2/3 Flashcards
Sessions 9-
Types of Greenspaces
Parks, gardens, fields, trees, “green cover.”
Naturalization Benefits
-Biodiversity
-Xeriscaping: landscaping an area that requires little to no irrigation.
-Pollinator habitat
-Cultural landscape
Green Spaces’ Role in Stormwater Management
-Promoting water infiltration.
-Replenishment of groundwater and reduction of stormwater discharge.
-Can reduce impact of flooding, pollution and erosion.
Urban Heat Island Effect (Green Spaces)
Relation to human health and wellbeing to the heat island effect.
-Impermeable dark surfaces (asphalt roads/roofs) increase heat.
-Buildings can decrease wind flow.
-Green spaces can counter these effects.
Public Health Benefits of Green Spaces
-Psychological wellbeing
-Increases physical exercise
-Increased social cohesion
-Environmental benefits: air filtration, urban heat impacts
Economic Benefits of Green Spaces
-Decreased cost for cooling
-Decreased cost compared to “grey” infrastructure (water management)
-Economic valuation of green spaces (like cost reduction to health benefits)
-Increased property values
Environmental Justice (Origins)
In 1980s, North Carolina chose a predominantly African-American community with high percent of low-income people as a site of toxic landfill.
-Focuses on distribution of benefits and burden/risks typically in a spacial way.
Inequities Related to Green Spaces
Distributional: less overall access to green spaces for low-income and minority populations.
Usage: Park congestion is higher in low-income and minority neighbourhoods.
Barriers to usage of green space: safety, feelings of inclusion.
Gentrification Definition
Influx of economic capital (wealthier residents and businesses) into a formerly disinvested area, which can result in displacement.
(Like the effects of the New York’s High Line to the local)
“Just Green Enough” Key Points
-Design green space projects that are explicitly shaped by community concerns, needs and desires instead of conventional urban design or ecological restoration approaches.
-May also mean creating spaces in smaller scale and scattered throughout the area, which creates more spatial distribution and avoiding a central point for property development.
-Anti-gentrification policies.
Children and Green Spaces Benefits
-Cognitive benefits for children’s attentional functioning.
-Positive health outcomes such as increased physical exercise and motor abilities.
-Psychological benefits such as reduced stress.
What is Greenhouse Effect
~31% of the 5.4 million EJ/year is a direct reflection off the cloud tops (albedo)
~69% is absorbed by the atmosphere, land and oceans, and at nighttime, re-radiated out in space in the infrared region of the EMS.
-It keeps the average earth temperature at 15degC.
-Acting like a glass of a greenhouse which lets visible light to enter at day but opaque to infrared light trying to escape..
Types of Greenhouse Gases
CO2
Methane
Nitrogen
Oxygen Gas
GHG
CO
H2O
Climate Change Historical Development
- Jean-Baptiste Fourier linked changing planetary temperatures to intake of solar radiation with its effects on atmospheric gasses in 1822.
-John Tyndall said atmospheric gases absorb heat to different degrees.
-Svante Arrhenius explained ice ages and termed “hot house” (greenhouse).
-Gilbert Plass (1956) established interrelations of these elements and correctly estimated an avg temp to increase about 1degC between 1900-2000.
-Charles Keeling confirmed Svante Arrhenius’ theory and developed the Keeling Curve in 1961.
Measuring CO2 Data
-Keeling curve shows a clear upward trend of CO2 in the atmosphere, measured in ppm.
-Annual CO2 Variation
Tracing Historical CO2 Data
-Ice core drilling started in 1950s. The data gathered drilling into Antarctic ice shield enabled the tracing of climate change as a phenomenon.
CO2 Data and Predicted Impacts
-NASA recorded a 1.17degC annual mean increase in temperature in 2023.
-Current projections show a temperature increase of 4degC by the end of the century.
-Increase of 2degC to 4degC is predicted to result a 0.5-2m sea level rise.
-Food insecurity, ocean acidification, extreme natural disasters, heat waves, and social instability.
Wicked Problems with Climate Change
In relation to planning and social problems:
-Ill defined
-No way to test the solution
-Difficult or impossible to solve
-Unlimited solutions
-Unique
-Can be the symptom of other problems.
-Not true or false, but only good or bad.
-Context-specific
Canadian Carbon-Tax Schedule
Cap & Trade
-Mainly targets the industies
-Businesses gets taxed for emitting CO2.
2 Systems in Canada:
-Fuel charge (~3 cents/litre more than 2023)
-Out-put based pricing system
Mitigations for Climate Change
Reducing GHG emissions within the 2degC limit.
Adaptation (Climate Change)
Assumes climate change is happening and requires communities to adjust to these changing conditions.
-Requires reworking infrastructures and political systems..
-Allows local and individual responses in place of general global approaches.
Sufficiency
-Assumes it is impossible to decouple economic growth and ecological impact.
-With regard to adaptation to climate change, sufficiency leads to the idea of resilience.
-Conveys a political message about setting clear limits on production and consumption within strict environmental boundaries.
-Promotes regrowth as voluntary and planned transformation of political and economic systems to a non-expansionist society independent of growth.
Technical Voluntarism
-Assumes that economic growth can be decoupled from increased ecological impact.
-With regard to adaptation to climate change, this position can take various forms.
-Climate engineering promotes technologies like carbon capture and sequestration.
Proposed Resilience Measures
-Systems that uphold and regain functioning after severe shocks.
-Includes risk management, flood management, food management, and reduced lifestyles.
–Cultural shift from consumer capitalism.
