Also from Worldchanging.com is a recent report from Chad Monfreda about the recent conference in Stockholm on “Resilience, Adaptation, and Turbulent Times“. You can read his article here.

Many of the talks from the conference were captured online with Chad’s favourites listed as:
1. Steve Carpenter, University of Wisconsin – Madison, on World-Ending Disasters, coping with uncertainty, and the many-fold uses of scenarios in approaching complex problems in “Scenarios: Imagination for Transformation”.
2. Martin Scheffer, from the Netherland’s Wageningen University, describes ‘tipping points’ in coral reefs, lakes, forests, and society more generally to show how surprise is often the norm in non-linear systems that pack big change in rapid events in his talk on “Critical Transitions”.
3. Will Steffen, Australian National University and former Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), describes how humanity’s Great Acceleration has inaugurated the Anthropocene, and its implications for geo-engineering, the precautionary principle, and other potential solutions in a talk titled “The Earth as a Social-Ecological System?”.

Another great feature to watch inspirational speakers on a variety of topics is to tune in to TED, http://www.ted.com/. TED stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design” and started out in 1984 as a conference to bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes!

A bit closer to home for SustainableCitiesNet.com are the Sustainable Cities Round Tables where key sustainability professionals outline their environmental innitiatives in just 3 minutes!!!!! Scroll down the SustainableMelbourne.com blog to view the wide variety of talent within Melbourne, Australia.

Holly Pearson has recently published an article about the highlights from the 7th EcoCity World Summit on WorldChanging.com and its well worth a read! Find an abstract of her post below followed by a link to the full text.

ABSTRACT:
Highlights from the 7th EcoCity World Summit
HOLLY PEARSON
APRIL 28, 2008 9:48 AM
“In order to transform our cities, we need to move from ego-culture to eco-culture.”
— Rusong Wang, President, Ecological Society of China

The EcoCity World Summit wrapped up on Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. An incredible assemblage of the world’s brightest minds that are working to build greener cities and towns gathered for three and a half days of presentations, discussions, city tours, arts & culture, and celebration. As an urban planner for whom the sustainable cities movement is not only a passion but also a raison d’etre, professionally speaking, I found the conference to be nothing short of mind-blowing.

A vast amount of information and ideas was exchanged, and after letting it all sink in for a day or so I’ve summarized what I thought were some of the most interesting concepts and initiatives presented at EcoCity.

The Big Picture for Saving the Planet: Sustainable Cities
Amazingly, somehow I have worked as a city planner in Oakland, California for almost a year without knowing that right here in my own neighborhood is one of the leading green city advocates in the country, if not the world: Richard Register. Dubbed “EcoCity Master” by his conference co-organizer, Rusong Wang of China, Register is the President of non-profit EcoCity Builders.

Looking critically at the environmental movement, Register asserts that humanity is “winning the battle but losing the war.” Despite lots of successes – stronger environmental legislation, recycling programs in most metropolitan areas in the U.S., and the like – ecological degradation continues and is, in fact, worsening. That’s because, says Register, we’re not paying attention to the big things. And the big things, first and foremost, have to do with the design and functioning of our cities. Urban population is on the rise the world over, and cities are by far the greatest sources of natural resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and other pollutants. For this reason, a sustainable global future cannot be achieved without re-thinking and redesigning cities to reduce their ecological impact.

To read the full article visit: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007996.html

See below for details about a Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Hong Kong. I wonder if this event will include a sustainability section?….

Conference Innovation and Entrepreneurship
12 - 13 November, Hong Kong International
Wing Lung Bank International Institute for Business Development (IIBD), David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI) and the School of Business of Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) are organising a two-day international conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The conference will focus on innovation in social entrepreneurship as well as new directions in entrepreneurial education in emerging nations. Academic scholars, doctoral students and others interested in entrepreneurship related research are welcome to attend the Conference.

