Please find a snapshot below of one of the more recent posts from SustainableRotterdam.com. To view the original post visit http://www.sustainablerotterdam.com/.

The abstract from the article below discusses the uptake of “green skins” on buildings - such as “garden rooftops, multi-levelled terraced gardens, lush foliage draping exterior walls and vast, internal, Babylonian hanging gardens”. What a sensible and beautiful idea! Why can’t cities but sites of production - ie. greenness producing clean air, possibly even food, rather than simply sinks of consumption?! Comments are welcome below. The full article can be accessed from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23894388-5012694,00.html.

Abstract: “Green skins”, Greg Callaghan, The Australian, June 21, 2008

Garden roofs and leafy walls could be crucial steps in the fight against global warming, writes Greg Callaghan.

Take one glance at images of the eye-catching ACROS building in Fukuoka City, Japan, and you’ll have no trouble believing that a 21st-century office tower can be eco-friendly. Yes, it boasts a host of energy-saving features ranging from densely insulated walls to compact fluorescent globes, but this is a building that wears Mother Nature’s theme colour on its sleeve – or more specifically, on its back. On the street entrance side, it looks like an ordinary office building, all steel and shimmering glass; at its rear it’s a 15-storey cascade of lush garden terraces pouring down to a park: a green, living oasis in a sea of dead, grey concrete.

Green is the right word to describe the flora-embracing features now being incorporated into new and old buildings across the US, Europe and parts of Asia. We’re talking garden rooftops, multi-levelled terraced gardens, lush foliage draping exterior walls and vast, internal, Babylonian hanging gardens. “Living” buildings, some call them – and they’ve been credited with emitting far fewer greenhouse gases than their vegetation-free counterparts, even the most energy-efficient ones.

Not only do their green-clad exteriors freshen the surrounding air, insulate against heat and cold, and reduce flash flooding in the streets by soaking up rainfall, but they’ve also been found to better absorb street and plane noise, which magnifies as it bounces off hard metal roofs and concrete exteriors. Not to forget their warm and fuzzy aspect: built-in gardens create a soothing refuge for a building’s residents and workers, taking the pressure off public parks. All of which explains why some of the world’s leading architects are designing buildings that can only be described as nature-loving, with built-in structures to support living walls and rooftop habitats that can range from grasslands to birch forests, which in turn can support bird and insect life.

The full article can be accessed from http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23894388-5012694,00.html.

See the snapshot below of the website for the Bicycle Film Festival to be held in New York, 9-12 July. Check out the website at http://bicyclefilmfestival.com/index.php.

Please find a brief abstract of an article in The Sunday Times below about the for and against’s about ecotowns. Comments are welcome below!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4115568.ece

From The Sunday Times
June 15, 2008
Ecotowns: for and against
Ten new clean, green ‘eco-towns’ will be built by 2020. And pigs might fly, say critics. They argue that the government is bulldozing through a programme that will create the slum estates of the future
Richard Girling

This is how it will be. Across the fair face of Albion, to the ringing of bells and the soft murmur of doves, appears a leafy flush of eco-towns. They are sun-dappled utopias, urban dreamworlds in which no human need is unfulfilled. Wildlife romps through bird-loud glades. People work at home or in business parks to which they can stroll or cycle. Public transport is swift, efficient and free, so cars are not needed. Community sports hubs, leisure and cultural facilities are so abundant that nobody wants to leave the town anyway. Children walk safely to schools in which the most popular subject is environmentalism. There are superstores for convenience, and farmers’ markets for friends of the planet. Allotments, too, for those who want to grow their own. Energy is renewable, insulation total and the carbon footprint zero.

Nothing is wasted. Grey water goes onto the gardens. Rainwater is dispersed via permeable pavements, swales and ponds into wetland habitats, which channel it safely back into the aquifers and rivers where it belongs. The town never floods. There are no dustcarts. Residents put their rubbish into cylinders that discharge straight into underground vacuum tubes, which whisk it to the local recycling centre, where at least 50% of it finds new economic use. The rest of it is converted into heat or energy. Ill health and unfitness are rare aberrations.

Please find below a report about the ‘Edible Cities’ movement which was based on some urban agriculture projects a delegation from London, UK, visited in the US, supported by the US Embassy, as part of an exchange trip with Growing Power, Milwaukee.

The ‘Edible Cities’ report can be found here: http://www.sustainweb.org/page.php?id=432, and is available for free download.

URL: http://www.sfvictorygardens.org/about.html

A local network of home gardens = A community of food producers!
Victory Gardens 2008+
(VG2008+) is a program of Garden for the Environment and the City of San Francisco’s Department for the Environment. A two-year pilot project to support the transition of backyard, front yard, window boxes, rooftops and unused land into organic food production areas, Victory Gardens 2008+ derives its title from, and build on, the successful nationwide Victory Garden programs of WWI and WWII. Victory Gardens 2008+, however, redefines “Victory” in the pressing context of urban sustainability. “Victory” is growing food at home for increased local food security and reducing the food miles associated with the average American meal.

Victory Gardens 2008+ was ideated by San Francisco based artist and designer Amy Franceschini in the Fall of 2006, for which she received the 2006 SECA award from the SF MOMA. Amy Franceschini partnered with Garden for the Environment for the planting of three initial Victory Gardens, and to develop and operate a citywide Victory Gardens program in San Francisco.

