Posts Tagged ‘Research’
“Fair Miles”: rethinking food miles
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on January 21st, 2010
Source: Food Climate Research Network
“Fair Miles: Recharting the food miles map“ by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) & Oxfam warns that Western concern over climate change can do more harm than good if it cuts demand for food produced in developing nations. The authors say locally produced food can actually cause greater emissions of greenhouse gases, and that consumers can harm the livelihoods of poor farmers in developing nations if they stop buying their produce.
“Climate change will hit poorer rural people in developing nations first, fastest and hardest,” says James MacGregor of IIED. “High-value trade with such nations is critical to build rural economies that are resilient to climate change. The trade in fresh produce is one part of a global solution to this challenge…When consumers focus on ‘food miles’ they are ignoring the other social and environmental issues embedded in their shopping decisions…More than one million livelihoods in rural Africa are supported in part by UK consumption of imported fresh produce. We urge consumers to avoid knee-jerk reactions and think instead of ‘fair miles’ and recognise that there are also social and ethical aspects to choices about where food comes from.”
The researchers are not saying locally grown food is a poor choice. “Eating local food when it is in season is a critical element of a balanced diet, and is complementary to eating development-friendly foods out-of-season,” says MacGregor. The book argues that as farmers in developing nations contribute so little to climate change, they shouldn’t be penalised because we emit more in the West. It says consumers serious about changing their behaviour in order to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions should be cycling or walking to their supermarket.
Beauty & the Bike: from research project to community change
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 19th, 2010
Source: Beauty & the Bike via Treehugger
Extract from Beauty and the Bike: Teenage Girls and Urban Mobility Culture:
“Beauty and the Bike aims to document the mobility culture, and particularly the bicycle culture, of an important, future oriented, target group. The project is focussed on girls and young women between 10 and 25 years old, and their attitude towards their travel choice, with the bicycle as the centre of interest.
The cultural dimension to European urban traffic planning has, until now, been regarded as at best marginal to planners’ concerns. With an education – and a contemporary practice – grounded in the practical solution to apparently technical problems, urban travel planners have historically had little to do with deeper socio-cultural trends. But now that urban travel has taken centre stage in a new and radically different kind of production – the battle against global warming – the urgent need to change CO2 emitting urban travel habits is requiring planners to take account of the cultural climate their apparently technical solutions have spawned. Beauty and the Bike is a cultural urban travel project that aims to help urban traffic planners, by looking at one such mobility culture – that of the teenage girl and young woman.
Central to this project are the ways teenage girls choose their travel modes in two European countries, the United Kingdom and Germany. The core production activity of the project is cultural, with a documentary film, portrait photography exhibition and catalogue as key outputs. But its work is also rooted in, and supported by, progressive urban travel planners in Darlington (UK) and Bremen (Germany). Teenage participants in the project live in these two urban areas.
Looking at their lives superficially, they seem similar – with internet and iPods, fashion, first loves, and the stresses of school. But when you look more closely you find an important difference: their choice of travel modes. And the ways and means teenagers are able to get around, shapes their identity and sense of independence. Especially for girls, these are of vital importance for their development. Whilst most of the Bremen girls use their bikes on a daily basis, the Darlingtonians mostly walk, take the bus, or hope for a lift from one of their parents.”
The project led to the launch of a bike hire group, Velodarlo, as well as a local campaign for cycle paths in Darlington. Velodarlo has recently been awarded funding to become DarLOVElo, which will inherit the Velodarlo Bike Pool and receive initial funding of over £30,000 to buy some 40 more bikes and set up a base near the centre of the town. The young women from the Beauty and the Bike project are committed to founding the Bike Club that will be the central feature of the new project, and they have been receiving skills training from members of Darlington Cycling Campaign in repairs and maintenance.
Climate Change Adaptation Futures
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on September 1st, 2009
Source: Rural Climate Network
Image: SMH
Conference: Climate Change Adaptation Futures: preparing for the unavoidable impacts of climate change
29 June – 1 July 2010, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Co-hosted by Australia’s National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility and the CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship, this conference will be one of the first international forums to focus solely on climate impacts and adaptation.
It will bring together scientists and decision makers from developed and developing countries to share research approaches, methods and results. It will explore the way forward in a world where impacts are increasingly observable and adaptation actions are increasingly required.
The Climate Adaptation Futures Conference will showcase leading impacts and adaptation research from around the world.
It will explore the contribution of adaptation science to planning and policy making, and how robust adaptation decision making can proceed in the face of uncertainty about climate change and its impacts.
Registrations open online Monday 31 August, 2009.
