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For as long as most Americans can remember the car has been the embodiment of the American dream. But with more than 250 million cars and trucks on the road, Americans have become slaves to this freedom. How can we reverse the ravages of suburban sprawl?
The problem: We wake up every day to go to work, taking orders from a manager. We sit at work counting down the minutes until we go home, counting down the days until the weekend, counting down the weeks until our next holiday, wishing our lives away. Or worse, we can't find...
This series will attempt to roughly give some examples as to how the urban environment can be altered so that cities can not only sustain themselves but also become ecologically rich environs benefiting mankind and servicing nature. In order for us to do so, we must create...
Across the world millions of people are actively resisting the process of corporate globalization while simultaneously creating viable local alternatives in the here and now. This powerful emerging movement represents a radical departure from ‘business as usual’. In place of...
The political and economic policies that have shaped our world today systematically favor large, transnational corporations over small local businesses and farmers, ecological health and community well-being. In short, they favor economic growth and corporate profits over the...
As a sustainability-loving transportation planner, I was thrilled to learn that Dr. Kee Yeon Hwang would be visiting Vancouver and talking about the project that has made Seoul, Korea a legend in urban planning circles: the
Bogota: Building a Sustainable City ´ documentary by PBS e2 series. Narrated by Brad Pitt. During his tenure as mayor of Bogota, Colombia, Enrique Penalosa was both revered and scorned for his urban planning and transportation policies. His public works projects, which...
Maybe you’re itching to take a wide, full swing to drive the shiny steel of a nice heavy pick deep under the asphalt. You too can leverage up a satisfying big slab of that black, gooey hard stuff. I love destroying asphalt and maybe you’d like to join the party. Here’s a “how...
Rainey Hopewell's crazy idea has ended up feeding a neighborhood and creating community. She and Margot Johnston planted vegetables in the parking strip in front of their house. They offer them free for the taking ? to anyone, anytime ? with messages chalked on the sidewalk...
The ongoing economic crisis that began with the unraveling of wildly inflated real estate prices and the Wall Street derivatives bubble in 2007 and the crash into near depression in October of 2008 resulted in trillions of dollars of public bail out money for banks and...
The main purpose of this book is to try to persuade revolutionaries to shift the sites of the anticapitalist struggle and to select new battlefields. I identify three strategic sites for fighting - neighborhoods, workplaces, and households - that I believe will not only...
The town of Sedgwick, Maine, currently leads the pack as far as food sovereignty is concerned. Local residents recently voted unanimously at a town hall meeting to pass an ordinance that reinforces its citizens' God-given rights to "produce, process, sell, purchase, and...
Directed by Franklin Lopez, END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations.
"We're literally stuck up a cul-de-sac in a cement SUV without a fill-up" - James Howard Kunstler Global oil peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of the future? This is a short version of "The End...
Once the fourth-largest metropolis in America—some have called it the Death of the American Dream. Today, the young people of the Motor City are making it their own DIY paradise where rules are second to passion and creativity. They are creating the new Detroit on their own...
Over the past century, our cities have been shaped — literally — for the benefit of the automobile and oil industries. Today, with global oil reserves headed toward irreversible decline, we need to face the challenges of the imminent post-oil reality. Seizing foreign oil...
Cities should be a solution not a problem for human beings. The city of Curitiba has demonstrated for the past 40 years how to transform problems into cost-effective solutions that can be applied in most cities around the world.
A weekly free bike coop where you can use mechanics’ tools and expertise to fix your bike? Free clinics where schoolkids or neighbors learn to maintain or build their own bikes from used parts? Chauncey and Dash Tudhope-Locklear make a living repairing bicycles, but...
Climate change got you down? Don't despair. Here's a visual exploration of what you can do to make a difference, featuring art, video, and dinosaurs.
