https://blogs.ubc.ca/landscapesofenergy/files/2010/12/Vauban-Georgepdf1.pdf

A Final project by Allison Franko

A deviation from the standard essay format, this final project  is in the form of a photo essay or photo discussion, and deals with the planning process, cooperative development, and liveability of the small community of Vauban, in Freiburg, Germany. Freiburg’s history as an eco-city and the struggles its population has overcome (including the successful prevention of a nearby nuclear power plant development) created the foundation for a strong counter-culture and influenced the conception of Vauban.  A public-community partnership with Forum Vauban (a community organization) and the creation of Baugruppen (groups of homeowners) provided a stable basis for successful participatory planning, cooperative housing development, and provided for the steadfast resolution of future conflicts between Vauban’s citizens. The layout and design of Vauban focuses on car-free liveability, walkability, efficient public transport, ‘passive’ co-housing groups, rainwater management, and alternative forms of energy, including solar panels and a combined heat and power plant. Broad concepts of sustainability, and ideologies such as eco-socialism, will be discussed in reference to Vauban, and as well, to brownfield developments (the re-use of former military bases). Vauban is an interesting example of what one form of sustainable landscape can look like and lessons can be learned from the community’s successes and concerns.

Numerous unrealistic and socially unjust techno-fixes, including geoengineering, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage, have been promoted by large corporations and governments as solutions to the twin climate change and energy crises.[1] In her article, Claire Fauset explains why these so-called solutions are simply not viable and will actually exacerbate the situation by further damaging the environment. Ironically, those who find techno-fixes most appealing – persons and corporations with an established hold on power and thus desire to maintain the status quo – are the ones in the best positions to investigate the science behind such solutions, expose critical flaws, and shift investment into more viable options. Fauset gives a number of reasons why techno-fixes can never be part of the solution, but in this response I will focus on the one I believe to be the fundamental concern: the failure of such technological solutions to ask the right questions.

Techno-fixes can certainly be seen as solutions when asking limited questions such as, “how can people run their cars without oil,”?[2] The problem with this question is it does not address climate change or the energy crisis; instead, it simply proposes a potentially equally or even more problematic alternative to oil.  A more multifaceted approach that both explicitly and implicitly addresses the underlying problem is needed when looking for, and ultimately investing valuable time and significant capital in, possible solutions. Fauset suggests instead asking, “how can people get where they need to go without contributing to climate change,”; this approach might prove more effective in evoking better alternatives (not just substitutes) that are equitable, socially just, sustainable, and accessible.[3]

The geo-engineered techno-fixes Fauset mentions in her article are shocking, but accurately represent the lengths corporations and governments are willing to impede or at least slow the world’s transition to a sustainable global economy; one not focused so greatly upon perpetual growth and its seemingly inescapable consumption of natural resources and society’s associated materialism. Some of the more radical notions Fauset discredits include blasting the stratosphere with sulfates to produce a cooling effect, mirrors in space to reflect solar radiation, covering deserts in reflective plastics, and dumping iron fertilizer into the oceans to reduce carbon dioxide.[4] These can be interpreted as efforts by private firms to avoid governmental regulation and thereby prevent stricter forms of action on climate change.[5] Carbon offsets, to a lesser extent, can also be seen as a mechanism to maintain corporate profit and growth, by paying for the shift of environmental responsibility onto others, often in the Global South. Is this just another form of western hegemony and xenocentrism? Efforts to reduce carbon emissions should be made by changing policies and behaviors aimed at reducing consumption, and through technical changes that invest in and shift towards lower carbon technologies- not by bribing others to offset emissions in the short term- a diversion of valuable investment.[6] This will only take place if society demands answers to the right questions. Why do we assume us humans are the masters of nature, and “why is economic growth seen as more important than survival,”?[7] The answer lies in the inherent greed and power-driven nature of capitalism itself; can we break the corporate cabal’s grip on environmental policies and solutions, change entire societies’ patterns of consumption and lifestyle, and thereby bring about meaningful and effective changes for a sustainable future?

