The City Of Orlando Florida

As a nation, we have to look at what the future would be for our children, their children and the generations ahead. We can start with participating in recycle programs, investing in clean energy and ways to reduce destruction of our forests." Without Americans constant need to consume, the environment would have plenty of time to replenish the resources it provide us." "NIEHS Environmental Coloring Book." National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an official government website for Kids. 02 Apr. 2009 .

One of the most vigorously debated topics is the issue of sustainability. These include climate change, overpopulation, pollution, and ignorance to the damage being done to the environment. The climate that all living things have come to rely upon is changing because of global warming. Today, sustainability has become a focal point and a significant part of life. Sustainability is defined as the ability to meet current environmental, ecological, economics, social and cultural needs without risking the ability of future generations to meet those same needs. What does the Best American Science Wtg. 2014 teach us about sustainability, and what makes the paradigm shift to a sustainable planet? These different authors explain with example how sustainability can be achieved and also the different points of views that exist. “TV as birth control,” by Fred Pearce, “Why the brain prefers paper,” by Ferris Jabrs, “Bringing them back to life,” by Carl Zimmer and “A race to save the orange by altering its DNA”, by Amy Harmon’s – reveals that cultural sustainability involves efforts to preserve the actual and evasive cultural elements of sociality such as heritage, educational opportunities and public policies, in way that promote environmental, economic and social sustainability.

The environment is important to protect considering that people live and breathe in the atmosphere it provides. Investing time in activities that protect the environment hasn’t always been a priority, but as greenhouse gas emissions, the use of energy, and other harmful impacts on the environment increased, individuals began to speak up on what should be done. As the world’s population continues to grow exponentially, the impacts society produces will in turn continue to increase unless something is done about it. Although the idea of an environmentally sustainable community has remained on the minds of the concerned public throughout the past decade, as companies and universities became more invested in the idea, new ways of taking action and implementing policies were developed and pursued.

Regardless of what one thinks about American consumerism or our high levels of production, it is a fact that we live in a throw-away society. What that means is that we produce a lot, throw away a lot, and most things are planned to become obsolete within a few years. Recently, there has been an unprecedented effort to correct these negatives habits of our society, seeing as they can’t last forever. This effort, aptly called sustainability, is one of the most grandiose undertakings in American society today. Universities, corporations, households, and everything in-between, are all striving towards sustainability, but what actually is it? According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, “To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations” (EPA). With such a broad definition, there are plenty of critics and skeptics that say that such a proposition is too idealistic and therefore impossible. In fact, I agree with that faction and acknowledge that with such a loose definition, it will never be truly possible to be sustainable. However, my rebuttal, as it seems natural to say, is that nearly everything we do or strive for in America is, in a way, too idealistic. From that, I assert that we need to make a deliberate effort, as both consumers and producers, to work towards sustainability to move away from our throw-away tendencies.

Coming into this class I believed sustainability needed to be taught as a mandatory way of life, relying on personal change in order to lessen our environmental footprint. Although my knowledge of sustainability has grown, this new information has only reaffirmed my initial beliefs of what sustainability is. Sustainability is a necessary practice that will only become more important as the population rises. With an increasing population, we face a growing strain on our natural resources. The major point that has changed since my first position paper, was my exclusion of the government and corporate role in the struggle for sustainability and global equality. Immoral corporate control of natural resources, such as water, is a vital factor

School is a fundamental location for the child’s mind to grow and prosper and the child is able to socialize and adhere to the environment that he or she learns about. In addition to education, simply being a component within the institution also formulates our beliefs. Schools are a prime institution to learn about green education in which it will prepare students to be sustainable in the future. In Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia, the protagonist, Will, travels to an ecological utopia where he learns how to live in a sustainable or an Ecotopian manner. Unlike the fictional story of Ecotopia, the United States’ way of living is vastly different. I am going compare and contrast the elementary educational systems and the role of teachers,

I was inspired by my own transpersonal experiences as a child, as well as an adult noticing the need for an improved curriculum (in which area, be more precise here). The purpose of my creative project is to engage children in holistic, nature-based, learning experiences to become cultural leaders and ecologically mindful members of society. Children are the future, and the time is now to start them on a journey of sustainable learning. Research has shown that when families become more involved with schools, the students in those schools do better. The creation of afterschool programs has spurred such changes in communities across the country. I found there is a need for this type of curriculum because most school programs have only supervised play and homework assistance. A sustainable education for children would foster and promote future cultural leaders for a better tomorrow.

