Explain Five Ways To Make Canadian Cities Sustainable

Describe realistic strategies that Canadians could take to reduce their negative impact on land, water and the atmosphere.

Urban sustainability is the idea that an urban area can be organised without excessive reliance on the surrounding countryside and be able to power itself with renewable sources of energy. The aim of this is to create the smallest possible environmental footprint and to produce the lowest quantity of pollution possible, to efficiently use land, compost used materials, recycle it or convert waste-to-energy, and to make the urban area overall contribution to climate change minimal. Therefore allowing the next generations and future generations to have the required resources without compromising them. However sustainably needs to focus also on other issues such as crime and economic factors.

financial gain but is not best for the long-term or the trees. It is the

Nearly fourteen years ago, the Calgary-based oil enterprise "Enbridge" announced its most controversial project yet; to build a $6.5-billion oil-duct from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia (Canadian Press, 2013, para. 1). It was to be named the "Northern Gateway Pipeline”.Enbridge 's preliminary announcement on the sixth of March, 2002, not only divided the province of British Columbia on whether environmental or economic prosperity was more important, but the country of Canada as a whole. Although the name "Northern Gateway" is well-known in many Western-Canadian households, few truly know the details of what this project entails. Many environmentalists and economists (Mortillara, Nicole, Global News, 2014) debate the benefits and the negative-impacts that this pipeline will have on Canadians and Canadian society. Others, though, are trying to understand what steps are being taken to ensure environmental sustainability during construction, and for the many years after its projected completion.This multi-billion dollar project has many vocal opposers, and a seemingly equal amount of environmental risks that accompanies it, all adding up to the general consensus that this duct is not worth the economic benefits that it would produce.

Bigio, G and Dahiya, B, (2004) “Urban Environment and Infrastructure towards Livable Cities.” The World Bank, USA.

Oh, you don't know too much about trees, do you? Well let me tell you that trees are amazing, and I mean, we literally breathe the air they are creating, and they clean up our pollution, our carbon, store and purify water, give us medicine that cures ours diseases and food that feeds us.

Canadians do not need to rethink how they are currently treating our environment, as they have previously done that. Citizens have already made significant changes in how they live their lives, and Canada has seen an overall improvement in our environment situation. After the government began to certify certain merchandise as environmentally-friendly, Canadians have become more aware of the fact that Canada needs to be a more green country. They started buying these products, contributing to bettering Canada’s environment. Yet it may seem unrealistic that by buying more eco-friendly items, one is positively contributing to the environment, it is very true. The only people who are in charge of the environmental standards are the consumers. And

Canada is one of the developed nations in the world and with that comes a certain type of lifestyle that its citizens are accustomed to and often expect. This lifestyle is definitely not conscious of the environment at most times, however is trying to improve or at least find some kind of alternative to environmental problems that we can’t actually fix because they’ve become an important part of our everyday life. For that, our lifestyle has been measured by way of an ecological footprint and the results obviously haven’t been something to be proud of. Although there are many reasons why the ecological footprint of Canada is so high, one of the reasons is because of our excessive fossil fuel emissions from our cars, trucks, busses and planes.

One of the largest contributors to a high ecological footprint is related to personal transportation and the construction, maintenance and operations of buildings3. When more people are living in an area, the amount of energy and transportation needed decreases and so does the area’s ecological footprint3. This occurs because as walking increases, the amount of personal driving decreases. Another way Vancouver is working to reduce its ecological footprint is by protecting land in the “Green Zone”7.

Germanwatch research Indicates that Canada is the eight largest carbon dioxide producer in the world. According to their recent data, Canada was one of the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, which is around 1.67 percent of global Co2 emissions in 2015

While the plan appears to be thorough and complete, this very characteristic may also prove to be a weakness. As sustainable technologies and even planning methodologies improve, a plan as cohesive as the current Portland Plan may leave little breathing room to accommodate the integration of future improvements without large investments and comprehensive re-planning. In addition, plans as comprehensive as this one is tend to leave less room for the creative expression, which adds diversity and charm to the cities neighborhoods. In terms of raw efficiency, the choice to make this plan a joint effort between the city government and the citizens themselves, though a noble cause, can cause each step to take much longer, and even the delay of the project in its entirety due to the volatility of entire populations. One final risk of the plan, is the risk associated with time. As any program needs money to continue on, people must continue to vote for the Portland Plan’s various programs over the years in order for them to maintain funding, so that they may continue bringing about the sustainable Portland as exists within the plan. The plan is to take place over 25-years, over the course of which any number of variables may change. The issue is things may change over the course of those 25-years, that could cause people to lose support for the plans various programs. Likewise, over

Not only do forests attribute to maintaining a healthy balance of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but they also reduce the effect of natural disasters by acting as natural barriers. Known as one of the most polluted cities on Earth, Beijing suffers attacks from something you’d least expect. Although, the pollution by itself already makes the city difficult to live in, massive sandstorms take place in the spring to make it even less hospitable (Zhou). As mentioned before, trees are incredible for maintaining healthy soil, preventing erosion, and absorbing pollution, but in Beijing, they have no forests in the area. When China was on its fast track to becoming one of the world’s largest exporters, they deforested much of its land mass.

Campbell (1996), argues that it is necessary to focus on three major points, being the environment, economy and society when planning a sustainable city. He constructs a prism which holds each of these features at a

Urban planning in Australia has a significant role to play in ensuring the future sustainability of Australian cities.

The establishment of green belts in the city is a highly effective measure in reduction of pollution. Not only is this method cost effective and ascetically pleasing it also ranked high on Stormcades survey of acceptance. Planting trees is a great way to control carbon dioxide