Hits You Like a Britton of Bricks

Here are my candidates off the top of my head:

1. A movement which started in 1968 in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands, when a bunch of parents and architecture students got together to rip up a street and redesign it with brink planters and benches so that cars could only move at a snail's pace -- allowing people and children to use the street in front of their homes for themselves. It was called a Woonerf, or living street. To take this one step further, dedicated Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman has shown us what can happen when you take all the signs and markings off a residential street. Imagine: a street with nothing on it, which obliges us all to figure out how we should be using it. Democracy and the Knowledge Society in action.

2. ETNO, "the voice of European telecommunications network operators," is getting together with the World Wildlife Fund to create an activist agenda and practical framework for "Telecommunications and Sustainability."

3. The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, decided that his city would make people pay to drive in the city. This has cut traffic, accidents, and pollution in the target area by 20 percent or more. Your city could do it. And indeed since London has got this going, major cities around the world are now having a closer look.

4. The Carbon Disclosure Project, started a few years ago in London by a man named Paul Dickinson, provides a secretariat for the world's largest institutional investor collaboration on the business implications of climate change. CDP represents an efficient process whereby many institutional investors collectively sign a single global request for disclosure of information on greenhouse-gas emissions. Some 300 of the 500 largest corporations in the world currently report their emissions through this website. One man started it and ran with his idea.

5. This may surprise you, but my last nomination here is for the French "No" to the European Referendum a few weeks back. Why? Because this is the unexpected first step in a process that is going to bring citizens across Europe more actively into the process of governance. That is an essential first step toward real sustainability (as opposed to the rhetoric of sustainability, of which there is much). See "How in 2005 the French Saved Europe for Civilization" in the Kyoto World Cities Blog.

You will note, Piper, that none of these are concepts that can be cut and pasted in North American cities, but someone with brains, energy, and a sense of leadership should be able to do a lot with this kind of thinking. Henry Ford once famously said that of all the kinds of work, he knew thinking was the hardest. And that, he said, was probably why people do so little of it.

If you go to the main Kyoto Cities website, you will see all this presented in a pretty compact manner. This is a critical sustainability issue, and I am convinced that the challenge offers an approach that, if we can get it right, can open up a lot of new ideas and opportunities in a world that badly needs inspiration and help.

And as to that "small level" of impact when it comes to cities, let's bear in mind that something like two-thirds of the 6 billion-plus people who crowd our planet live in cities. And that transportation accounts for 50 percent or more of all GHGs in our cities. So it is no mean target.

We have chosen the transportation sector as the place we are starting our push toward more sustainable cities because (a) it is so very ubiquitous in all our daily lives, (b) everybody is an "expert" on it since that's what they do every day, and, perhaps surprisingly, (c) it is so terribly weakly exploited by present arrangements and hence such an easy target for improvement.

To get you started, I would suggest that you start your research with the New Mobility Agenda. Not because it's necessarily the best thing around, but it has been designed to serve as a teaching-and-learning set of tools, which I hope you will see. And then of course there is the Kyoto World Cities Challenge.

In any event, if you ever want to swap ideas on this, I invite you to get in touch. Perhaps I can point you in a few useful directions. And, oh yes, good luck!

1. "Huh? Kyoto what?" (Or its functional equivalent where the actual amount of information and understanding is at a very low level.)

2. In a phrase: "Americans are selfish, obese consumer-holics who are going to live (and die!) in their fat cars." Etc. Etc. This is my favorite because it is such an obvious knee-jerk.

3. Reflection: "Well, first we (Europeans) have to assume that they probably have their own reasons for not signing, not least because their entire structure is so different from ours. They (that is, the U.S.) seem to be in a terrible trap, but then so are we. The Kyoto targets are going to take a lot of imagination and hard work on our part if we are ever to meet them. And in fact, the targets themselves are probably way too low to accomplish their mission, which is to reduce the threats of global warming and climate modification. Oh well. Maybe the best we can do is to do our best and see if we can help by leading by example."

And I am not claiming that just by bringing in women in more active roles and in large numbers that we are going to "solve" the problems of the sector. But the result is surely going to be some very different appreciations and debates, and that is surely the first step in the right direction. We need diversity and new ideas.

I have chosen the transport sector as a target for increased women's leadership and involvement because (a) it is such an important component of our daily lives and (b) it has been so severely misshapen by the overwhelmingly male decision structure. Also, I might add, because it is among the easiest of the big sectional problems before us to fix. But that is another story for another day.

I don't know who "everyone" is in this case, but it's not me, so let me talk for myself. I have lived a life surrounded by strong-minded, competent women, and I have noticed that they are pretty human too ... which means not exactly perfect (sorry France, if you are reading this). When I look at any environmental, or even political, groups that have very strong female representation, what strikes me first is that they are (a) indeed imperfect and (b) different in quite a number of ways (some of which, at times, can drive me quite mad). I promise if we bring them in large numbers into our councils of power, we will see different things happening. And most probably some new and very useful things too. Does power corrupt? It can, but if you are fulfilled in your own life, there is much less danger of this happening. Which means, I guess, that we males have to do our best to keep them happy!

With each passing year, there are more places to walk agreeably and safely (from traffic), there is much more and safer cycling, there is less dog shit to walk on, the Seine gets a little cleaner (some fish are starting to come back), there are more mini-parks, it is harder and harder to park your car (that's good, by the way!), and the homeless are increasingly treated as part of the neighborhood (though we have a lot of progress to make on that score).

Slackers? Our biggest and most important "environmental" problems have to do with the economic and social cleavage between those who are doing well and those who are having a rough time of it. And the cores to this include massive immigration that certainly has not been mastered, together with the inability of the society to move toward 100 percent employment. As long as we have men and women who do not have their full and fair place in this society, we are going to have problems. And the ticket to that is called a job.

