In Santa Barbara, CA the group Preserve Our Santa Barbara (www.preserveoursantabarbara.com) has been organized principally to lower building heights in their downtown and to further general objectives of neighbourhood preservation. They are well funded and running a slate of candidates in the upcoming civic election in which the subject of lowering downtown building heights will be a referendum item (Measure B). This is an example of community activism at its best and demonstrates how individual… Continue

Urban planners hoping to help mitigate CO2 emissions by increasing housing density would do better to focus on fuel-efficiency improvements to vehicles, investments in renewable energy, and cap and trade policies say some commentators as a recent report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences finds that increasing population densities in metropolitan areas would yield insignificant CO2 reductions.

read the article and the report: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23343/?nlid=2323

Jack Hart, former managing editor of the Portland Oregonian says that controlling population is the only real answer to our environmental problems. Cut and paste this link to your browser bar to read his op-ed piece: http://www.populationmedia.org/2009/05/27/treading-on-a-taboo-overpopulation-in-america/

In the recent article in the journal Building, Research & Information "The ecological crisis and self-delusion:implications for the building sector," William Rees writes that, "The world's top ecologists and climate scientists tell us that global civilisation is on a collision course with biophysical reality ... we have 'overshot' long-term carrying capactiy ... staying on our growth-based path to global development virtually guarantees eventual catastrophe for billions of people." Yet despi… Continue

Cut and post the following URL into your browser window:

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/27/opinion/commentary/z1542fd2c43455508882575ac00594897.txt