URBAN ISSUES & APPLICATIONS

                      

The keys to getting rid of urban environmental issues are as follows:

Education>> educating people and helping them to recognize existing potential within the resources they already have

Access to land>> empowering people to act for themselves and for others as well

Waste>> finding ways to get rid of pollution

Transport>> reducing the dependency on a car

Social Interaction>> Transforming big cities into smaller social villages

As a group, we have talked quite a bit about these things since coming to Crystal Waters. We are learning simple techniques to reduce waste, such as recycling and composting, that we can use to educate our friends and family. I think these small techniques are going to be the most useful when trying to educate others so I’m glad to be learning all about them. Since being in Australia I’ve learned how much more convenient it is to use public transportation as opposed to owning a car. I saw an example of turning a city into a “smaller village”  when we were at Manly Environmental Center. The people there have a co-op grocery store in which members of their community pay a very cheap yearly fee to come in and get fresh food from the co-op. Members could trade 3 hours of volunteer time for a certain amount of food credits, and could bring in food to trade. This was a great example of turning a larger area into small little community run villages. We’ve learned wuite a bit about reducing waste as well here at Crystal Waters. The Eco Village recycles all of its own waste with the use of compost toilets. This idea was weird to me at first but now it makes a lot of sense to recycle your own waste and food scraps and paper and turn them into soil that you can’t re use.

There are also three very important elements to urban applications. They are as follows:

Suburban Blocks

·      In a smaller setting, we can do a few very simple things to apply sustainable practices such as:

o   Making use of natural resources (such as heat), using multi layered systems, scaling livestock enclosures to suit, not wasting space, choosing orchard trees which have a good production to area ratio, etc.

City Farms

·      Cities are rich in resources like manual labor and nutrients, waste, and tools and heat storage from masses of concrete. Gardeners are able to make use of land too small for conventional agriculture. Studies have shown that hand gardening on a small scale can yield up to six times as much as that of industrialized farming. Benefits of smaller gardening can be things like:

o   Energy saving effects of shade, roof gardens, reduced use of grass, education, recycling, etc.

Urban Forestry

·      By definition : “the management of trees and forests in and near centers of population where trees play a large role in physiological and psychological health and economic benefit.

·      The advantages of trees can be:

o   Food, shade, pollution filters, oxygen production, recreation, etc.

Of these elements, the most influential of the three for myself and most others that are just getting started with sustainable practices will be those under the category of Suburban Blocks. These are very simple ideas like making use of natural heat stores, not wasting space, growing trees that are most efficient for food production, using natural fences (bushes or hanging pots), and other such things. From here I think the other two categories can grow to become just as influential once people have picked up these small ideas and habits.

Going back to the five keys in the beginning, I think this is the basis for sustainable practices to grow from. People can begin to rely less on their car, make small communal efforts such as the co-op, find better ways to get rid of their waste maybe through composting, increase education by spreading their ideas and practices to their friends and family, and through all of these practices they will be empowering themselves to act for themselves and for others in the community and with that, the rest of their community will begin to do the same.