Green for go

November 22, 2018 by Denis Pombriant

It is encouraging to see so many outlets now offering ideas for solutions to global warming, city crowding and planning, and transportation. It has become too easy to jump on the emissions-are-hurting-us bandwagon and too often that’s as far as people take the issue. They define or diagnose the problem but fail to offer solutions. No wonder climate deniers have such an easy time refuting the issue.

But offering solutions that make a brighter future, regardless of any belief in climate change, can be very seductive. In most cases solutions expected to be available my mid-century highlight cost savings, convenience and maybe even an element of fun.

I found this piece about smart cities http://maximpactblog.com/makes-city-smart/ on the Maximpact Ecosystems blog and it’s worth reading if you have ever wondered how we can get from here to the clean and bright future.

If you’re not familiar with Maximpact yet, their website says they’re a “…global consulting group that provides development and technical services to projects and businesses of all sizes, and public and private organisations.” And they specialise in providing community solutions, capacity building and training, including vocational language training for refugees and migrants and associated job placements. In  other words, they get (S***) stuff done, which is a long way from just talking about the climate.

An October blog says,

By 2050 cities are forecast to be inhabited by 6.5 billion people, and making cities smarter to accommodate the population boom is on the minds of transportation experts around the world.

Intelligent traffic management systems, connected and autonomous electric vehicles, ride-hailing services, parking apps and all-electric public transit and commercial fleets promise benefits such as less congestion, improved access to transit and better air quality.

It then goes on to detail solutions that are in the development phase and leverage today’s technologies like IoT and blockchain. What’s striking about this group is that they’ve ditched the Chicken Little, “The sky is falling” panic that’s been too endemic at least since Al Gore wrote his book and made a movie. They’ve instead rolled up their sleeves and gotten to work on 7,600+ projects in almost 200 countries (196 to be exact).

What they’re less focused on is where all that electric power will come from at mid-century or how we’re going to reduce hazardous levels of carbon in the environment. Or how we’re going to feed the 6.5 billion people in cities and the 3.5 billion in rural areas. But that’s okay it’s just one post and other sites like this one aim to do some of that. The point is that Maximpact is making an important contribution and drawing attention to the population problem that will exacerbate climate issues. That’s an important contribution to our overall efforts.

 

 

 

 

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