Venue: Hong Kong Baptist University Topic: Education
More Information: David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies (LEWI)

Research - Launch of Policy Research Report by the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab

The Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab has just released its first policy research report and it’s all about food!

The report, “Sustainable and Secure Food Systems for Victoria: What do we know? What do we need to know?” discusses the environmental challenges relating to the food system, examining:
- how the production and consumption of food impacts on the environment; and
- the risks and vulnerabilities of the food system to environmental change and social responses (such as policy aiming to reduce environmental impacts)

The report considers: direct impacts of climate change; energy, greenhouse emissions and responses to these; resource constraints such as water, land, oil and agricultural inputs and depleted stocks (eg. fish); biodiversity (ecological and agricultural); waste; and health and nutrition.

The report also discusses strategies and innovations that are being employed to manage environmental risks and reduce impacts (including low-input production methods, changing distribution systems such as farmers’ markets, and consumer food choices). It considers the extent of their potential contribution and identifies opportunities for further investigation or support.

The report finds that there are significant and urgent challenges to the security and sustainability of the food system. It also identifies many opportunities for technological and social innovation to reduce exposure to environmental risks and resource constraints.

The full report, and a summary document (containing just the main points and recommendations), can be downloaded from www.ecoinnovationlab.com/pages/library.php.

The section below is republished with permission from the Going Solar Transport Newsletter #56, 22 April 2008, compiled by Stephen Ingrouille. Going Solar, www.goingsolar.com.au/transport.

Sustainable Advice on Cities
“A leading international city planner is calling for the 2020 summit to consider radical changes to the way Australians live, work and move around their cities. Prominent Danish urban designer Professor Jan Gehl says Australia’s obsession with cars comes at the expense of the liveability of its big cities and the health of its citizens. … But he says it is not too late to change. ‘Originally, we made the cities for people but then, in the past 50 years, gradually we’ve forgotten more and more about that and now many of them have been made more and more for cars’, he said. ‘I remember a big sign in Perth saying, “Your car is welcome to the city”, but we always whispered, “You’re not” … Australian cities - the suburbs and right down to the city centres - have been very, very influenced by traffic engineer thinking, absolutely too much compared to other places in the world.’ … ‘When we started recently in Sydney, we found that in certain streets, half the walking time was spent waiting to cross the street … We are suggesting that it should become much more easy to walk in the cities and that cars generally are parked at a longer distance from where you work or where your shopping opportunities are. Everybody would like a lively city, an attractive city, a safe city, a sustainable city and a city which invites more healthy lifestyles. By being sweet to the pedestrians and sweet to the bicyclists, you can actually accomplish quite a bit of all these goals’… Professor Gehl says Australian cities will undergo a ‘very marked change’ over the next 10 to 15 years because of concerns about petrol prices, climate change, obesity and its cost to the health system.”
Ref ABC News Online 18/4/08
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/17/2219693.htm

This paper, ‘An overview of climate change: What does it mean for our way of life? What is the best future we can hope for? ‘ by Neva Goodwin from the Global Development and Environment Institute was recently posted on the Australian Policy Online newsletter. Find the abstract below followed by a link to read the full article.

An overview of climate change: What does it mean for our way of life? What is the best future we can hope for?
Neva Goodwin / Global Development and Environment Institute
Posted: 31-03-2008
Abstract:
This paper starts with the question of whether climate change will require a significant reduction of consumption among the richer people in the world, and ends with the most optimistic picture the author can conjure up, of the world in the year 2075. That hopeful picture is of a world in which inequalities – among and within nations – have been substantially reduced. The challenges and adjustments confronting humanity in the coming decades provide an opportunity that could be used to mitigate climate change in ways that can improve the circumstances of the poor. Ecological reasons to reduce throughput of energy and materials in economic systems urge the abandonment of high- consumption life-styles. The 21st century will be an era of many losses, but it is conceivable that societies will successfully make the transition from goals of economic growth, as understood in the 20th century, to goals of maintaining and increasing sustainable well-being.

To read the full article visit http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/08-01OverviewOfClimateChange.pdf

This discussion paper, ‘Towards urban water reform: a discussion paper‘ by the Productivity Commission was recently posted on the Australian Policy Online newsletter. Find the abstract below followed by a link to read the full article.

Towards urban water reform: a discussion paper
Productivity Commission
Posted: 01-04-2008
Abstract:
Most urban households face severe restrictions on their use of water. These impose hidden costs that could amount to billions of dollars each year. Australia’s urban water shortages are only partly due to low rainfall. An important contributor has been inadequate institutional arrangements for the management of our urban water resources.This discussion paper identifies a number of deficiencies in how urban water is currently managed, the most fundamental being the lack of any effective market.

The paper reveals that some of the issues are complex to resolve and it does not lay out a particular blueprint for reform. Nevertheless, the Commission finds that the direction for reform seems clear. Key areas for more detailed assessment that it identifies include: * allowing a greater role for prices to signal water scarcity and to allocate resources; * removing artificial impediments to rural urban water trading; and * removing barriers to competition in the supply and retailing of urban water. The Commission argues that appropriate reforms would be best advanced through a comprehensive public review, to determine the merits of different options and build a greater understanding within the community of the costs of the status quo and the tradeoffs in pursuing change.

Read the full text: http://www.pc.gov.au/research/commissionresearch/urbanwaterreform

The section below is republished with permission from the Going Solar Transport Newsletter #52, 25 March 2008, compiled by Stephen Ingrouille. Going Solar, www.goingsolar.com.au/transport.

London Bike Plan
“London will adopt a bicycle hire scheme similar to a popular initiative in Paris under a $1 billion cycling investment package announced by the mayor on Monday. Under the plan, part of a series of environmental measures due in coming days, 6,000 bicycles will be available for hire from ranks every 300 metres throughout the city centre. London, which accounts for seven percent of Britain’s climate changing carbon emissions and is at the forefront of efforts by major cities around the world to combat global warming, plans to cut carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2025. The Paris bike scheme lets riders with an electronic card take a bike from one rank and return it at another rank anywhere in the city. It has proven popular, transforming traffic in the French capital since it came into operation last July.”
Ref: Jeremy Lovell, Reuters, 11/2/08

London Congestion Charge Increase
“Driver’s of fuel-guzzling cars will have to pay $53 a day to enter central London, triple the present general congestion charge. But the most fuelefficient vehicles will get a free ride.”
Ref: MX 13/2/08

London Low Emission Zone
“[Trucks over twelve tonnes driving around London] will be fined up to £200 per day if they are found to be over EU pollution standards in an attempt to improve the city’s poor air quality. …Cameras around the zone will check their number plates against a database of vehicles registered as meeting the EU’s ‘Euro’ limits on emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) – two pollutants found in exhaust fumes that are blamed for serious health and environmental problems. …The scheme will be extended to cover buses and coaches in July and to large vans and minibuses in October 2010. Transport for London (TfL), which is implementing the £49 million project, says it will improve quality of life for Londoners and reduce the number of people suffering from asthma, cardiovascular disease and other health conditions, cutting healthcare bills by £250 million.”
Ref: World Business Council for Sustainable Development 4/2/08 www.wbcsd.org

Please find an abstract below from a recent article, “China Urged To Shift Urban Growth To Supercities” by Alan Wheatley listed on the Planet Ark World News. It discusses the issue of cities’ size and sustainability - an increasingly important issue as more people shift to increasingly urban lifestyles all over the world. Can these larger centres be sustainable?

“BEIJING - Shifting China’s model of urbanisation to favour huge supercities could boost per capita output, improve energy efficiency and help contain the loss of arable land, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) said on Monday.

By enforcing land acquisition rules more strictly and by tweaking incentives for local officials, national policy makers could nurture 15 supercities with average populations of 25 million people, the report said.”

To read the full article visit http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47623/story.htm.

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