One approach, and the one I find most meaningful and sustainable, is through social change. “Co-operation, lifestyle change, and appropriate technology,” are critical in this process that will be small-scale, localized, and carried out on a community basis.[8] Corporations as entities will always be run with making a profit as their basic function and this is not going to change; what will cause changes in the corporate world is a massive shift in collective demand by consumers, which will force corporations to adapt in order to remain profitable. The channeling of investment into viable technologies that are proven to be effective, less expensive, and socially equitable, also must factor into any transition towards sustainability. By first initiating a collective force from below, society can bring about changes to economic and political ideologies that bring about thoughtful investment in long term solutions to climate change and the energy crisis.

Learning what questions we should be asking ourselves will promote long-term lifestyle and behavioral changes that are absolutely essential if the unevenly large ecological footprints of developed societies are to be sustainably reduced. Without changes to our current capitalistic mode of thinking, technological solutions alone cannot be relied upon as viable in the long term. Demand will only continue to grow, inevitably requiring greater amounts of energy and likely exacerbating the current rate of climate change; technology alone cannot provide meaningful relief for the inexorable forces of such global demand. The central underlying issue is the materialistic nature of most developed countries and their consumption-based societies, and the simple fact that the vast majority of the world’s corporations are primarily focused on profit; in other words: capitalism.[9] We must ask how and what we, as society’s component individuals, can do to reduce our personal consumption, carbon footprints and energy use, and in turn create a societal movement imposing corporate change, in order to ameliorate climate change and soften the imminent energy crisis.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 301-302.

[4] Ibid., 307-308.

[5] P. Newell and M. Paterson, “The Politics of the Carbon Economy,” in The Politics of Climate Change: A survey, ed. M. Boycoff, 91 (London: Routledge, 2009).

[6] A. G. Bumpus and D. M. Liverman, “Accumulation by Decarbonization and the Governance of Carbon Offsets,” Economic Geography 84, no. 2 (2008): 148.

[7] Fauset, 308-309.

[8] Ibid., 310.

[9] Ibid., 303.

One of my professors told our class about this. Thought this might be useful for final projects, or just for general interest. Particularly, the talk on Greenwashing and the last talk by the Plenary panel. This will make a lot more sense if you click the link to see the schedule! 🙂

Here is what my prof emailed:

About Media Democracy Day Vancouver 2010
November 6th 2010, 12- 5pm, Vancouver Public Library, Central Library

    Media Democracy Day is an annual event that engages activists, media producers, scholars and citizens in dialogue that is centred on creating a more participatory and democratic media system. Entering its ninth year, MDD provides a day of interactive discussion panels that address key issues concerning the politics and biases linked to our increasingly corporate and concentrated media system.

    Tony Burman of Al Jazeera English will open the day with a keynote address. Panel discussions include assessing the role of alternative media in environmental communication in an age of corporate greenwash; the rise of “Fox News North” and what it means for Canadian broadcasting; the portrayal of protest and negotiation at global marquee events like the G20 summit; representations of sexual and gendered violence in media; and a close look at the shifting landscape of Canadian copyright.
   
    The Media Democracy Fair will also be open throughout the day to provide a trade-show style exhibition of the local media community. And The Pacific Cinematheque will be hosting a small film production workshop in the spirit of documentary and journalistic cinema.

            FOR THE FULL PROGRAM: http://www.scribd.com/full/39771205?access_key=key-1fdhoklsvohr6z8w6jzk

For more info: http://www.mediademocracyday.org/Vancouver
Cost: Free & all welcome but seating is limited. To pre-register your attendance, visit http://mddvancouver.eventbrite.com/

Media Democracy Day Vancouver 2010 is presented by The School of Communication at SFU, OpenMedia.ca and The Vancouver Public Library in collaboration with Media Literacy Week 2010.

MDD on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/MDDVancouver?ref=ts
MDD on Twitter http://twitter.com/MediaDemocDay

Also afterwards it looks like there is a local media fair….just keep scrolling once you click the link!

