{"id":2605,"date":"2014-02-23T16:00:19","date_gmt":"2014-02-23T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ploff.net\/?p=2605"},"modified":"2014-03-01T17:58:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-01T20:58:53","slug":"ba-146-ciudad-futura-vol-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ploff.net\/en\/ba-146-ciudad-futura-vol-1\/","title":{"rendered":"BA 146 – Future City? – Vol. 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Future City?<\/span><\/b> \u2013 Vol. 1 of 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis leaves only two major questions involved in human evolution. The first is how much self-destruction is required before we change our view of the world. The second is whether we will be able to conceptualize a <\/i>better way \u2013 one which does not center on domination<\/i>\u201d \u2013 S. J. Goerner (1999)<\/p>\n

\"BA<\/a><\/p>\n

Last Friday 21st<\/sup><\/span> of February, Santa Rosa\u2019s municipality<\/a> organized a conference together with the UNLPam, named \u201cFuture City\u201d where there was a deep approach <\/i>towards making life in the city more sustainable. The Dr. Gerardo Wadel<\/b> was in charge of the conference, Formation Director in the Green Building Council in Spain, Architect, an argentine, citizen of the world, working in Spain, speaking everywhere\u2026<\/p>\n

He began his conference telling something someone had said to him\u2026 that, in the end, all of this sustainability thing is something we already knew, but that we forgot somewhere down the road. <\/i>We only have to recover that wisdom anesthetized by our excessive consumption.<\/p>\n

\"BA<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I attended with some friends from university, but people were very diverse. <\/b>People who were hungry for information. NGO\u2019s representatives, municipal employees, university and primary school teachers, people from the press, interested people who travelled several kilometers all the way down from their town in GUatrach\u00e9, conscious of the degradation that their land suffers. And we<\/i> listened\u2026attentively.<\/i> I will try to narrate a little bit of his vision (dividing this newsletter, these words, between this and 2 more other ones for next Sunday and the one after that). <\/i><\/p>\n

The first thing he highlighted was the need to accomplish \u201csocial maturity\u201d<\/b>. A social mental state <\/i>that <\/i>we must accomplish, where \u2013 with a mature environmental awareness in our belief system \u2013<\/i> the protection of Nature is something obvious<\/i>, part of the culture, an evident social responsibility. Where the person who throws a paper on the street is seen socially, and correctly, as stupid. <\/i><\/p>\n

The 20th century<\/b> was characterized by the presence of productive systems of every kind, but all of them with something in common: their action is expressed in \u201copen material cycles\u201d<\/b>, this means, systems \u2013 giant social systems, societies acting as a living organism- <\/i>that <\/i>extract resources from the earth, from the lithosphere<\/span>, transform it into everything, food, products, blah, <\/i>and in the meantime we throw all kinds of emissions into the atmosphere<\/span> and effluents of all colors <\/i>into the hydrosphere<\/span>, that sooner or later are absorbed by the biosphere<\/span> as contaminants that alter all of our living.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"BA<\/a><\/p>\n

But the 21st century<\/b> is characterized, or should be characterized<\/i> for the transformation of all of those cycles into \u201cclosed material cycles\u201d<\/b> where the energy resources are taken from a single source, the Sun, whether it\u2019s directly, through photovoltaic solar energy, or indirectly, through wind or tidal power, all of the natural processes which are there\u2026radiation, the wind, the big masses of water, all of them with dancing energy offering itself to be used for a while.<\/i><\/p>\n

In the closed material cycles, there is also an extraction of natural resources\u2026 but, there\u2019s a difference in how <\/i>the whole issue is managed. The productive processes tend to improve their energy efficiency, drastically reducing the amount of generated waste, and assuring a final disposition of this waste, whether it is by means of an adequate treatment, the possibility of recycling certain materials, or even to reuse them. Not simply producing to sell and throwing and buying again.<\/i><\/p>\n

In order to know where to close those open cycles, to transform them into closed ones, we have to study the EVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS; this is to say, all of the effects that we cause on the natural environment as a consequence of our activities, whether these are individual activities or activities performed by the social group as a Whole.<\/p>\n

\"BA<\/a><\/p>\n

In order to be able to study our environmental impacts, we have to 1) get to know<\/b> the impacts, define them, explain them, recognize them so then we can 2) measure<\/b> them, searching for a variable that is measurable and representative of the studied impact. Finally, 3) we have to monitor<\/b> those impacts. To do this, studies must be carried out, with regular samplings that allow us to keep track of the environmental remediation that we are carrying out.<\/p>\n

The philosophy of this process, as Wadel rightly said, is \u201cto follow the resource\u201d. <\/b><\/i>To follow it from the beginning of the production chain (extraction) until the end (reusing, recycling or final disposition). And the actions that we take after studying the same path that our resources do, will be destined to reduce the impacts in:<\/p>\n