Sustainable Cities for the Future
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on July 9th, 2009
Image: amirjina via Flickr
Graduate Research Conference: Sustainable Cities for the Future
Globally, economies are facing challenges to future sustainability and are investing in strategies to mitigate, and adapt to, the potential of new climatic realities. People are increasingly moving into urban areas, placing stress on transport and other basic infrastructure. Australia provides an excellent ‘laboratory’ to review the future sustainability of cities, with climate scientists suggesting it will be one of the first countries to be impacted by climate change. Read the rest of this entry »
Introducing the EcoTipping website
Posted in Models by fedwards on April 27th, 2009
The EcoTipping website provides numerous diverse examples of communities resolving environmental problems. The site defines an EcoTipping Point is a lever that reverses environmental decline, setting in motion restoration and sustainability. The website showcases environmental pioneers in community organizations, business, and government who are demonstrating how the right change can turn ecosystems away from ruin and back towards health and sustainability. To visit the site go to http://www.ecotippingpoints.org.
Launch of new Environment, Health and Development research network
Posted in Research by fedwards on March 23rd, 2009
A new Environment, Health and Development research network has been launched in 2009, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Please see the website: http://www.uea.ac.uk/dev/ehdnet.
There will be an inaugural conference in June 2009. This will comprise an electronic conference and a symposium, where we will particularly explore the role of social science perspectives on themes linking environment, health and development, discuss different analytical approaches, and discuss ways forward for the network. The website gives details of how to join the network and how to apply for the symposium.
Read the rest of this entry »
New Report Tracks Progress on Sustainability in Britain’s Biggest Cities
Posted in Research by fedwards on January 21st, 2009
The Sustainable Cities Index tracks progress on sustainability in Britain’s largest cities, ranking them on environmental performance, quality of life and future-proofing. It enables city leaders to track their progress against a set of indicators relating to factors which councils are able to influence. Bristol has ousted Brighton and Hove to become Britain’s most sustainable city, with Plymouth third. The report reveals a clear north-south divide particularly on quality of life, but Newcastle has managed to buck this trend coming in fourth. The project has been endorsed by Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association: “Forum for the Future’s Sustainable Cities Index has driven real change by inspiring cities to adopt more ambitious sustainability strategies and by providing a framework against which they can benchmark their efforts.â€
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Urban Design and Health
Posted in Research by fedwards on January 19th, 2009
The section below is republished with permission from the Going Solar Transport Newsletter #93, 13 January 2009, compiled by Stephen Ingrouille. Going Solar newsletter provides an excellent commentary on local sustainable transport issues in Melbourne.
“The closer you live to the city, the better chance you have of being trim, a study of Sydney suburbs has found. University of NSW researchers, in conjunction with the NSW Department of Health, examined residents in 40 local government areas across Sydney. They found those living in the outer suburbs were 30 to 50 per cent more at risk of being overweight and 40 to 60 per cent less likely to be physically active than their inner-city counterparts. ‘We set out to replicate other studies that linked urban sprawl and obesity that were conducted overseas, particularly in the US, and to see how Sydney compared’, said Bin Jalaludin, who led the study. Professor Jalaludin said the lack of urban development in more sparsely populated areas meant people were less encouraged to walk. ’We hypothesised that areas with greater population density had more mixed land use and commercial development, which means more places to walk to’, he said. The study also connected car use in sprawling areas to obesity. ‘It seems that people living in purely residential areas tend to drive more and we know that people who drive more tend to be more obese’, Professor Jalaludin said. Read the rest of this entry »
A different way of viewing cities – paper on simulated urbanism
Posted in Research by fedwards on November 26th, 2008
Not necessarily linked to sustainability as such, this research paper discusses the interesting aspect of exploring cities through online games, such as Grand Theft Auto. This alternative viewpoint does get raised in sustainability as a new perspective regarding urban planning as a way to redesign the city to become more sustainable. This abstract was recently listed on Australian Policy Online. To view the full text click here.
Simulated urbanism and its effects on the negotiation of hyperreal cities
Rowland Atkinson and Paul Willis / Housing and Community Research Unit, University of Tasmania
Urban spaces have become blended even more seamlessly with their portrayal. Such representations are generated via a broad range of media which both influence and sculpt our sense of their constitution so that our sense of what the urban ‘is’ is inflected by a range of interpretations, atmospheres, inherited viewpoints, dialogues and scenarios derived from these media.
Call for Proposals – “The Integration of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development in the Context of Climate Change, the Energy Crisis and Food Insecurity”
Posted in Events by fedwards on November 24th, 2008
What: This Conference is aimed at independent research organizations, universities, government agencies, policy-makers, public policy advocates, nongovernmental organizations (NGO) and corporate representatives from developing and developed countries. All of these stakeholders are interested in looking critically at the ways in which research is – and can be – used to create change worldwide. This Scientific Meeting will endeavor not only to share research results, but also to identify future research prospects, challenges, issues and concerns. Moreover, the organizers of this Meeting would like to generate innovative thinking in agricultural and rural development and to identify elements of a longer term research agenda to fill critical gaps in knowledge on these issues – through rigorous, defensible data collection, analysis interpretation and communication. They also would like to develop research projects and networks in these fields involving researchers from both developed and developing countries: believing that partnerships among researchers are critical components of any meaningful effort to develop synergistic research and change agendas.
When: November 12-14, 2009
Where: Agadir (Morocco)
For more information: http://2009-international-conference.synthasite.com
Deadline for abstracts is January 15, 2009.