Assuming the structure can support the weight, I’m all in favor of green roofs. Though, most buildings are privately owned and therefore are not true replacements for proper public greenspace within a city. I think it’s also important not to get distracted from the primary source of land waste within cities: car infrastructure.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how a city would look if you could take up street and sidewalk, plant trees, and keep just a bike path through the middle. The logistics challenges (maintaining access to buried infrastructure/protecting them from roots, and making sure vehicle-based emergency services like firetrucks and ambulances can get everywhere, handicapped people have options/access everywhere) are keeping me busy but I have a couple ideas for photobashes of solarpunk streets to try out eventually.
My city had a problem in a street near me where they planted the wrong type because the roots of the trees were popping up everywhere. They absolutely destroyed the sidewalk and every bit of concrete around them, as well as falling over during strong winds, to the point that one tree destroyed someone’s roof. Eventually the city cut down every last one tree along the entire street, and planted new ones.
People need to be careful with trees, they’re not a flower in a pot that in the worst case dies and you buy a new one. Besides the damage that was inflicted, the street looks terrible now with almost no shade and small trees that will take decades to grow to the point where the old ones were.
I’m thinking if it would be better to make sidewalks as boardwalks offset from the ground just a foot or so. Obviously in places where it’s possible, which is far from everywhere.
It’s hardly surprising that the roots will break through concrete or tiled pavements, so the question is really why we prioritise the concrete over the tree. Maintaining a boardwalk does seem more expensive at a first glance, but a concrete sidewalk isn’t maintenance free either. It just appears to be for a while, but eventually the trees and other plants will break through and frost will cause it to break it down too. A concrete sidewalk still only lasts 10-20 years in good conditions, and even shorter in places with frost or trees etc. I’ve seen perfectly fine concrete break down in less than 5 years.
Anyway, my point is that I believe it would make perfect sense to use other materials for sidewalks. Materials that would be better to coexist with plants and trees or be easier to modify to tree trunks and whatnot…
Overall I think proper sidewalks design is generally a completely underappreciated discipline. I miss the desirepath subreddit. There are soo many things that could easily be done better.
Exactly - also, cars are a symptom of a lack of urban planning but with remote work on the rise, car emissions will fall. I am hopeful that more communities will rise as a result as people live and work in the same place and get personal time back to invest in their surroundings
So even if we lump in commercial transportation with personal vehicles, it's still only 14% of ghg emissions or roughly half that of electricity generation.
Well, the shape of the wooden thing it’s been thought to provide shade at noon while allowing sunlight at dawn and dusk, while maximising the energy collected I think. Also there’s an underground terrace that it’s protected from rain by it, since it rains a lot here. Maybe it’s easier to visualise from the maps model: https://i.imgur.com/n2sQShx.jpg
Also white (but high emissivity) paint. Painting every dark urban and suburban surface white would reduce total radiative forcing somewhere around a watt.
White paint gets covered with grime and turns dark. It also flakes off and degrades into microplastics and toxic crud. Either way it requires ongoing maintenance and regular repainting.
Leaves, otoh, are self-healing and 100% biodegradable.
Sure, if you have to paint something anyway, you may as well use reflective paint. But wherever you can put a tree you should.
I live in one of the most light-polluted areas in the world. Even Orion is hard to pick out, and even lunar eclipses visibly more muted than elsewhere.
The main source of the worst pollution is not street lights. Instead, it’s industrial pollution coming from one of the largest collections of greenhouses worldwide a couple km. Many of them have growlights on all night long. On an overcast night, the sky is orange and purple - orange is the older technology with modern leds being purple.
That said, i am hopeful for the future here. Between 2012 and 2018 the brightest areas have already become a little less bright. Let’s hope that trend continues.
Oh shit, it’s that ‘eco-friendly’ agriculture of the future, is it? I guess you are from NL? I remember, from when I was little, my dad cursing about ‘holländische Gewächshaustomaten’ just to buy equally horrible tomatoes from Spain …
I’ve noticed the same trend in PT. From 2001 to 2012, lights being added to the surrounding hills. Then they started switching off every second lamp, during Covid possibly more. Let’s hope for some dark, quiet times.
Indeed, I live in The Hague, just a short hop from the Westland (where all the tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers are from). At least I can say I can get very local produce if I go the supermarket 😅.
Even the “water bombs” (as we call them here) situation is improving. There are some really interesting new producers that actually focus on flavor instead of yield. The price naturally is high, but I’m enjoying Dutch tomatoes for the first time ever.
I love the texture and purpose that visible mending gives things. It reminds me of kintsugi-- repairing ceramics with gold. It makes the object feel so much more special and loved. Like that thing has a history and a complex life story.
Different note: does anyone know if there is a visible mending community already on lemmy?
Wasted light in this context is light that is not serving a purpose. For instance in my neighborhood there is a house that has security lights that shine well beyond their property lines and are triggered on sensor from across the street movement. These lights also illuminate upwards which provides no benefit. Simply controlling where light shines if you must have it is a good step to being a good neighbor and is better for nature as well.
But it IS a finite resource. To produce light, you need energy. Even if you use renewables, you can only cover so much area of the planet with solar panels and wind generators. In a world run on electricity that is produced by limited means, we should consider where we want to use each kWh (‘bag of electricity’). Do you really want to render that image? Have that status light on all day? It’s small things, but they do add up.
Youre underestimating either how much electricity we can generate, or how efficient lights are nowadays. Way more energy is going into heating applications.
So just because more harm is done with heating we shouldn’t care about this waste? Small differences also make a difference, especially if the wasted light does more harm than good. If your roof leaks in two places you don’t just go a fix the bigger leak.
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