Cheers

Herman Daly’s article on ecological economics examines a transformation to a steady-state economy. He submits that our current growth economy is failing in two primary ways:  the uneconomic effects of continuous positive growth, and those of negative growth, resulting from the self-destructing nature of financial bubbles.[1] He questions whether we are still becoming more affluent from such growth, or whether such growth is actually depleting our riches.[2] His suggestion is a gradual transition to a steady-state economy, with neither positive nor negative growth, and he puts forth a series of ten somewhat radical steps to foment such an economy. However, Daly explains, these steps are “not as insanely unrealistic,” when compared to the rationale upon which many rely for validating continuous growth.[3] In this response I will discuss Daly’s third suggested policy for moving towards a steady-state economy: limiting the range of inequality in income distribution. I will also touch on Tim Jackson’s two complimentary articles about both the implications of and the avenues towards a sustainable economy as they relate to reducing inequality. Ultimately, any agreement on the establishment of income ranges will only be reached once developed societies decrease the glorification and focus currently associated with the acquisition of status goods and material wealth, and when their individuals’ identities are no longer primarily derived from their employment and socio-economic status.

Daly posits that the establishment of a minimum and a maximum income will bring an end to unlimited inequality. One obvious obstacle is that inequality has been ingrained in most of the basic elements of our very social framework; a complete transformation of societal values and capitalism’s core principles and practices would be required – something extremely unlikely to take place in the relatively near future of 40 or 50 years. Ergo, the notion that those at the top, who are typically the greatest beneficiaries of inequality, could be somehow persuaded to stop amassing wealth once they had attained some level, is highly implausible.  Daly advocates the first step in this process is reducing the range of inequality to a factor of 100, (Corporate America has a range of over 500, while many industrial nations are below 25) “and see how it works”.[4] On a localized scale, certain adaptive policies could be successfully implemented over the short term if developed collaboratively with individual businesses in mind, as opposed to the arbitrary imposition of some common fixed factor for the maximum range of inequality. The biggest hurdle would most likely be overcoming people’s initial strong opposition to such range limits; however, as Daly implies, the sense of community necessary for democracy would be much easier to maintain if income gaps are narrowed.   Jackson’s articles supplies us with such aids useful for gaining mass acceptance of income ranges, by emphasizing ‘alternative hedonism’.

When the working week is shortened, unemployment and poverty have been shown to significantly decline.[5] This is a good way to maintain full employment without growth, and to also encourage ‘alternative hedonism’, which will in turn promote a more equitable and less competitive society.[6] In Tim Jackson’s article, “Recovery without growth”, he alludes to Daly’s fourth point: shortening of the working day, week, and year, to allow for part-time or personal work.[7] Daly claims that full-time employment is synonymous with constant and unsustainable growth and Jackson offers a viable idea which addresses this issue:  to share the available work more evenly across the population- essentially reducing working hours and increasing free time, and without causing widespread unemployment.[8] In Jackson’s subsequent article, “Prosperity without growth?”, he further explains how an improved work-life balance will help to lower the emphasis placed by many people on status and consumerism, leading greater social equality.[9]

Allowing people to devote more time to “sources of identity, creativity, and meaning that lie outside the realm of the market,” and the workplace, will help to lower materialistic consumerism and promote greater social equality.[10] Some may wonder if people will use their ‘freed up’ time in productive and sustainable ways. Of course, there will always be a minority who do not choose to use a shortened work week in thoughtful and beneficial ways, but society overall will derive greater social benefits from the majority who do than it will from the alternative – an overworked and materialistic society.

In conclusion, the premise that current and constant growth rates are unsustainable and eventually need to slow and ideally approach zero is fundamental to Daly’s article. One of his ideas towards achieving this end is to reduce income disparities; however, it is clear that such reductions, in a world dominated by neo-liberal capitalism and materialistic individuals, are both unlikely to occur any time soon, and pose many obstacles.  However, insofar as reducing income disparities, both Jackson and Daly have touched on an idea that could have success in this regard:  reducing the number of hours in a work week and eventually shifting towards equitably shared part-time employment.  This idea is the most viable and the most likely to gain widespread acceptance among individuals because it provides valuable free time which will in turn stimulate greater focus on external sources of satisfaction and meaning outside of the workplace.  In this way, the importance society seems to place on material wealth will be diminished, and social inequality should also be reduced. The further society transitions to a less materialistic value system and its citizens become more focused on ‘experiencing’ and less so on ‘having’, the more likely large-scale agreement to the establishment of income ranges will become; even the wealthiest segments of society, who seem to have the most to lose, could find themselves reaping non-material benefits and rewards in such a transition.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Jackson, “Recovery without growth?” Renewal 17, No. 3(2009): 50.

