Creating Environmentally Safe Cities for the Future
Those, who are local and state leaders are faced with being unsustainable and are faced with the real consequences of their own CO2 emissions. It is up to those leaders to lead us into the future. We must start from our smaller communities and work our way up to the larger cities. That is why they have the biggest incentive of solving the problems we have created. It is being forgotten or not even thought of by those local and some state leaders. The time has come for them to look for new ways of curbing those CO2 levels at the local and state level. Our cities produce 70% of the global emissions, this is why I am proposing the rebuilding of our cities to create true 21st century sustainable cities for our future.
The new alternative energies must play a major role in powering our cities for the future. Solar & Wind is now more cost effective as traditional forms of power and will only improve in time and investment. Renewable’s supplied more energy to the U.S. energy grid than coal in 2019. Today unsubsidized district scale solar power is cheaper than gasoline & coal across much of the country.
Converting the energy needs of vehicles and electricity from fossil fuels to cleaner alternative energy sources will have a huge impact on our cities in terms of costs, air quality and human health. Mediocrity or half hearted-efforts from our local officials, will no longer help us achieve the results we need to move us from our created Climate Crisis and our current weak efforts of moving forward.
We need to make changes at the local and state levels A.S.A.P. Immediate action must be taken. So what is the best effort that can be taken?
- STOP – coal burning power plants immediately. Level big fines on the power companies until they move to natural gas as a temporary fix until more sustainable fixtures can be put in place.
I have recently read where in the U.K. some cities are beginning to take their own power unto themselves and not relying upon their national govt., to move toward more environmental government changes, where they’re creating their own laws surrounding healthcare, guns and the environment. I see the beginning of City/States becoming more self-sufficient with self-contained urban hubs. Our national government in DC needs to support these communities in these efforts.
An issue to consider, with the emergence of autonomous vehicles will have on cities, there will be an emergence of private firms to partnership with cities to bring about lower cost & greater efficiencies and faster roll outs of firms offering autonomous rider services. These new companies will become larger and in more control of some cities traffic congestion along with an increase of personal data obtained from these services. These cities should manage these operations, but, do to the massive amounts of computer processing power and storage required, they’re most likely to be controlled by big tech. This is why I would propose that these companies become a part of a city’s infrastructure. Leaving this too big tech and the internet will leave cities and their citizens vulnerable to data breaches and annoyance from hackers and data theft. These services should be operated on a closed self-contained system within a given city’s infrastructure, maintaining personal data securely. Data will become increasingly important for those seeking power in the 2020’s.