France is our oldest ally, and the French have a deep, complex, and rich culture. On the political level there are differences, but when I look at them, I find that their position is at least half the time as informed and just as that of the U.S. government. And I do not hesitate to be critical both of our government and theirs. And as often as not, with a grin.

And I love that last question in particular. I am not only an American, I am a Jeffersonian Democrat (not the party but the dream). So from the inside looking out I am definitely 100 percent (critical and self-critical) American.

And what do the French think of me? They have no doubts that I am an American, not least since though I speak French as a fluent second language, there is always that bit of an accent that makes them smile. It's a good start.

Vive la France! Vive le people des Etats-Unis! Vive l'Amérique!

On the methods side, a lot has happened. When we first set up our "invisible college" back in 1974 during a small international meeting at the Abbaye de Royaumont just to the north of Paris, the main means of dialoguing were physical meetings, print, and phones. But by 1981, we began to use email, with rudimentary news groups coming online by 1988 and the first websites in 1994, at which time we also began to use both one-on-one and group videoconferencing every day in support of our work. And so it goes to this day.

Stuff changes, but the battle goes to those who don't lose heart and who endure.

Now, my problem in this respect is that I simply am not in the swim on this one. There have to be some kinds of examples around. My first step would be an outreach program to start to identify the winners and losers -- and the why's and how's.

I know that one huge headache and budget item for many U.S. universities is that of parking. And if you rationalize parking, you are taking a big step toward rationalizing the entire movement system, which simply has to become more sustainable.

So while I have no ready answers for you, I do know a good question when I see one, and you have one there. I hope you will try to answer it for yourself. And I would be pleased to do a bit of background work on this with you if you really wish to pursue this.

P.S. [added 14 Jun 2005]:
I have contacted a number of my colleagues around the world with this question, which has led to a continuing flood of useful materials and insight. So useful, in fact, that we have just added a new section to our New Mobility Agenda site (click on "Campus transport" at the bottom of the left menu). And there you are: concrete proof that if we communicate well enough, we can make progress on the challenges of sustainable development and social justice. (And if we don't, we won't.)

Yes, I am convinced that the concept of urban forests and protected urban wildlife habitat, nearby to those who live lives largely dictated by totally artificial human-made environments, should be a community goal.

In any of our communities, not only should we not remove trees or forested urban land, but we should also have a program of consistently growing the wooded areas of our cities. I am not sure how you do this, but there is no doubt that the sine qua non is local community action (since this can hardly fall under state or federal law, per se). So what are the best practices, their impacts, and how can we make them better known?

To achieve these objectives, I think that a key may lie in the concept of imparting a feeling of ownership, of specific group responsibility for preserving specific parts of the natural environment/endowment in our cities, perhaps through various forms of adoption programs, whether by specific neighborhoods, community groups, etc. If it is somehow ours, or our responsibility, we have a chance of remembering what it is we are committed to do. Otherwise, if the responsibility and the mission of both preservation and maintenance becomes too diffuse, it risks never getting done.

Finally, a question to you, Jan. Is there anything of note that could be accomplished by somehow linking urban forest protection and management to Kyoto, perhaps in a specific city context? Have you or others you know thought this through? If so, it would be interesting to hear from you on this.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development has a Sustainable Mobility program in which it gives much attention to these issues, and last year it published a report entitled "Mobility 2030: Meeting the Challenges to Sustainability." But a careful reading shows that given the present urgencies, this is but a tawdry sideshow. Now this is not to say that these research programs and demonstrations should be brutally terminated and tossed into some kind of sustainability gulag, but they should be kept in real perspective. And for more on that I can only point you to the international peer review of this report that we have carried out with a number of highly qualified international colleagues.

First, as to how to get involved with advising people in terms of sustainability issues, I am really at a loss. Let me start by saying, with a certain resignation on my part, that I am not sure that I provide either an example or a particular source of wisdom on this since my own involvement in this area has yielded very little that I can run up the flagpole and salute.

What I have managed to do -- and what may be important for anyone wishing to make a contribution -- is that I try to be good at listening to people, really listening, including even when they start out with ideas that are vastly different from my own or mock my own work, personality, attitudes, and approaches. What I have found is that when anyone is carrying on with passion and energy, even if it is unpleasing and possibly even a personal attack, they are trying to get a point across. So it is my job -- it is our job, actually -- to listen. In almost all cases we have a lot to learn.

Second, I think it is important to have an eye for detail and to be highly disciplined at absorbing and communicating bits of information. This is not a game for anyone who is looking for easy successes, because there are not any. If you hang around long enough, you will see a lot of dead soldiers and empty shoes of those who have fed the battlefields of sustainability and social justice. The trick is to make sure that you are still there, sword in hand.

Third, and related to this, you have to learn to put your ego aside. If your dominant interest is enhancing your personal reputation or career, you are inevitably going to hit some kind of glass ceiling. A more-than-average amount of sheer selflessness helps. Anyway, the world out there is not dumb and will quickly find out what your real priorities are.

Fourth, and almost last, I think it can only help to work when you are young and, at least for a year or two, directly in the field in situations of adversity. It may be in an urban ghetto, a school for handicapped students, an educational program in a prison, a rural community in Ethiopia, or a settlement in Palestine, but once you spend a couple of years there, you will know far more about the world and yourself than you could learn in three years at the best law school in the world.

Finally, there is the matter of team building and teamwork. In my mind, this is the key. I used to be a pretty good soccer player, but I never met a team that I could beat by myself. So I have made a point in my life not to try to find the answers -- and certainly not to impose my answers -- but to have a knack for finding the people who can find the answers. And then to do what I can to give them the means to do just that. This can be enormously satisfying and, I promise you, enormously powerful.