Ä SUST_AG (1:352/111) ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ECHOMAIL015 Ä Msg : 111 of 134 From : Scott Parks 1:343/70 Tue 05 Jan 93 11:21 To : All Subj : compact cities ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ From: jdr@starflight.Corp.Sun.COM (Jon Roland) Newsgroups: ca.environment @Subject: Compact Cities Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. The discussions on this newsgroup are constructive, but are missing a key element which, if it continues to be neglected, will render all our other well-intentioned efforts useless. If there is a single most important impediment to the solution of all our ecological (and in the long term, economic) problems, it is our commitment to living in settlements that are scattered over the landscape. We can see that if human civilization is to survive, we must soon recycle 100% of the materials on which that civilization depends, but fail to see that it will never be possible to do that if the area of the interface between the economy and the environment is too large. Try to design a life-support system for civilized humanity, and what you come up with, if the design specification calls for it to endure not just for a few decades or centuries but for thousands or even millions of years, is a system of cities build and run like multigeneration starships -- compact, sealed, and totally self-sufficient in materials. If fact, if you really want them to last, you have to put them underground or in space. There is a myth among environmentalists that the life-support system for humanity is and must always remain the natural ecosystem, but in fact the natural ecosystem can support at most, perhaps, a hundred million persons, worldwide, at a paleolithic level of technology (no herding, no cutting trees with stone axes, no political organization above the village level). The present world population is sustained, for a little while, by the minerals extracted from the geosystem. When they are exhausted, we can expect the world population to fall to below the then carrying capacity of the ecosystem, which by then is likely to be a very small number. It might take several hundred years to finally get there, but once the downward slide begins, it may be difficult to take a different course. It is possible, in principle, to totally separate the life-support system of humanity from the natural ecosystem -- indeed, it is necessary to do so if both of them are to survive. That means starship cities that recycle everything -- even air. Unless and until we begin to actually design and build such cities, and get everyone to move into them, all our other efforts will buy us, at best, a couple of decades. Strictly speaking, a large population and a high level of consumption are only problems if people do not live in such closed systems. Earth could support a million such starship-cities, each with a million inhabitants living in civilized comfort, for the next five billion years, without occupying more than one percent of the land surface, and none at all if they are built underground. The natural ecosystem could then be allowed to return to something like its original state, or even be restored. A limited number of people could still visit the wilderness -- under controlled conditions. The surface would not even be needed for food production. Food could be produced in factories. We inherit an instinct to spread out, which served us well when we lived by hunting and gathering, and continued to serve us as we began to develop surface agriculture, but the laws of physics compel us to now overcome that instinct. Either that, or return to the stone age, taking the natural ecosystem down with us. Serious environmentalists need to be uniting to get the first of such cities designed and built while there is still time. --- GEcho 1.00/beta+ * Origin: Helix/Intentional Future/HST-DS - (206)783-6368 (1:343/70) Ä SUST_AG (1:352/111) ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ECHOMAIL015 Ä Msg : 113 of 134 From : Scott Parks 1:343/70 Tue 05 Jan 93 11:25 To : All Subj : Impediment to survival ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ From: Jon Roland Newsgroups: ca.environment @Subject: Main Impediment to Survival Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. There is a need to discuss population and its relationship to ecological and economic problems in somewhat different terms than is usually done. It is beyond the scope of this posting to try to cover the subject adequately. I am writing a book that will treat the subject at greater length. However, a few points should be considered: (1) We need to distinguish between the natural ecosystem, the geosystem, and the life-support system for humanity and its civilization. The first two overlap, but although the third now largely coincides with the first two, it can in principle be separated from them entirely. (2) As hunter-gatherers, the world population of humanity was probably between 4 and 100 million, and the latter figure is probably also the carrying capacity of the natural ecosystem for humanity. During most of that period, not much more exploitation of the geosystem (minerals) was done than that done by other lifeforms. With the advent of agriculture and mining, that changed rapidly. The invention of herding alone was sufficient to eventually enable humanity to destroy the natural ecosystem, and given only a few thousand years, even a technology of stone axes would have destroyed all the world's forests after humanity discovered the rudiments of sanitation, nutrition, and disease control. The development of political organizations larger than the village was the most important factor, however, because it led to the breakdown of traditional population control measures that had held populations well below carrying capacity. (3) The present world population of 5.5 billion is sustained only by the consumption of geosystem resources. If present trends continue, they will approach exhaustion, and we can expect world population to drop to below the then carrying-capacity of the natural ecosystem, which, because of the ways we have and will have degraded it, will be much less than 100 million -- perhaps less than 1 million -- worldwide. This will not happen overnight. It may take several hundred years. In the process, humanity will return to