Energy Key Points
-Most important for comfortable living.
-Availability characterizes industrialized societies.
-Energy and prosperity go hand in hand
-Energy is relatively cheap and abundant in these locations.
Energy Pros and Cons
-Wealth
-Mobility
-Treated water
-Productive agriculture
-Modern infrastructure
-Resource depletion
-Environmental degradation
-National security risks
Energy vs Power
-Energy is the ability to do work. It is a quantity (Energy = Power x Time)
-Power is work done per time. It is a rate. The rate at which energy is produced, consumed, or moved. (Power = Work/Time)
Sources of All Energy
-Moon through the tides.
-Earth for fossil fuels, geothermal, uranium/nuclear.
-Sun for the wind, solar, etc.
Non-Renewable Energy
-Finite energy that is limited in quantity.
–Petroleum, coal, natural gas.
-Energy is harnessed through combustion.
-A reconsideration of its use due to climate change risks.
Challenges with Non-Renewable Energy
-Limited availability of primary resources.
-National security implications.
-Unequal access to energy.
-Environmental impacts.
Renewable Energy
Renew continually or annually through
natural processes.
–Wind, solar, bioenergy, hydro, and geothermal.
-Only sustainable when the rate of consumption is less than rate of renewable.
Challenges with Renewable Energy
-Vulnerable to weather conditions.
-Biomass for energy use via biofuels impacts food production.
-High initial cost and low energy efficiency
-Environmental impacts
Primary and Secondary Energy
Primary: Energy are unconverted fuel sources. They can be mined, reaped, extracted, harvested, or harnessed directly.
–Petroleum, natural gas, coal, biomass, etc.
Secondary: Energy is stored or converted energy.
–Hydrogen, electricity, pumped hydroelectricity, gasoline.
Forms of Energy
-Primary
-Secondary
-Final
-Useful
(A lot of losses in between stages before its used)
Ancient and Modern Society (With Energy)
Ancient Society: Fuels were used to generate thermal energy. Kinetic energy was generated via medieval water wheels, sails, and Dutch and Flemish windmills.
Modern Society: Conversion of thermal energy into kinetic energy. The introduction of combustion engines (1860) made even more power available.
Energy Transitions
1700s-late 1800s: Biofuels Domination (wood, fats)
1885-1950: Rise of Coal
1859-Date: Petroleum Reign
Post WWII: Alternative Energy (nuclear, natural gas)
2000s-Date: Renewable Energy
Energy Events
Peak Wood: resource volume shrank and became more expensive. Coal slowed deforestation and was used as an alternative.
Peak Whale: lamps used whale oil for illumination which caused a massive decline in whale population. Kerosene from petroleum was used instead.
Peak Oil: projected point in time when maximum rate of global oil production will occur but it has not yet happened.
Food Systems Environmental Issues
Food systems account for 1/3 of GHG emissions.
–Land exchange like deforestation
-Impact on biodiversity, soil degradation, water scarcity, climate change. Growing population and urbanization puts more stress on need to increase food production.
Food Systems Socioeconomic Issues
-Decline of small/medium farms where farmers cannot compete with large-scale producers (unemployment).
-2 billion people are overweight/obese.
-1 in 3 people experiencing food scarcity or insecurity.
Food Systems and Settler Colonialism
Settler Colonialism: Where the objective of settlers is to inhabit to make the land their new home. (Still ongoing.)
-Bison populations declined due to colonial impacts which led to overhunting almost to extinction.
Urban Food Inequities in Calgary
Food bank usage has increased in Calgary which is around 30% (similar nationally).
Calgary Foundation’s Quality of Life Report finds that:
-29% cannot find affordable healthy food
-45% eat less fruits and vegetables
-26% skip meals so that their children can eat
-70% buy fast food due to affordability
-72% eat less frequently at restaurants
Food Waste Environmental Impacts
Global estimates for food waste was estimated at 931 million tonnes (61% of this comes from households, not even establishments) (2019).
Avoidable Food Waste Definition
In Canada, about 20% (11 million tonnes) of food that could have been consumed is wasted becoming either landfill or organic waste.
Food Waste Solutions and Initiatives
Reduce: Improve operations and practices to reduce generation.
Recover: Donate surplus food to feed people. Manufacture animal feed or other food products.
Recycle: Synthesize ingredients for products like pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and fertilizers. Produce biodiesel from waste oils or renewable natural gas through anaerobic digestion. Create compost.
Dispose: Send to landfill or incineration.
Organic Food and Fair Trade Movement
Emerged as alternative challenges to dominant modern food systems.
Organic food production is focused on producing foods that are free of synthetic chemicals.
Fair trade is focused on equity and providing fair prices for goods and better working conditions are people.
Local Food Movement
Benefits: less transportation, supporting local economies, fresh, healthy foods, supporting agriculture.
Complexities: expensive, limited access.
Food Sovereignty
The right of nations and people to control their own food systems, including their own markets, production modes, food cultures and environments.
Indigenous Food Sovereignty:
1) access food as a sacred right
2) active participation
3) self-determination
Food Desert Definition
A residential area with no or limited access to food.
Food Swamp Definition
An area with an overabundance of unhealthy food options, such as fast food retailers.
Food Mirage
An area that looks like it has accessible healthy food, but actually does not provide affordable access.
Community Gardens in Calgary
-Psychosocial and physical benefits
-Opportunities for community and cultural connections
-Community gardens in Calgary are on the rise, with over 200 gardens in the last two decades.
-More prevalent in area of higher postsecondary education and in the west of Calgary.