Resist 2010: 8 Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a short, fast-paced documentary focusing on the negative impacts of the 2010 Games to be held in Vancouver, Canada, and the ongoing resistance by Indigenous & other social movements. Produced by No2010.com &...
Richard Register discusses the concept of the Ecocity: an Ecocity is a human settlement that enables its residents to live a good quality of life while using minimal natural resources. It is threaded with natural habitat corridors, to foster biodiversity and to give residents...
Richard Heinberg, author of “Peak Everything”, reviews the accelerating events since mid-2007, including the credit crunch and fossil fuel price volatility, noting that we’ve missed most of the best opportunities to manage collapse. He asks, “how far down the staircase of...
How much energy does a town consume? Brian Corzilius sleuthed that out for Willits, California, and got a big surprise: in this community of 13,000 people, nearly 25% of personal after-tax earnings (about $30 million annually) leaves town to pay for energy - gasoline, diesel...
Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, speaks to an audience in Hamilton, Ontario about some short and long term challenges that peak oil will cause for local governments. Global crises can have very local repercussions - but...
In James Howard Kunstler's view, public spaces should be inspired centers of civic life and the physical manifestation of the common good. Instead, he argues, what we have in America is a nation of places not worth caring about. Reengineering our cities will involve more...
Santa Barbara is serious about lowering carbon emissions. Guided by a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions study, they’re adding solar panels to city buildings, requiring lower energy usage for new buildings, switching to biodiesel and hybrid vehicles, and giving free bus...
Freiburg is currently the ecological capital of Germany. This is a German TV news clip spotlighting the city's solar innovations. Again, this in comparison to the media in America? The mind boggles at how much the mainstream media in our country has kept us behind the curve...
City Councilor Scott Walker of Port Townsend, Washington is working to build a walkable, bikeable community where the car is not essential. As a result, the town has designated many undeveloped streets and "connectors" as non-motorized routes. He says, "Build safe, convenient...
San Francisco is the first American city to formally address the challenges of oil depletion. Dennis Brumm and Alyse Heartwell recount how members of SF Oil Awareness envisioned, wrote and presented to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors a Peak Oil resolution, which they...
China is banning shops and supermarkets from handing out free plastic bags, and calling for a return to the cloth bags of old. The ban, which was posted on a government website on Tuesday, January 8th, takes effect in June. It is part of the government's effort to cut waste...
Tam Hunt of the Community Environmental Council in Santa Barbara, California outlines a strategy for regional independence from fossil fuels -- and it centers around electricity. Start with efficiency & conservation, add renewables to replace fossil fuels for electricity...
A closed landfill in Santa Barbara county is not just being restored with native plants. It also has a pilot project growing oil-rich jatropha for biodiesel. Restoration horticulturists Karen Flagg and Don Hartley of Growing Solutions do restoration education and remediate...
Smart municipalities are planning and preparing for energy vulnerability and climate change. Daniel Lerch, manager of the Post Carbon Cities project, has prepared a guidebook including case studies of cities large and small planning how to maintain essential services in the...
Cal Broomhead and Melissa Capria of the Energy & Climate Program discuss the rationale, aggressive plans, and activities for city-wide energy self-reliance and greenhouse gas reduction. Tools include energy efficiency in buildings, transit alternatives, alternative vehicle...
What happens when citizens apply permaculture principles to a city grid? They create friendly places within the grid that invite people to come together. Mark Lakeman, co-founder of Portland, Oregon's City Repair Project describes these "creative intervention" projects as...
Developer Steven Ribeiro is re-creating traditional towns, that put "waste" resources to good use. A mixed-use three-story building augments power from its solar panels (which provide shade and collect rainwater) with a tugboat engine (running on local biodiesel), using...
Two thirds of all energy generated in the UK's nuclear, coal and gas fueled power stations is lost as waste heat - that's enough heat to meet the whole of the UK's heating and hot water needs. Made by BAFTA award-winning Memory Box Films and narrated by Clive Anderson, the...
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