Sustainable Communities

The book starts with a discussion of global warming and climate change. The problem is well documented. Part One gives background for sustainable developments and gives studies of proven, substantiated and documented solutions. The time to act has begun. The "Green Revolution" has begun. Some authors call it The Third Industrial Revolution (Rifkin, 2005) since in the 21st century the industrially developed world has begun to move rapidly from fossil fuels (The Second Industrial Revolution) to renewable energy generation, storage technologies, and sustainable communities. Now is the time to understand and learn the tools that make sustainable communities of all kinds real.

The book provides a vast, but not the total, amount of materials and data. The intent is to give students of sustainable development some well-established resources and tools. By 2008, the concept of "Green" had been so much in marketing and product services that it lost its meaning. The "branding" of green meant a whole new industrial sector suddenly emerged globally.

However, the proof that there is both a Green Revolution and actual solutions to global warming must be seen in those sustainable communities who have existed, grown or developed using tested tools for sustainability. One of the key tools is the concern for conservation of natural resources, energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy systems (solar, wind, geothermal and bio-mass among others) along with storage devices for power generation. Communities in Europe and Asia have lead the way historically.

The book presents actual cases of sustainable communities. The case of Frederikshavn in Denmark (Chapter # 6) clearly illustrates how small towns and villages can be sustainable. Far more intuitive and with common sense, Dos Lagos in California (Chapter #4) demonstrates how concern for the natural environment can create a mix-use community of homes, shops, offices and a golf course. Far more planned and strategic are the nine college campuses of the Los Angeles Community College District (Chapter #3) who recognized that public policy and that sector must lead the private sector by example as well as by proving the tools and economics of sustainable communities.

And the private sector took note. A number of private companies from Safeway with its 20+ energy independent storage facilities to Toyota with Platinum LEED (Leadership in Environment and Energy Design) USA Headquarters in Torrance, California. Honda was not far behind with its "Green Hydrogen" Refueling station that electronizes solar energy into hydrogen for its hydrogen fuel cell cars. The Green Revolution could be seen with the hybrid cars that lead Toyota to be the No #1 Auto maker.

Part Two of the book reviews the tools needed to make sustainable communities anywhere in the world. The key one is the technology (s) from science and engineering (Chapter #8). All too often people do not know that there are environmentally sound technologies that exist today (Clark, 2000) to make communities sustainable. Then when the political leaders discover that the technologies exist they argue that the costs are too high. Not true. And certainly not true today as Chapter #9 clearly demonstrates. There is the need to rethink basic cost benefit analyses for goods and services as being in the short term (2-3 years) into life cycle analyses (1-20 years) along with triple bottom line benefits and externality economic impacts on health, pollution and the atmosphere.

In the end sustainable communities must be just that: capable of producing and using their own resources. Global warming starts and can end locally. If they need resources from outside or a long distance away, then those needs must be environmentally sound in terms of the goods themselves. And especially they must be sustainable in terms of transportation and services. This local and global change means new paradigms and approaches in public policy, environmentally sound technologies, economics and systems must be implemented today. Such a sustainable perspective will reverse global warming and mitigate global warming.