[6] Jackson, “Prosperity without growth? The transition to a sustainable economy,” Sustainable Development Comission (2009), http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf, 10.

[7] Jackson, “Recovery without growth?” 49.

[8] Ibid.

[9] T. Jackson, “Prosperity without growth?” 10-11.

[10] Ibid.

In their article, architects Lola Sheppard and Mason White offer a provocative, yet somewhat romantic and opportunistic, vision of a current and future ‘urban arctic’.  They claim that, due to current and growing world demand, the arctic oil and gas reserves will be further explored and exploited, fueling an ‘emergent frontier urbanism’ in the arctic (pg. 133). Aided by the thawing of the ice cap, paradoxically hastened through man’s use of fossil fuels and resultant effects on climate change, increased arctic resource extraction will lead to new and expanded urbanization. Although I do not find that the authors are actually endorsing the development of the Arctic, their article nonetheless tends to glorify the process and its infrastructural icons.  In this response, I aim to highlight the authors’ rose-tinted viewpoint on Arctic resource exploitation, infrastructure, and suggested urbanization.

As the authors are both architects, I feel they fail to give proper consideration to the expansive realm of human and environmental geography; as such, current and future resource extraction in the arctic, by any political or corporate entity, is depicted as desirable for the barbaric Arctic region, or ‘the other’. The authors postulate that the thawing of the Arctic is in part facilitating  emerging urban cities reminiscent of unbuilt “megaform” projects of the 1960s and 1970s” (pg. 136). This comparison is indicative of the authors’ admiration for urban development of the Arctic, regardless of what environmentally-distressing technologies and infrastructures are inevitably deployed.

Moreover, the authors’ reliance on key premises without evidentiary support and the occasional use of certain jargon (such as, ‘virgin geography as a zero condition’ and ‘techno-geographical utopia’), bad examples, and confusing analogies, sometimes detracts from the article (pg. 136). I disagree with their proposition that the melting of polar ice has “simultaneously spawned territorial land claims” (pg. 133). The melting of ice may have indeed sped up exploration, threatened ecosystems, or otherwise contributed to various changes, but the expression ‘simultaneously spawned’ inappropriately implies suddenness, as well as inaccurately attributes a cause-and-effect relationship. 

In their discussion of subterranean land claims in the arctic, the authors’ claim, that the entire Arctic Circle is a contested space, is clearly false; much of Canada, Russia, and the other noted countries have completely uncontested land rights at or above the Arctic Circle.   Notwithstanding this, they correctly point out certain countries are indeed making territorial land claims, particularly Russia, to the various arctic sea floors and the resources beneath.  As well, the authors’ implication that several countries’ race for these claims has “led to a series of inevitably networked cities bound by ambition to serve as a hub for development of [the Arctic] region”, is weak because the premise of inevitability is unsupported and the infrastructural cities’ ambition, if personification is acceptable, may be shared, but it cannot be binding (pg. 133-134).

We can see the issue of scale arise when the authors discuss the ‘gaseous state’ of the infrastructural city, characterizing ‘gas urbanism’ in the Arctic (pg. 134). The statement that such cities are “without definite shape and of relatively low density,” contradicts their thesis of an increasing urban population in the Arctic (pg. 134). Furthermore, the image on the last page of the article (pg 137), of a floating platform housing more than 150 workers, illustrates the fact that these workers are not there to live, they are there to make a profit. The inhabitants of these infrastructural cities in the Arctic are almost exclusively employees and only live in such places because twenty four-seven production is demanded by their corporate employers- not because they see it as a ‘techno-geographical utopia’ (pg. 136). Most people would not choose to live in such an inhospitable environment without serious incentives and compensation. Unfortunately, certain readers of this article will be largely unaware of the heavy environmental, political, and social consequences specific to resource extraction in the Arctic; as a result, some may take the article at face value. In view of this, perhaps the theme of urbanization being forced upon the Arctic, in pursuit of the profits associated with resource extraction, would have been a more appropriate choice for these authors, particularly in view of current worldwide concern for climate change and its consequences.

Works Cited:

Sheppard, L., and White, M. (2009). Meltdown: Thawing Geographies in the Arctic. In Ramos, S., and Turan, N (Eds.), New Geographies: After Zero (pg. 132-137). Hong Kong, China: Regal Printing.