the stone age. Along the way, as civilization collapses in fits of upheaval, tragic events will occur. Almost all of the social and political turmoil of recent years are examples of this kind of thing. Earth will be reduced to a barren wasteland. Space resources are not a solution for Earth. If consumed as terrestrial resources are now, they will only result in toxic metal contamination on a scale that will render the surface unhabitable. (4) The real cost of geosystem and ecosystem resources are already beginning to impair economic growth, despite new technology. We may have, in fact, already begun to peak out and may now be beginning a long decline, punctuated by several rapid collapses along the way. We may have already passed the point where it is politically possible to adopt the kinds of measures that would avoid catastrophe. (5) The main obstacle to avoiding economic and ecological catastrophe is our commitment to living in scattered cities, towns, suburbs and farms. Such an infrastructure is fundamentally unsustainable, no matter what conservation regime may be imposed. The only alternative is to begin to build cities designed and operated like multigeneration starships, intended to carry their inhabitants into a distant future using only the resources they carry with them -- compact, sealed, recycling all resources, even air -- and moving everyone into them and off the surface of the planet, except perhaps for occasional visits under strictly controlled circumstances. (6) We could, in principle, build a million such cities, each holding a million inhabitants, on Earth, with footprints totaling less than 1 percent of the Earth's land surface, and maintain humanity in civilized comfort for not only the 500 million years that the surface of Earth is expected to remain habitable until increase solar radiation triggers a runaway greenhouse effect, but, underground, for the entire 5 billion years remaining until an expanding sun destroys the planet. The natural ecosystem could be restored to some semblance (7) There is no viable alternative between such starship cities and descent to a new stone age, except, perhaps, to build such starship cities in space and later return to Earth to restore it after the humans left behind destroy their civilization and the natural ecosystem. (8) Such starship cities can be build with near-term technology, but they will not be cheap. We can probably not afford to build more than one a year, for the next hundred years, by which time the political situation outside of them will become desperate and the cities will need to be self-sufficient and defensible. They are, therefore, a solution for only a few million people. There is no solution for most of the present 5.5 billion people on Earth or for their descendants -- they won't have any. (9) Present discussions of measures to limit pollution and increase recycling efforts are exercises in futility, and miss the most important point. Development, along present lines, is not even an option, even if we totally dismiss the interests of future generations. The imperatives of our time are the survival of human civilization and the natural ecosystem. Social, economic, and political justice are not options for our age. All we can hope to do is lay the foundation for a distant future in which these values may become realizable. (10) It is left as an exercise for the reader to estimate the orders of magnitude of the numbers of people who may live under each of these alternatives over the time remaining to Earth, and to reflect on our moral responsibility to them given that the choice among those alternatives will be made by our generation. These points are discussed in more detail in an upcoming article in The Futurist, a publication of the World Future Society. They are based on rigorous input-output analyses and computer modeling of the systems involved over geologic time spans. starflt@uunet.uu.net, jdr@starflight.corp.sun.com Jon Roland Starflight Corporation, 1755 E Bayshore Rd #9A, Redwood City, CA 94063-4142, 415/361-8141 --- GEcho 1.00/beta+ * Origin: Helix/Intentional Future/HST-DS - (206)783-6368 (1:343/70) Ä SUST_AG (1:352/111) ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ ECHOMAIL015 Ä Msg : 114 of 134 From : Scott Parks 1:343/70 Tue 05 Jan 93 11:27 To : All Subj : compact city sources ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ From: jdr@starflight.Corp.Sun.COM (Jon Roland) Newsgroups: ca.environment @Subject: Sources on Compact Cities Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sources of information relating to compact cities: Designs for possible urban megastructures, and actually building one: Cosanti Foundation HC 74 Box 4136 Mayer, AZ 86333 602/632-7135 Attn: Scott Davis -!- Promotes large projects, including complete cities: Laura Lyne World Development Council 40 Technology Park Norcross, GA 30092-9934 404/446-6996 -!- Companies with designs for proposed city projects: Taisei Corporation 25-1, Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, 1-Chome Tokyo, Japan Phone: 81-33-348-1111 Attn: Yoshihiko Kohno, Project Manager Projects: Alice City, Jonathan (floating islands) Takenaka Corporation 2-5-14 Minamisuna, Koto-ku Tokyo, Japan Phone: 81-33-26167 Attn: Masato Ujigawa, Chief Research Engineer Project: Sky City 1000 Shimizu Construction Company Ltd 2-16-1 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku Tokyo, Japan Phone: 81-33-25534 Attn: Teruzo Yoshino, President Projects: various space projects, including hotel -!- Does research on designs for space cities: Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) 6001 S Loop E Houston, TX 77033 Attn: Gui Trotti Phone: 713/643-0094 (Bell & Trotti) Phone: 713/749-1181 (Rice University) -!- Authors of the book Compact City, San Francisco: Freeman, 1973: George Dantzig Stanford University Dept Operations Research Stanford, CA 94305 415/723-1304 Thomas Saaty U Pittsburgh 322 Mervis Hall Pittsburgh, PA 15260 412/648-1539 -!- Covers developments in the field: World Future Society 4916 St Elmo Av Bethesda, MD 20814 301/656-8274 Attn: Ed Cornish -!- jdr@starflight.corp.sun.com, starflt@uunet.uu.net Jon Roland Starflight Corporation, 1755 E Bayshore Rd #9A, Redwood City, CA 94063-4142, 415/361-8141 --- GEcho 1.00/beta+ * Origin: Helix/Intentional Future/HST-DS - (206)783-6368 (1:343/70)