Categorie: population
It will be cities that in the coming decades (and partly already now), will have to face people’s problems most directly. Which was my reasoning in my recently published book ‘Post Fossil Life.’ ( in Dutch, later this year in English). To start with Interpersonal problems, as we already see…
The Species vs the Individual, in the Built Environment? The Corona lockdown and approach continues to surprise: both in what the government does and how people deal with it. What is particularly striking in this phase of Corona is the response and attitude to some problems with vaccines. There are…
A few years ago, together with colleagues Guillaume Habert from Switzerland and Thomas Lützkendorf from Germany, I started exploring the CO2 budget that was still available, and the consequences for construction. This budget of maximum remaining CO2 emissions to stay below the 1.5 or 2 degree threshold is limited. Science…
Its a difficult thing, the much wanted energy transition. Last week the daily news broadcast showed an interesting example of that. The provinces have to build wind turbines and search for acceptable locations, but the residents around are revolting. Complaining of shadow effects, birds killed, NIMBY etc, you name it….
Cuba has fascinated me since my youth. Of course, in the sixties and seventies as collective resistance against capitalism and imperialism. On one side I was attracted to the ideas behind the revolutions, on the other side I was a pacifist, refused to join the army, and such things. It…
A lot has been said and published about the energy and material impact of houses. What usually stays out of sight is the inhabitant. And I do not mean his behavior, but his ‘being’ , his need over the years for shelter. The environmental impact is in the end a…
When I was born, there were only 2.75 billion people around… Nowadays there are 7,2 billion. Imagine, it tripled over the course of my life, no wonder it seems a bit crowded now and then. And if I will become hundred, it will be 10 billion, 4 times as much…….
I love to be in cities. The bustling life, the choice in restaurants, the observing of people from a terrace with a special beer in front of me… I mean, I discovered that the cities most lovely attractions are mobile and sooner or later will pass the terrace… But when…
Labor , as used to make physical changes, seems to disappear completely as a production factor. While about 150 years ago the labor power, ‘LP’ , was the major force in society, besides the Horsepower, the HP. Maybe even you remember… . There was even a lively trade in LP’s,…
Maybe its understandable, but in fact a kind of ‘national narcism’: Solving the climate change problem, while maintaining all modern comfort and luxury, gained over the past 150 years by depleting an plundering resources globally.: to heat a whole house for 24 hours, to have two cars on the driveway,…
