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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Cities have an important role in making progress on sustainability and climate change issues. And for them to achieve this, urban residents need to be involved in achieving set goals. This means that cities need to provide opportunities and guidance to their residents to help them make progress.
While national targets—like Canada's goal to reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions to 110 megatons in 2030 from 191 megatons in 2019—are important, they do not mean much to a city resident or an organization.
It can be difficult to determine how to address large and complex national issues. These need to be translated from theoretical commitments into measurable goals to create a sense of commitment and urgency. For example, Canadian emission targets need to be broken down into actionable objectives at the city level, which would make it more meaningful to its residents, who can then make small contributions that amount to significant outcomes for the city and beyond.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are recognized as strategically important for sustainability. They cannot be achieved without commitment at every scale, from individuals to different levels of government.
Public and private organizations in cities can set the stage to engage everyone to contribute to shared goals. The SDGs may seem large and difficult to achieve, but they can be localized and broken down into achievable pieces.
This is being done by dozens of cities internationally who are reporting their progress in voluntary local reviews. The European Aalborg Charter is evidence of a can-do attitude among cities.
Urban leadership needs to develop a shared vision that guides residents on their individual and collective contributions. The combined achievements at the urban level contribute to global improvements. Measurable indicators and targets are set—such as monitoring energy consumption—reflect a commitment to targets.
Taking collaborative action on larger goals can address concerns with leadership that have been recently reported in the media. The response of world leaders to the ongoing climate challenges and the global COVID-19 pandemic have produced a global crisis of trust. People need to see action and be part of the solutions that are being proposed.
To build trust, city leadership needs partners, collaborators and residents to work with them on setting goals, developing a measurement system and collecting data. There are a number of available platforms and technologies to assist with developing a measurement system and engaging residents in reporting.
[...] Establishing measurable goals at the city level needs and will result in the engagement of residents. Everybody wins in the long run—quality of life improves, urban governance is more effective, and businesses develop more efficient models. Canada has lagged behind other countries in localizing sustainability targets identified in the Canadian 2030 Agenda—for Canadian cities, there is a lot more to be done.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Friday July 29 2022, @11:55AM (9 children)
For me, a big warning sign of unsustainable policy is something that requires commitment from everyone. What happens if we're not on board - say because it's terrible policy that will cause more harm than benefit? For example, the government level responses to climate change and covid have on occasion been worse than doing the ostrich strategy of sticking one's head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday July 29 2022, @12:33PM (3 children)
We all commit to stopping at red lights, even though we don't want to. We all commit to using public toilets rather than pissing on the street, even though that's less convenient. And as a result, the world is a better place.
So no, I don't see demanding a certain level of commitment from everybody as necessarily being bad policy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 29 2022, @05:27PM (2 children)
Here widespread commitment happens because there is a clear common good. Wrecks would quickly pile up at intersections and shit appear in the streets. And the drawbacks to following those rules are mild. We don't have that with climate change. My take is that this article is just a vacuous appeal to city governments to act as propaganda agents. No value has been shown for the exercise.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday July 29 2022, @07:25PM (1 child)
Can you explain why you're so certain that no value at all would be had in trying to address climate change that you're unwilling to consider any plan at all to achieve it? Because otherwise, all I'm reading here is a drawn out way of saying "I don't want to".
Because what I see happening right now is large areas of agricultural land starting to turn into desert (exactly as predicted, but sooner and faster), which is going to affect everybody's ability to eat. Oh, and wildfires burning down neighborhoods regularly too (again, exactly as predicted, but worse). Avoiding famine and mass casualties from large fires seem to me to be a pretty big public good, but what do I know?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 29 2022, @10:59PM
Because I've seen the plans. Massive reductions [soylentnews.org] in a few decades, remember? Ban gasoline cars [soylentnews.org] by 2035, remember?
Nutty disregard for human life, it is.
It'd happen anyway, because this is a land mismanagement problem not a climate change problem.
Because people are building those neighborhoods in vegetation that burns down. Funny how your examples are completely irrelevant to climate change? The problems and their solutions are present whether or not there is climate change.
Barely enough to get run over on the internets.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Friday July 29 2022, @12:43PM (2 children)
"For example, the government level responses to climate change and covid have on occasion been worse than doing the ostrich strategy of sticking one's head in the sand and hoping the problem goes away."
Government has little to nothing to do with it, it is the parasite corporations and the filthy rich bastards that control them standing in the way of climate change action. Those wanting to keep the status quo going for their profit at the expense of everything else on the planet, their buying of the scummy politicians for this purpose keeps progress from happening. For the covid it was the seekers of chaos, death and destruction wanting to prove government did not work, for their political benefit no matter how many of their fellow citizens they kill, obstructing any efforts to put effective controls into place that was the problem. Those forces still exert their efforts to kill even more on both topics causing more chaos and destruction every day, unfortunately a good percentage of our population are no mind morons easily manipulated into believing their garbage and opposing progress on any topic at all times. If it is bad and needs correction then they get out with their cries of their God given rights being violated, those ones in the Bible saying to go forth killing and maiming people with weapons like guns, with spreading disease far and wide, making the planet uninhabitable, the list goes on forever basically...
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @03:34PM
“HELLO—WAKE UP BETTER TEAM. You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.”
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 29 2022, @11:22PM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @01:17PM (1 child)
You get kicked out of the city, town, etc until you get to live in the wilderness. Oh, wait...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2022, @03:27PM
Haven't you heard? Top down leadership is best, according to 9/10 top leaders. Here's the supporting evidence [homedepot.com] from Think Tanks and elite Universities.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 29 2022, @12:17PM (2 children)
Islands of Faith, on Netflix for another couple of weeks. Shot in Indonesia, audio in Indonesian, looks at sustainability through the lens of Indonesians and their various faiths. I especially like the approach / viewpoint of the keepers of the sacred forest.
Indonesia is a country with 12x the population of Florida (~80% the population of the US) in about 10x the landmass of Florida, and they haven't killed all their elephants - yet.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Friday July 29 2022, @12:57PM (1 child)
"I especially like the approach / viewpoint of the keepers of the sacred forest.
Indonesia is a country with 12x the population of Florida (~80% the population of the US) in about 10x the landmass of Florida, and they haven't killed all their elephants - yet. "
Give them time they have not had enough of it yet to strip the place bare for more of the palm oil production. With many more years of increases coming down the pipeline, just like happens in the Amazon right now too. Despite supposed agreements on the controlling of it the destruction goes on unabated in both places and will until not a tree is left standing. The people making the money from it do not care about anything but the money to be made from the raping of the planet.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 29 2022, @02:28PM
They had a segment on aquatic preserves, and made reference to the cyanide poisoning and use of explosives in the corals to harvest fish that were common not so long ago. They're trying to stop that now, but you can see from the footage, their reefs are F-ed up bigtime - it's going to take decades or longer for them to recover, if they can recover at all with rising sea temperatures. They're taking a good approach with "no take" designations, but it certainly would have been better to start that kind of preservation 30-50 years ago when there was something really worth preserving.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday July 30 2022, @03:01AM (1 child)
NO city is "sustainable". All cities rely on the rural hinterlands for food, water, fuel, and energy.
You know, the same places these cities want to cut off the fertilizer to, because "sustainability".
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 30 2022, @09:36AM
You living in Sri Lanka [reuters.com], bro?