A reminder of Growing Communities’ Australian School Gardens Network Gathering and the Learning in the Garden Seminar, happening in Brisbane on 13th, 14th & 15 July 2008. With less than 4 weeks to go, make sure your registration is in by the 6th July to secure a place both at the gathering and at the seminar. To download full program and registration form go to http://www.growingcommunities.org.au/litg2008.htm

Since we started promoting the idea of gathering the school gardens community together, we found that there are many people and organisations around Australia working in some capacity in or with school gardens. Many of these people don’t know of or have not heard of one another’s work. We have also found that there is a growing interest in school gardens by NGOs, government and private bodies manifested with, in some cases, increasing support for school gardens initiatives at local, state and federal levels.

As a result Growing Communities see it as crucial that those working in this field should come together to look at these issues. It is of great value to explore ways of working cooperatively and examine the important role that school gardens will have in addressing pressing environmental, health and food security issues affecting Australia today.

We hope to see as many of you coming to Brisbane in July.

Happy gardening.

Growing Communities
192 Boundary Street, West End, Qld 4101
i: www.growingcommunities.org.au

Growing Communities is a community based cooperative enterprise working to promote the establishment, development and on-going support of school gardens, community gardens and city farms in South East Queensland and beyond.

Please find some information and a link about the new website, WorldChanging Seattle below. This fantastic site which originated from the very popular WorldChanging site, is based in place at Seattle which reminds me of many other sustainable-city related sites, namely SustainableMelbourne.com and SustainableRotterdam.com. Read on to learn more!

http://www.worldchanging.com/seattle/

Who is Worldchanging?
Worldchanging is a solutions-based online magazine that works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it’s here. We only need to put the pieces together. Informed by that premise, we do our best to bring you the most important and innovative new tools, models and ideas for building a bright green future.

Why Seattle?
Worldchanging is part of a global conversation, but we’re also based in a place. Our headquarters are in Seattle, Washington, and we decided that our hometown was the best possible starting point for trying to bridge the global and local conversations. For many reasons, Seattle is an ideal basecamp for our conversation about how to create a sustainable city. We believe that its wealth of natural resources give Seattle policymakers a unique challenge when it comes to smart management. Seattle’s exploding population (if current rates continue, Washington state may double its population in less than 50 years) presents new challenges: Can we engineer a compact, efficient, appealing urban environment that will attract people into the city and help curb destructive sprawl? Can we create an infrastructure for moving people and goods that puts the needs of pedestrians and public transportation above those of personal vehicles? Can we take Seattle into the future?

The section below is republished with permission from the Going Solar Transport Newsletter #63, 10 June 2008, compiled by Stephen Ingrouille. Going Solar, www.goingsolar.com.au/transport.

Fading Cars
“With car buying down by close to 33-percent since 1990, Japan is claimed to be in the grips of kuruma banare, which, for Japanese carmakers, is the polar opposite of hakuna matata. ‘It’s being labelled the ‘demotorisation’ process, and it involves large numbers of people in Japan’s urban centres not buying cars.

“Surveys have revealed a variety of reasons, from the cost of purchase and ownership, to vehicles simply not being status symbols anymore, to cars being passé – as in ‘so 20th century’. The greatest worry [for car makers] is that young folks are simply not into cars, preferring cell phones and gadgets to Cubes and keis. Losing their audience before the love affair has even begun is no doubt causing JDM manufacturers to lose sleep. And the even worse news is that the trend is expected to continue, with another 1.2-percent drop in sales predicted this year. Japanese carmakers are fighting the perception that cars aren’t cool or worth the price by expanding their marketing and sales efforts in an attempt to form emotional bonds in other ways. It is certain, however, that they aren’t the only ones interested in the outcome: Japan’s kuruma banare is expected to befall Europe as well.”
Ref: Jonathon Ramsey, Autoblog, 23/5/08, URL

26/05/08
“General Motors Corp. announced it was closing four truck and sports utility vehicle plants and launching a new series of environmentally friendly vehicles in the face of high fuel prices. The automaker said it was also considering selling its hulking Hummer brand as consumer demand for gasoline guzzling vehicles dried up in its home market. ‘These moves are all in response to the rapid rise in oil prices and the resulting changes in the US, changes that we believe are more structural than cyclical’, said Rick Wagoner, GM chairman and chief executive officer.”
Ref: Mira Oberman, The Australian 4/6/08, URL

And Also …

“The first two oil shocks banished oil from power generation. How fitting if the third finished the job and began to free transport from oil’s century-long monopoly.”
Ref: Economist.com 29/05/08, URL

Please find below an abstract about the guerrilla gardeners of London below by Kate Kelland as listed on the Planet Ark World News, 1 May 2008.

“LONDON - They work under the cover of night, armed with seed bombs, chemical weapons and pitchforks. Their tactics are anarchistic, their attitude revolutionary. Their aim: to beautify.

An army of self-styled Guerrilla Gardeners is growing across the world, fighting to transform urban wastelands into horticultural havens. To document and encourage their victories, one of the movement’s top generals has written a handbook.
“On Guerrilla Gardening“, by Richard Reynolds, defines the activity as “the illicit cultivation of someone else’s land”.

“Our main enemies are neglect and scarcity of land,” said Reynolds, a 30-year-old former advertising employee who wrote the book after his website guerrillagardening.org became a global focal point for would-be green-fingered activists.

“Land is a finite resource — and yet areas like this are not being used. That seems crazy to me,” Reynolds told Reuters.”

To read the full story visit http://features.us.reuters.com/cover/news/L2921871.html.