Sebastien Miller ~ Time To Take The ‘Urban’ Out of Urban Design?

For a while now I’ve had an issue with both the term and the definition of ‘urban design’. What exactly is it? Compare it to architecture or planning, which are professions that are easy to define and identify, even to a child’s mind. At its most simple level, architects design buildings, while planners design cities. We understand those roles because they have boundaries and actions that give them a clear identity. But not so for urban design.

We can all identify a well-designed space when we see it, but what part of this is due to good contemporary design? Did it come about due to robust planning policies that encouraged a vibrant mix of uses? Was it due to the active participation of community groups? For most projects, it is probably of all the above… and then some more. What we understand to be urban design involves a broad spectrum of disciplines, such as landscape architects, planners, architects, engineers, etc. In addition, there is the involvement of the public, government agencies, and developers. It’s clearly a ‘team effort’ to produce good urban design interventions.

Read more: http://www.sustainablecitiescollective.com/time-take-urban-out-urban-design

Is Globalization Responsible For  Climate Change? An Interview With Graciela Chichilnisky And Helena Norberg-Hodge  

• by: C. J. Polychroniou & Marcus Rolle   

Helena Norberg-Hodge

What is the connection between economic globalization and climate change? Is globalization reversible? Can climate  change be reversed? If so, how? In the interview that follows, two leading voices in the struggle for a safe planet and a sustainable future, Graciela Chichilnisky and Helena Norberg-Hodge, address these questions from their own unique perspectives and offer critical insights on how we can avert a climate change catastrophe.

A world renowned economist and mathematician, Graciela Chichilnisky is the architect of the Kyoto Protocol carbon market and  cofounder and CEO of Global Thermostat, a disruptive, carbon negative technology company based in the Silicon Valley that removes carbon dioxide from the air. She  is Professor of Economics and of Statistics at Columbia University and  Visiting Professor of Economics at Stanford University. Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of Local Futures, a pioneer of the “new economics” movement. She is the producer and co-director of the award winning documentary “The Economics of Happiness” and recipient of the Goi Peace Award.

 J. Polychroniou and Marcus Rolle: Climate change is the most daunting problem facing humanity today, and globalization seems to be accelerating it. In fact, the effects of climate change are moving faster than predicted as free trade agreements are proliferating, multinational corporations move their operations to developing countries in order to avoid stricter environmental rules at the home country, and export-oriented industrial agriculture has replaced local farming. Do you agree with the view that economic globalization bears responsibility for climate change?

Helena Norberg-Hodge: Absolutely. Globalization – or the deregulation of global trade and finance –  has direct consequences for the climate. It promotes unnecessary long-distance transportation of goods, rampant consumerism, biological monocultures, energy-intensive technology use, and mass urbanization – which leads to ever-increasing fossil fuel consumption. It is also worth noting that a 2013 study found that two-thirds of the fossil fuels that have been burned over the last 150 years were burned by just 90 corporate entities, including companies such as Texaco and ExxonMobil.

With the help of corporate-funded think-tanks, there is a commonly-held belief that individual citizens’ consumption patterns, rather than the systemic changes in production because of globalization are to blame for climate change. This is a very narrow framing of the climate crisis, but it’s one that has gained a lot of credence in the media due to the support of Al Gore and others. Meanwhile, it’s becoming increasingly clear every day that there are inherent and predictable connections between the deregulation of transnational corporations and the climate crisis. And people are beginning to notice those connections.
So reversing the trend towards further globalization needs to be central to the climate movement.

Graciela Chichilnisky

Graciela Chichilnisky: Yes: globalization was led by the Breton Woods institutions that were founded after WWII to encourage and enforce a pattern of international trade duplicating colonialism at a global scale: deep and extensive extraction of resources from developing nations that were exported  at low prices for consumption in industrial nations. This pattern of international trade can be seen as a global tragedy of the commons, since developing nations lack property rights on extractive resources and their governments are dependent of international organizations and therefore “permeable” This term was introduced by Natasha Chichilnisky-Heal who documented the “permeability” of governments in developing nations that are rich in extractive resources in the cases of Mongolia and Zambia, with examples on the direct role of the World Bank in the case of Rio Tinto and Mongolia’s copper mines, the largest in the world. Read more