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Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities That Can Save The Planet
"Alex Steffen may be the world's boldest, most innovative thinker about future cities. Carbon Zero will stretch, provoke, inspire, and reassure. It's the perfect gift for your smartest friends."
—Denis Hayes, Earth Day founder and president of the Bullitt Foundation
“Can planet Earth support 10 billion people? The answer depends on what happens to the world’s cities. Alex Steffen illuminates the strategies by which, in an age of climate and population changes, we can hope to innovate, act and prosper.”
—Chris Anderson, curator, TED conferences
“Could help us find a way to survive and even thrive in the face of a planetary challenge that political leaders… have been reluctant to face.”
—The Atlantic
“Hurricane Sandy reminded us that cities are where climate change crashes into everyday life. But the news isn’t all bad — this remarkable little book shows how the future of the planet depends on building better cities and the kind of new thinking we need to get started. Read Carbon Zero right away, because time is short.”
—Bill McKibben
“A deep and inspiring manual for imagining how our cities can become the solution to our climate woes.”
—Grist.org
“Carbon Zero shows us how rethinking cities can enable us to cut emissions, bring nature back into our communities and build a constructive path forward into the future. Please read this important book. It’s time to get to work.”
—Mark Tercek, President and CEO, The Nature Conservancy
“Redefines what being a successful city means in a rapidly warming and increasingly urbanized world.”
—Treehugger
Carbon Zero is a short, clear, optimistic look at how cities can succeed in the age of climate consequences. It's about changing how we grow our cities, so we can seize a better future. Whether your main concern is the future of your neighborhood or the future of the planet, this is a book you need to read.
The climate crisis is upon us, it's massive and it's getting worse quickly. We must make bold and rapid reductions in our climate emissions. In fact, in just the next couple decades we must achieve net-zero climate emissions. That target, zero carbon, presents a stupendous challenge.
Our cities, though, give us amazing opportunities to reduce our climate emissions while improving both our economy and our communities.
Solutions abound. From cutting edge green buildings to more walkable neighborhoods, new "walkshed" technologies to green infrastructure, the sharing economy to the reconnection of urban places to rural nature, we have a tool chest of approaches that can make our lives frugal in energy but abundant in wealth and quality of life. If we bring the best solutions together in our cities, we can build cities that can lead us into the zero-carbon future.
We can't build, though, what we can't imagine. Carbon Zero takes on the task of imagining how all these innovations might work together, and gives you the tools to reimagine the possibilities of your city. It's not a blueprint. It's not a manifesto.
Carbon Zero is an invitation to imagine winning the climate fight.
—Denis Hayes, Earth Day founder and president of the Bullitt Foundation
“Can planet Earth support 10 billion people? The answer depends on what happens to the world’s cities. Alex Steffen illuminates the strategies by which, in an age of climate and population changes, we can hope to innovate, act and prosper.”
—Chris Anderson, curator, TED conferences
“Could help us find a way to survive and even thrive in the face of a planetary challenge that political leaders… have been reluctant to face.”
—The Atlantic
“Hurricane Sandy reminded us that cities are where climate change crashes into everyday life. But the news isn’t all bad — this remarkable little book shows how the future of the planet depends on building better cities and the kind of new thinking we need to get started. Read Carbon Zero right away, because time is short.”
—Bill McKibben
“A deep and inspiring manual for imagining how our cities can become the solution to our climate woes.”
—Grist.org
“Carbon Zero shows us how rethinking cities can enable us to cut emissions, bring nature back into our communities and build a constructive path forward into the future. Please read this important book. It’s time to get to work.”
—Mark Tercek, President and CEO, The Nature Conservancy
“Redefines what being a successful city means in a rapidly warming and increasingly urbanized world.”
—Treehugger
Carbon Zero is a short, clear, optimistic look at how cities can succeed in the age of climate consequences. It's about changing how we grow our cities, so we can seize a better future. Whether your main concern is the future of your neighborhood or the future of the planet, this is a book you need to read.
The climate crisis is upon us, it's massive and it's getting worse quickly. We must make bold and rapid reductions in our climate emissions. In fact, in just the next couple decades we must achieve net-zero climate emissions. That target, zero carbon, presents a stupendous challenge.
Our cities, though, give us amazing opportunities to reduce our climate emissions while improving both our economy and our communities.
Solutions abound. From cutting edge green buildings to more walkable neighborhoods, new "walkshed" technologies to green infrastructure, the sharing economy to the reconnection of urban places to rural nature, we have a tool chest of approaches that can make our lives frugal in energy but abundant in wealth and quality of life. If we bring the best solutions together in our cities, we can build cities that can lead us into the zero-carbon future.
We can't build, though, what we can't imagine. Carbon Zero takes on the task of imagining how all these innovations might work together, and gives you the tools to reimagine the possibilities of your city. It's not a blueprint. It's not a manifesto.
Carbon Zero is an invitation to imagine winning the climate fight.
