Sophie Feng writes on one answer to disaster-prone Tokyo’s interest in food health and security. Corporate Ecology is mixed with the move toward Agricultural Urbanism, greening the sterile downtown office world for workers and visitors.
Sustainability
Detroit Future: Landscape Urbanism, Antidote to Industrial Blight
For the last 40 years, Detroiters have fled the once-majestic downtown core for the bucolic image of sprawling suburbia. Now an urban revival in the name of “Detroit Future City,” complete with forests, parks, farms and waterways, is planned to overcome the financial mismanagement and industrial blight that have plagued the city for far too long.
Austria: Energy-Efficient Office Tower Rises Over the Danube
Tall buildings tend to use massive amounts of energy with big carbon footprints. One new Viennese project featured in Passive House Plus shows that high rise doesn’t have to mean high environmental impact.
Plastic Ocean: Deep Sea Garbage Endangers Marine Ecosystem
While the Great Pacific Garbage Patch continues to grow, a paper by researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute shows that trash is accumulating in the deep sea, particularly in Monterey Canyon, off the coast of California. This causes dire impacts to the marine ecosystem and humans who thrive from it.
Biofuels from Seaweed: A More Sustainable Energy Source?
Many millions are being invested in seaweed research from Vietnam to Israel to Chile because producing biofuels in the sea overcomes many of the serious problems with conventional biofuels.
Urban Farming: Nature, Art, and Society Converge
Urban farmers and gardeners around the world transform abandoned lots into edible landscapes, improving human and ecological health as well as creating beautiful places. Richard Ingersoll surveys a myriad of concepts and projects from around Europe and the United States.
Orange County Toll Road to Nowhere Denied Permits
Orange County’s Toll Road Agency is pushing the first segment of a previously rejected road extension that will have significant and irreversible environmental and economic impacts. According to the Save San Onofre Coalition and the State Attorney General, the project had failed to undertake sufficient environmental studies. As a result, the Regional Water Board in San Diego decided to deny the project a waste discharge permit.