state use only. in future this water could be sold to other states) to store and pipe water to the inland states that desperately need water during drought seasons. We must too never forget that as we plan for mankind we must also plan to sustain our flora and fauna throughout our state forests and parks nationwide! Solar and wind power in the deserts(upon evaluation of best positioning of course), water storage tanks on mountains, water feeds to our rivers and streams and recycling of our water from our sewers,rivers and streams for reuse.(plus we must give a little chemicaly clean water back to our oceans.
Posted by: Richard Rosas on 21 Dec 08
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