Creating a sustainable city

Freiburg, Germany has become a stunning model of sustainability, thanks in part to Wulf Daseking, the city’s Head of Urban Planning since 1984.

For Professor Wulf Daseking, the City of Freiburg’s Head of Urban Planning, longevity and continuity aren’t just buzzwords on a whiteboard but themes to live and plan by. After 26 years at the helm of Germany’s Environmental Capital, Daseking embodies the notion of sustainability in a city that has seen only four planning directors since World War II.

However, the secret ingredient that earned Freiburg the Academy of Urbanism’s European City of the Year Award in 2010 is Daseking’s flair for bold and unconventional thinking. From Seepark, a former gravel pit turned recreational eco-park, to Wiehrebahnhof, an old train station cooperatively rebuilt into a thriving cultural arts center, the Professor’s fingerprints are all over the projects in the “you can’t do that” category.

Read the intervew

Almost Extinct

Every day, hundreds of endangered species get closer to extinction. By working together, we can help save them.

Selling greenhouse emissions for billions

Photo by Peter Essick.

Wake up, Canada:

Oilsands emissions data left out of UN report

Federal government admits deliberately leaving numbers out that indicate pollution from oilsands production outstrips auto emissions… The data also indicated that emissions per barrel of oil produced by the sector is increasing, despite claims made by the industry in an advertising campaign.

Via Vancouver Sun

China targeting tens of billions in Alberta oilsands investment

Alberta government and business leaders who sat down with Chinese energy executives this week were told tens of billions of dollars in new oilpatch investment will flow in the coming years — if export capacity issues in Canada are improved.

In the past 18 months alone, Chinese oil companies have pumped more than $13 billion into developing crude oil and natural gas prospects in Western Canada.

However, future spending is contingent upon Canada building new pipeline capacity to transport oilsands — such as the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway project planned by Enbridge Inc. — and natural gas to the West Coast, where liquefied gas could be shipped by tanker into the Chinese market, he said.

Via Calgary Herald

Perspective on solar power

The left square, labelled “world,” is around the size of Austria. If that area were covered in solar thermal power plants, it could produce enough electricity to meet world demand. The area in the center would be required to meet European demand. The one on the right corresponds to Germany’s energy demand.

I wonder how this theoretical area compares to total oil spill area coverage or areas affected by coal strip-mining.

Via Spiegl

Sperm Whale encounter