New Urbanism and eco-city living closer to home will help us clear our heads about what is sustainable, and what is beautiful. When you can't just jump on a plane to go on a holiday, and you live and work closer to home... you want your surrounding districts to be invigorating and refreshing.

Ultimately, it’s not just about aesthetics. It is about economic sustainability. Eventually humanity will adapt to a post-oil world. Will we start the growth imperative again? Will we let overpopulation throw us into another resource crisis? 

Trees

We could have massive tree planting schemes, which might help soak up some of the CO2 from our atmosphere, alleviate global warming, and restore healthy soil life cycles to depleted and eroding areas. Trees are also a sustainable fuel and building resource, if managed well.  For an example of how some programs might be set up based on tree planting for a more sustainable future, try:-

Greenfleet — mitigating global warming through tree planting schemes based on tax deductible donations from the public

Tropical American Tree farms — a company that makes a profit selling beautiful hardwoods for stunning furniture, while restoring natural ecosystems and forests!

Comumbian reforestation projects have also generated extra rainfall, resulting in extra freshwater income and hydroponics income! They have improved the local climate, created trees for future harvesting... which in the meantime generate biodiesel and products for the paint and paper industry.

The planting of the Caribbean pine tree provides another economic impulse. The 7 to 14 grams of resin a day produced by the tree is locally converted to colofonia, a raw material for the paint and paper industry. The tapping and the processing of the resin brings industrial activities, and the generation of value-added to the region.

This initial 8,000 HA plantation will fund an enormously ambitious Columbian restoration program with the potential to improving the whole national economy!

The economic power of drinking water (thanks to the forest), hydroponic food crops (thanks to the abundance water), and biodiesel (from the forest) provide a positive picture for the country of Colombia, potentially creating 120,000 new jobs, secure a local source of drinking water, eliminate the need to import diesel fuel AND reduce national foreign debt! This is a remarkable portfolio of opportunities for a region considered to be the "center of nowhere."

potential

This is the sort of vision we need. The restoration of local ecologies really can provide jobs for local economies, creating both a healthy environment and sustainable local economy. Please read more of the same at their website,
http://www.zeri.org/

Fisheries

We are over-fishing. We need to consider more sustainable food closer to home, and let the oceans recover. This may involve changing dietary habits in the short term, but hopefully after sufficient time has elapsed a sustainable fishing industry can start again (with heavy regulation so that we do not risk wiping out fish stocks again.)

Salinity

I know that in Australia, salinity is a terrible challenge. Some schemes have been set up to harvest this salt as a resource, but the overwhelming consensus is that salinity is devastating. Maybe our tree planting scheme will help with salinity in those areas, and maybe moving our agriculture closer to home will also help.

I have already referred to it, but here it is again. Please watch the 6 minute flash movie 'Greening the desert' (down the right hand side of the page)

Fresh Water

If you did read Eating Fossil Fuels you will be aware how fragile certain agricultural regions are because of depleting water tables. They are about to run out of cheap fuel AND water! Some “bread basket” regions of the world will be abandoned as high intensity farming collapses and yields become unproductive? What tree schemes can replace them? How can we gently restore trees or other slow growing but eventually productive biodiversity to these soil depleted, water-depleted areas? Will there be some other economy, such as wood? Will the trees help with respiration and eventually allow local climate rainfall to increase? (Many do not recognize that growing trees can tip the moisture balance in the air over to a critical point where it will rain when otherwise clear felled areas would not receive rain.) Or will these regions become ghost towns as jobs and food move to new regions?

Heavy metal and chemical poisoning

How can toxins and industrial pollution be cleaned up so that new regions of productive soil can be utilized? Human habitation patterns may prove very fluid over the next few decades, as we move our agriculture closer to home and away from water depleted areas. How can we clean up closer to home, in areas formerly industrialized or polluted, so that they can allow eco-cities to flourish?