Resilient Cities of the Future: Shifting from Industrial to Ecological age

In the recent decades, the possibility of having no viable future for humanity, without a healthy planet, has dawned on many of us. Earth, water, and air support the existence of an immensely complex living system and us humans are a part of this complex web of life. However, within a few generations, we are using up most of the earth’s stored fossil fuel resources and their transfer from the land to the atmosphere is significantly altering its composition. Our globalizing economic system is destabilizing the planet’s life-support systems - the very systems that support us and the future of the generations to come. The direct impacts of this on human development, along with rising food and resource costs implies that the current economic growth is rapidly becoming unsustainable and a major global transition towards the ecological age of human civilization has to be instigated.

How far have we gone with destroying our earth’s atmosphere? Have we crossed a point of no return in global climate change? Above all, can we reverse the effects of global warming to make our planet sustainable? The questions that we often tend to ask when we hear scientists talk about global warming and climate change - the overly used terms of the 21st century. Having our researchers conduct the rigorous data collection and analysis of the various factors affecting the earth’s atmosphere adversely, we have evidence, causes, and effects of our actions.

Human‐induced climate change requires urgent action. Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years. Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes.

(Adopted by the American Geophysical Union 2003, revised and reaffirmed 2007, 2012, 2013)

The potential effects of global climate change

The observable effects on the environment have already been started to become more prominent due to the acceleration of global climate change. As predicted by the scientists in the past, the effects of global climate change such as loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves are now occurring. They also believe that the global temperatures will continue to increase for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the extent of climate change effects on individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.

Deriving survival strategies from nature

The natural ecosystems of the earth are capable of surviving even after the humans are extinct. Hence, nature is not the one that needs our saving; we need to save our civilization. By investigating into how nature solves problems, we can abstract effective solutions to derive survival strategies in an era of climate change and global warming. This method of deriving inspiration from natural intelligence is dubbed as ‘biomimicry’ or ‘Biophilia.'

Principles derived from Jenine Benyus’s, Biomimicry - Design inspired by nature, suggests that

the organisms in a mature ecosystem: use waste as a resource, diversify and cooperate to fully use the habitat, gather and use energy efficiently, optimize rather than maximize, use materials sparingly, don’t foul their nest, don’t draw down resources, remain in balance with the biosphere, run on information, and shop locally.

These principles facilitate the shift from industrial to an ecological age. To stimulate the shift, we must first look into the causes and consequences that we face today. Deteriorating water infrastructure, rapid urbanization, population growth and migration, increasing water scarcity, increased emission of greenhouse gases, and overuse and pollution are causing extreme meteorological events, global warming, and climate change. By looking more deeply into how nature solves problems, we can extract effective solutions to reduce the impact of climate change and reverse it in the long run. As derived from biomimetic strategies, we must shift from linear to a closed loop system, radically increase resource efficiency, and change from fossil fuel economy to the solar economy through sustainable urbanism, water-centric communities, mixed-use development, and the inclusion of recreational areas to create ecological and social resilience and optimize resource value.

Causes, consequences, and solutions