Doom-mongering, Eco-optimism and Green Cities

A very interesting debate is shaping up on green and eco-blogs in that warnings of woe and disaster are actually a huge disincentive when it comes to mobilising people to embracing sustainable and environmentally-conscious living.

What is it in the human pyche that is so drawn to the thought of its own doom, yet somehow thrives far better on the hope it so easily dismisses in favour of fear?

I know that I, personally, am functioning a lot better now that I am getting better acquainted with the burdgeoning clean technologies out there, and the willingness of so many different kinds of people to voluntarily re-structure their lives, their hopes for the future and their day-to-day needs to acknowledge the vital interdependence of everything and live more lightly on the earth.

Indeed, optimism and a willingness to see oneself connected to everything - in contrast to surrendering our privileges as part of confronting the exigencies of global warming and climate change - makes for a much more palatable combination, and is, thus, ultimately more of a motivation toward eco-positive living.

Speaking of interdependence, many of the posts at the WorldChanging site are dedicated to green cities and how living in community is better for us and for the environment.

You can't get much better than the unrelentingly thorough analysis entitled, "My Other Car is a Bright Green City," by Alex Steffen, which posits the following, amid weighing up the impact of suburban individualism, mobility and inefficient land use:

"I think whether or not green cars arrive, building bright green cities is a winning strategy: if the cars don't arrive, land-use change is clearly needed to save our bacon; if they do arrive, they might well fit quite nicely into the new fabric of sustainable urban life, and we're all better off for it -- the air's that much cleaner, the grid that much smarter, our economic advantage in clean technology that much greater.

"Most arguments against land-use change presume that building compact communities is a trade-off; that investing in getting walkable, denser neighborhoods, we lose some or a lot of our affluence or quality of life. What if that's not true, though? What if the gains actually far outweigh the costs not only in ecological and fiscal terms, but in lifestyle and prosperity terms as well? I think that's the case.

"I believe that green compact communities, smaller well-built homes, walkable streets and smart infrastructure can actually offer a far better quality of life than living in McMansion hintersprawl in purely material terms: more comfort, more security, more true prosperity. But even more to the point, I believe they offer all sorts of non-materialistic but extremely real benefits that suburbs cannot. Opponents of smart growth talk about sacrificing our way of life -- but it's not a sacrifice if what you get in exchange is superior."

I happen to agree, but then, I would, since I am definitely a city person, despite my love of nature - and I dream of a future in which urban communities are not merely better integrated with their surrounding environment and ecosystems, but which also change our collective way of thinking about life. Towns and cities, in other words, in which the natural world isn't kept at bay, in which people walk, cycle or take public transport from place to place and where neighbours know and look out for each other.

In addition, I dream of an urban simplicity that does not sacrifice technological advances - something Steffen mentions when he says:

Wired urban living might very well soon evolve into a series of systems for letting us live affluent, convenient lives without actually owning a lot of things. If cities are engines for creating social connections, walkshed technologies might be said to make those connections into tools for trumping the hassle of owning stuff with the pleasure of using stuff to get the vivid experiences and deep relationships we crave. If that happens, we'll have a major leverage point to work with.

You can read the rest of Steffen's intriguing analysis here.