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Puerto Rican Natural Wonder, Punta Ventana, Collapses Amid 5.8 Magnitude Earthquake:
One of Puerto Rico's iconic natural wonders — a soaring stone arch along the southern coast known as Punta Ventana or Window Point — collapsed early Monday as a 5.8 magnitude earthquake rattled the island.
Denniza Colon, a 22-year-old resident of Guayanilla, said she went by the area Monday morning and was shocked to find the arch, a place that she visited frequently as a child, had simply vanished.
"This is really sad," she said in a telephone interview. "It was one of the biggest tourism draws of Guayanilla."
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory of 3.2 million, has been jolted by a series of earthquakes that began on Dec. 28 and have been concentrated along the southern part of the island.
[...] Monday's tremor was the largest yet, striking at 6:32 a.m. local time and knocking several homes off their foundations and causing rockslides along some roads. Puerto Rico's Energy Authority said two substations, in Guánica and Yauco, had been affected and power was out in some areas of the island. However, there were no immediate reports of injuries or casualties.
Also covered at The New York Times.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday January 07 2020, @09:56PM (6 children)
Can't sustain the present world population that way. Not even a quarter of it.
Might be nice as a utopian ideal, but as a thing to imagine happening this century, not great.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday January 08 2020, @12:12AM (5 children)
I sometimes wonder if billions of people could move into advanced tree houses as well as earth-sheltered dwellings in the side of hills. Pollution and transportation would obviously still have a negative impact on the ecosystem but it would be massively better than replacing it with urban concrete. There'd probably be an increased cost of construction initially and a cultural change needed for people to accept it, but it could go a long way to solving the climate crisis and reducing the number of extinctions happening.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @05:04AM
Build them all out of stone and iron/steel. Use them to create new land/habitat whether for humans or animals. Use that new land to slowly spread while taking into consideration the ecosystems you are entwined with.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @07:31AM (3 children)
Actually having most people live in high density cities is more environmentally friendly overall. Especially if you can eventually lower the environmental impact of those cities (through economies of scale and more centralized control over stuff like pollution, water recycling, waste disposal/recycling, etc)[1].
Some simple math:
Total forest area in the world = 4 billion hectares = 8 billion football fields (1 hectare is about the area of two football fields) =.
Total population = 7.5 billion
Spread the population out = a bit over 1 football field per person.
Thus the more the human population is spread out, the less undisturbed forest area there is left for wildlife.
Keeping most of us and our crap in smaller areas is much better for the environment in total even if it screws up those smaller areas.
It leaves a lot more living area for those tigers, rhinos, elephants, and other wildlife that won't do well living in high density apartments.
That said we should probably avoid this sort of thing for humans: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2017/jun/07/boxed-life-inside-hong-kong-coffin-cubicles-cage-homes-in-pictures [theguardian.com]
[1] Handling shit from 50 mega-cities is a big problem but still a more manageable problem than handling shit from 2 billion tree houses (remember not every tree is the same).
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:16PM (2 children)
Are you saying we're all screwed then? Because isn't that pretty much what's already happening?
Why not replace the regular cities with eco-cities. Every building to have a reinforced flat roof with a wild woodland roof garden. Build them all within the same height range with bridges for wildlife to cross.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 09 2020, @03:58AM
Here's an LA architect with an eco city dream -- link to part 1 of a 6-part story:
https://www.smallatlarge.com/2013/01/biomorphic-biosphere-1-launching-pad/ [smallatlarge.com]
I don't really know much about his work, but I get the impression that he was influenced by both Frank Lloyd Wright and also Hollywood. Kind of an odd mix?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @06:26AM
How are we all screwed by living in cities? It's easier and cheaper to do mass public transportation in cities. A single hospital can more efficiently and effectively serve a lot more people in a city than if it was located in a rural area. A single park can be enjoyed by many more people.
See also: https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-greener/863/ [citylab.com]
Because replacing existing cities with your proposal would be both very expensive AND stupid. Your proposal does very little to solve problems for wildlife (better for most of them to stay out of the cities and have zero/fewer interactions with humans), nor does it really solve problems for humans (since it's a lot more expensive).
Allowing buildings to have rooftop parks is fine (if they pass regulatory approval) but trying to have all buildings near the same height with gardens on top and bridges joining them is ridiculous.
Making cities more environmentally friendly has been happening in many countries (especially developed ones). Air getting less smoggy, waterways getting less polluted, etc.
In the future most buildings should probably collect rainwater (reduces flash floods and in some cases the water can be reused). As for sunlight - solar would be nice too but there's also stuff like this: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/cooling-paint-drops-temperature-any-surface [sciencemag.org]