Due to the sweeping vision and hard work of conservationists such as Rachel Carson, the environmental movement witnessed great advancement in their activities. The beneficiaries of the movement are ordinary people who can drink uncontaminated water and breathe clean air due to legislation such as Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act of the 1960s and the 1970s, which were the direct result of its efforts. Unfortunately, since then the environmental movement has been consistently defeated not only in legislations but also in fickle public opinion. A poll results indicating that 41 percent of Americans think that environmentalists are radicals not reasonable people in 2000 underlies the rising anti-environmentalism atmosphere when compared to the 1996 level of 32 percent. Even faced with such a deterioration in public opinion, the leaders of the environmental movement are steadfastly convinced by their past successes to consider their victory inevitable. One such leader said, “we are on the right track” (Shellenberger and Nordhaus 6).

“America has a problem and the world has a problem,” (Friedman 1) and this problem stems from our effect on the environment. As America lives off of the land and improve it for our needs, we are not taking into consideration our need for a clean environment. Pollution and weakening species are continuing to plague our world, creating unsafe and unhealthy conditions for all life on planet earth. Although, recent years have shown small progress into improving the environment’s condition, the United States has not been able to pick up true and steady growth on the green movement. The United States’ environment will continue to dwindle until the mass mobilization of environmentalism is completely backed by governmental authority.

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

Recently I read a book titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities written by Jane Jacobs (1961), which basically criticizes the urban planning processes generally employed in the planning, renovation and rebuilding of cities. Though it was published in 1961, the book is still considered a relevant piece of work and offers great insight to the various and sometimes ignored or unseen facets of the way a city organizes itself despite the city planning process. The book is considered many professionals involved in the planning and design of cities a “must read” even today. In the book, Jacob’s states that she has identified four criteria which must be present in an urbanized environment for it to be place which will naturally promote a self-sustaining, and resilient socioeconomic character. The set of the four criteria can be used a framework and a tool that will aid the planning process of the “new urbanism.” The wave of change to be more sustainable is gaining some steam at present in Phoenix. Which is a relatively large (7 million people) in the metropolitan area which is located in the southwest United states. The City of Phoenix is my employer and where I currently reside. Therefore, it must be said, that my conclusion’s may have some element of bias in them even though I will make a very concerted effort to avoid it. I expect that my evaluation of the presence or absence of the four criteria will provide a point of reference which can be used to predict the

Edward Glaeser has written an informative book that unveils its optimistic view of the city: The Triumph of Cities. Glaeser, a professor of economics at Harvard University, is a brilliant economist who is credited with the recent revitalization of the field of urban economy. So far could their ideas through numerous but somewhat scattered newspaper articles and academic papers whose reading required prior training and considerable effort. Instead, the book is a simple, comprehensive and documented essay on multiple aspects of the city as its origin, development, operation, crisis, disappearance and revitalization.

While entering the 21st century we are realizing the after effects of the bad urban policies which are resulting in abnormal weather, pollution of air, water and ground. Now in the present scenario, the concept of economic development is looked upon as a policy which brings only momentary prosperity and lacks the welfare of the public. I believe this is the time to change our consciousness and take a step towards creating a better urban environment with efficient urban policies which could cope up with the rapidly changing world.

Designing a city from scratch is a remarkable thought experiment but ultimately fails at implementation because we always approach it from the perspective of “how can we create a new city that solves problems of existing cities.” It’s less a process driven by design and more by critique. Urban living has paved its way into modern society, yet the vision for a city has changed over time. Large settlements need planning to grow; yet differences in minds is what leads to the modifications of a city, in return makes a city so unique. Alterations in opinions are what thrives urban life, still these differences are what skews the view of how others see a city compared to myself. They say the eye of the beholder deems beauty; this could explain

Urbanisation has become somewhat of a fast growing phenomenon in the last 40 years especially, but it was not always the case. In the year 1800 only 5% of the global population was urbanized (DeVries, 1984) but following the agricultural and industrial revolutions, that number grew. In England for example the urban population jumped from 17% in 1801 to 72% in 1891 (Watson, 1993), and according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population division, in 2011 52.% of people were living in urban areas worldwide (United Nations, 2012). The same department estimate that by the year 2050 close to 70% of the worlds population will be living in urban areas, which will equate to over 6 billion people (United Nations, 2012). The areas with the highest urban populations currently are those in Latin America, with 76% of the population living in urban areas in the year 2000, however South and East Asia are set to have the biggest jump in urban population in the next 40 years (UN,2004). Today the largest and fastest growing cities are in developing countries (Envio Facts 2001).This data shows that urbanisation is responsible for massive growth, obviously in urban settlements. This massive growth is bound to have some effects on the environment both negative and positive.