Page 27 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

4 Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

years. And it is remarkably different from the Second Industrial Revolution
(2IR) of fossil fuels and nuclear power (http://www.apo-tokyo.org/publica-
tions/apo_news/september-october-2016/).
Jeremy Rifkin, the environmental economist saw this GIR coming but
called it the Third Industrial Revolution (2005) and started a series of groups to
support and implement it. Now communities throughout the world are
participating and receiving advice and plans to implement. The 2IR was an era
dominated by the fossil fuel and now nuclear power industries. Yet they all
knew of the dangers that their systems caused to climate and environment.
Among all of them Shell Oil in the European Union (EU) was very aware:
https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/28/what-shell-knew-about-
climate-change-in-1991-video-explainer.
And as noted, President Xi of China calls the GIR “green development,”
which is now implemented. Public Policy and Leadership is the title of
Chapter 4 by Scott McNall, which notes how significant it is for communities
to have a plan or programs prior to making public policy decisions. Be they
elected officials or appointed, leadership over government programs is critical.
However, today leadership among corporate decision makers is equally
significant. Most companies will make decisions based upon profit and loss,
but the political arena and economic concerns over how to handle climate
preservation is critical for most corporate leaders. The bottom line tends to
always be there and provide the base line or bar to prevent sustainable
development programs. In short, there are many problems with the theory(s) of
economics as they are not scientific and therefore cannot predict issues,
problems, or the solutions therein. See Chapter 5 on Cross-Disciplinary
Science with Economics. And also Qualitative Economics (Clark and Fast,
2008) does just that and will be updated to publish in 2018.
However, even with decision makers providing leadership and public
policy, the bottom line remains for the need to make money. What new
Technologies and Scientific Planning (Chapters 5 and 6) need is to be in place
before change occurs. And even more significant, how does an organization or
company know when is the right time to “try something new” from the GIR.
The answer is that there is no perfect time. Most construction contractors and
builders will use the same tried and true technologies or whatever is in their
self-interest from their last client. All they want to do is make money and
influence (lobby) publically elected officials: https://www.theguardian.com/
commentisfree/2016/nov/30/donald-trump-george-monbiot-misinformation?
CMP¼fb_gu.
Often these traditional or conventional technologies are all from the 2IR
and therefore inappropriate for sustainable development. The “stranded costs”
alone will be long lasting (20e30 years) and delay the GIR for another
2e3 decades. This is unacceptable given the need to mitigate global
warming and climate change, which is now “climate preservation.” Hence as
Chapters 4 and 5 outline, there needs to be a constant technology review and