139 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
20 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 29, 2012
The book makes no pretense that climate change puts humanity in a dramatic situation, and the question is no longer whether we can avoid it or not. It's whether the effects will be catastrophic and "beyond adaptation" (4 degrees of global warming or more) or just "extremely dangerous" (2 degrees). To achieve the latter, industrialized nations will need to achieve zero carbon emissions, and do so rather quickly.
How can this be done? Switch to clean energy and make all cars electric? That's completely unrealistic, says Alex Steffen, it would take too long. Instead he proposes structural changes to the way we build cities — make neighborhoods walkable by increasing density, for example.
While the ideas that he puts forth are great, stunning, insightful, I don't quite buy that any of this can be done easily in the available time-frame. At least not any easier than turning individual transport completely electric.
There are quite a few gems in the book, e.g. the observation that a typical home power drill could drill thousands of hours, yet is only used for about 6-20 minutes over its lifetime. Overall, the book suggests what many futurists have told us: Everything we need to solve our problems is right in front of us, there is no question that survival for the human race is not only possible, but what we could in fact lead much more healthy, prosperous, and fulfilling lives than we currently do.
But it looks like our actual path into the future will be a whole lot messier than that.
How can this be done? Switch to clean energy and make all cars electric? That's completely unrealistic, says Alex Steffen, it would take too long. Instead he proposes structural changes to the way we build cities — make neighborhoods walkable by increasing density, for example.
While the ideas that he puts forth are great, stunning, insightful, I don't quite buy that any of this can be done easily in the available time-frame. At least not any easier than turning individual transport completely electric.
There are quite a few gems in the book, e.g. the observation that a typical home power drill could drill thousands of hours, yet is only used for about 6-20 minutes over its lifetime. Overall, the book suggests what many futurists have told us: Everything we need to solve our problems is right in front of us, there is no question that survival for the human race is not only possible, but what we could in fact lead much more healthy, prosperous, and fulfilling lives than we currently do.
But it looks like our actual path into the future will be a whole lot messier than that.
June 29, 2017
Great book that addresses the global warming problem as a whole and brings important topics on how to solve it through changing our cities. He makes clear the obvious impact of the urban areas on the climate for it holds a big portion of global population and the biggest portion of global wealth, but also creates the sense that the big cities should be considered not the problem, but rather the best place to start and save the planet. All of his points are practical and they all make sense.
The one point I'm set apart from A.S. is that he mentions many times the "economical benefits" of going green. I know that it's important not to go too drastically on the other direction and that people must be taugth that trying to achieve the zero carbon goal is not going to be an economic catastrophe, but we must get used to doing things not based on their economic return - opposedly, we gotta do them despite the economic damage. A lot of times saving the planet is not going to be economically good (at least it doesn't get us instantaneous financial return) but we have to get it done anyways.
Also, goods sharing systems might be an interesting part of the solution, but consummerism must be throroughly fought if we are to cut to zero the CO2 thrown in the atmosphere.
The one point I'm set apart from A.S. is that he mentions many times the "economical benefits" of going green. I know that it's important not to go too drastically on the other direction and that people must be taugth that trying to achieve the zero carbon goal is not going to be an economic catastrophe, but we must get used to doing things not based on their economic return - opposedly, we gotta do them despite the economic damage. A lot of times saving the planet is not going to be economically good (at least it doesn't get us instantaneous financial return) but we have to get it done anyways.
Also, goods sharing systems might be an interesting part of the solution, but consummerism must be throroughly fought if we are to cut to zero the CO2 thrown in the atmosphere.
April 13, 2013
Steffen sketches an outline of how zero-emissions cities can form a response to the 21st century's greatest challenge. Through an argument both hopeful and sober, both detailed and visionary, Steffen succinctly explains how compact cities can be not just ecologically responsible, but also more prosperous, healthy, equitable, and fun than the ones we've got. I hope to have more to say in a published review.
January 7, 2013
Alex Steffen is a deep thinker who has been working on the issues of global warming and sustainability for two decades or more. The opening of the e-book is dire - our choices regarding climate change are between "extremely dangerous and catastrophic" as Steffen says. I fear that even if our society made the hard choices, given that we wouldn't even see the results for years to come, that those who sow doubt and advocate doing nothing may win the day (and lose civilization). To battle this, Steffen spends the rest of the book running through a long list of innovative ideas for redesigning our cities to bring us to carbon zero. If you are concerned with the future of the human family this must be read.
Read
March 31, 2014A fairly fast read, and a nice overview for how cities play a part in transitioning to a low carbon future. If you're interested in, or involved in the current mania for all things cities-related right now, I'd recommend it. There's a frustrating lack of references for the more farfetched claims though.
April 12, 2024
It seems obvious to me now, but this book helped me understand how city living is so much better for the environment that rural living. And, indirectly, how awful cars are in so many ways.
February 19, 2016
Inspiring book to give you a feel for the ideas that are out there for environmentally conscious civil engineering, but very repetitive in pace and rhythm.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews