Cities for People and the Planet

In light of my recent post on green building projects in Italy, I've decided to highlight here a couple more videos on sustainable urban planning from TED.

First up is a talk by Ellen Dunham-Jones on how we can modify existing infrastructure to accommodate changing tastes and needs.

What I appreciate most about this presentation is its focus on working with what we already have, as opposed to uprooting suburban environments to build from scratch. That way we can address the challenge of sustainability without incurring superfluous costs. The goal is to minimize the inputs needed to reduce further demand on resources.

It also happens that I've translated this talk into Russian. It has only yet to be reviewed and approved by another translator per TED's quality standards. Any takers so we can get it up there?

Next comes a more recent talk on the perceived trade-offs between sustainability and quality of life. Bjarke Ingels helps break this false dichotomy by presenting on a series of projects that both benefit the environment and give people more opportunities to indulge.

More on plastics in society and ecology

Here is some more information on the ecological nature of plastic from the perspective of artist and activist Dianna Cohen, who has also founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition, an organization committed to displacing disposable plastic products in our economy.

One of their initiatives is "Ban the Bag" or municipally banning plastic bags. So far Maui, San Francisco and San Jose among others have done so, with other cities, including New York, considering similar legislation.

Cohen's talk on this subject comes from TED, a resource I will be bound to pull more material from in the future.



I have been conducting my own investigation into the actual chemical dynamics of different plastics and their interaction with biology, but the information is not as readily available as I had expected it to be. So far I have come across biodegradable plastics and have read that even more conventional plastics degrade within a year at sea, but that does not seem to be a guarantee that they have no negative impact on the health of humans or other organisms.

Cohen states that "plastic . . . is always still plastic" in her talk and for all sense and purposes that may be considered the case. While plastic polymers can break back down into their constituent monomers, the speed and scale at which this occurs under typical conditions may be insignificant as polymers can wreak havoc on biological pathways in the meantime, which in turn might prolong such decomposition from taking place.

Even in the event that a plastic does revert to its monomers, that by no means renders it any safer, not least because associated chemicals that would leech into the environment as a result are known to be toxic, such as the now infamous Bisphenol A. The monomers the make up commercial plastics are organic molecules, but so is benzene, a structurally related compound and a well-known carcinogen.

Everything comes at a cost and we must be practical, but is this our best option? Is pumping poison into our surroundings a reasonable price to pay to conveniently carry our groceries home or eat out on a whim?