Your Questions About Green Living

The Expert answers:

You could focus on sustainable fisheries, or the forest industry, or recycled building materials, or public transit in urban/suburban areas.

The Expert answers:

The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development

Sustainable Development is one of those topics that many people have a hard time wrapping their heads around.It’s about creating societies in which people have enough health sustaining foods to eat, have adequate shelter, nurturing communities, socially contributing work, without destroying the ecosystems that we depend on for our survival in the process.

Sustainable development means building our communities so that we can all live comfortably without consuming all of our resources. We make an impact on our environment through how we live our lives

The Expert answers:

Sustainable development is making changes in the environment in a manner that minimizes negative impacts in the changes as well as with the materials and methods.
The opposite is to use up or irrevocably damage resources.

Building a home with local renewable materials is sustainable.
Clear cutting the last cedar trees to make a parking lot is not.

The Expert answers:

There is a movement called the ‘new urbanism’ (google either new urbanism or richard florida to find out more) that proposes small walking villages where people dont have to drive to work. These villages may also have microgeneration of electricity, recycle water and have sustainable gardens (producing food). These types of communities require master planning through the production of a detailed planning document so they will probably only work for large areas catering for a population of several thousand people.

Sustainable development is a bit of a plastic term as something that uses a kW less of electricity may be seen as being more sustainable than its predecessor. I think a policy of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) is a good one but it will only work if it is supported by good planning law. If the policy requires that all new office buildings are of at least a 4 (preferably a 5) star energy efficiency or that any that arent must pay an annual tax on their properties (thus penalising bad development) this may work.

Urban consolidation has been proposed as a way of producing sustainable development through better utilisation of infrastructure and the like, yet often the development that occurs is not energy or water efficient.

As you are the student I am not here to provide you with the answers, that is your job but hopefully my ideas are of some use.

The Expert answers:

I Love Geogrpahy.
Here are some tips…

Congestion Charge
Low Emission Zone for Heavy Good Vehicles
Barclays Bike Scheme – you join and can use bikes for free or a small charge to cycle around London
Recycling schemes
Go to Transport For London site for ideas.
Good Luck