The Mega-City Environment

Mega-cities suffer from a catalog of environmental ills. A World Health Organization(WHO)/United Nations Environment Program(UNEP)study found that seven of the cities-Mexico City, Beijing, Cairo, Jakarta, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo and Moscow-had three or more pollutants that    1     the WHO health protection guidelines. All 20 of the cities studied by WHO/UNEP had at least one major pollutant that went beyond    2     health limits.

According to the World Resources Institute, “Millions of children living in the world’s largest cities, particularly in developing countries, are    3     to life-threatening air pollution two to eight times above the maximum based on WHO guidelines. Indeed, more than 80 percent of all deaths in developing countries    4     to air pollution-induced lung infections are among children under five.” In the big Asian mega-cities such as New Delhi, Beijing and Jakarta, approximately 20 to 30 percent of all respiratory diseases    5     from air pollution.

Almost all of the mega-cities face major fresh water challenges. Johannesburg, South Africa, is forced to draw water from highlands 370 miles away. In Bangkok, saltwater is invading aquifers(地下蓄水层). Mexico City has a serious    6     problem because of excessive groundwater withdrawal.

More than a billion people, 20 percent of the world’s population, live without regular    7     to clean running water. While poor people are forced to pay high fees for private water, many cities squander their resources through leakages and illegal    8    . “With the population of cities expected to increase to five billion by 2025,” says Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UNEP, “the urban demand for water is set to increase rapidly. This means that any solution to the water crisis is closely linked to the governance of cities.“

Mega-city residents, crowded into unsanitary slums, are also subject to serious disease outbreaks. Lima, Peru(with population estimated at 9.4 million by 2015)suffered a cholera outbreak in the late 1990s partly because, as the New York Times reported, ”rural people new to Lima...live in houses without running water and use the outhouses(屋外厕所)that    9     the hillsides above.“

It’s worth looking at some of these    10     mega-cities in detail, because daily life there is likely to be the pattern for a majority of the world’s population. Most are already experiencing severe environmental problems that will only be worsened by rapid population increases.

Save the World

The United Nations issued a report last week warning that humans are destroying nature at such a rate that life on Earth is at risk. When the report came out, it naturally     1     headlines. But obviously it did not hijack the news agenda in the manner of a major terrorist attack or     2     of war.

The report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is clear on what’s at stake and what needs to change. IPBES chair Robert Watson says the “overwhelming evidence”     3     an “ ominous (凶兆的)picture”.   “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is     4     more rapidly than ever,” Robert Watson said. “We are biting the very     5     of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” The report says it’s not too late if we make “    6     changes” ----fundamental, system-wide reorganization ----- at every level from local to global, we need to focus on how to make that happen.

First, don’t immerse yourself in despair, because despair leads to inertia (惰性) and doing nothing means certain disaster. Every action to save nature will improve our     7     and personal futures and the only action to respond to a threat of this scale is with     8     action rooted in optimism. Second, we need focus, just like when rescue teams arrive on a scene and use the concept of “triage(伤员鉴别分类)” to ensure the most     9     cases get treated first. Saving the natural world needs that kind of thinking. We don’t have the     10     to do everything at once. We need to make hard choices.

All Change in Curitiba!

Like many other major world cities, Curitiba in southern Brazil has had to deal with issues such as pollution, poverty, and limited public funding. However, the architect and three-times mayor of the city, Jaime Lerner, has introduced some     1     solutions.

As part of his ‘Master Plan’, Lerner hoped to make the city more environmentally friendly. He initiated a recycling scheme. In return for delivering recyclable rubbish to specified     2     points, residents receive a bag of vegetables or bus tickets. As a result, Curitiba now has one of the highest recycling rates in the world. Lerner also ordered the     3     of 26 urban parks. As well as preventing pollution, these control flooding.

Lerner did not win over all the city’s residents immediately, however. When his plans to     4     part of the centre were passed, local businesses were up in arms, fearing a reduction in profits. Realising he needed to act quickly, Lerner had the     5     of six blocks completed within three days. When a group of motorists attempted to drive through the new pedestrian area, Lerner arranged for local primary schools to hold a painting workshop on the streets. The drivers were forced to turn back. Luckily for Lerner, this rebellion was     6    . The increase in profit rapidly persuaded shop owners to change their minds.

Lerner’s determination helped     7     the Curitiba of today. The average income per capita has risen from a level that was below the Brazilian average in the 1970s to 66% above the average, and surveys indicate high levels of resident satisfaction.

So, is it all just one big success story? In some respects, Curitiba may have been too successful for its own    8    . People and businesses have come to the city, which now has more than 1.8 million residents. This has put the city under enormous stress. Forty years ago, buses transported 54,000 passengers a day. Now the number is 2.3 million. According to some experts, the transport system has reached its     9     efficiency capacity. Following a rise in complaints about the noisy and     10     buses, the service is in decline.

In 1865 The Great Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted looked out over the Yosemite Valley and saw a place worth saving. He     1     the California legislature to protect it from crazy development. Olmsted had already designed Central Park City; he was     2     that beautiful green spaces should exist for all people to enjoy. “It is a scientific fact,” he wrote, “that the occasional observation of natural scene of an impressive character…is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect.”

Olmsted was     3     ; his claim was based less on science than on intuition. But it was intuition with a long history. It went back at least to Cyrus the Great, who some 2500 years ago built gardens for     4     in the busy capital of Persia. Paracelsus, the 16^th century German-Swiss physician, gave voice to that same intuition when he wrote, “that art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician.” In 1798, sitting on the banks of the River Wye, William Wordsworth marveled at how “an eye made quiet by the power of     5     ” offered relief from “the fever of the world” . American writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Muir inherited that     6     along with Olmsted, they built the spiritual and emotional case for creating the world’s first national parks by claiming that nature had healing powers.

There wasn’t much evidence then—but there is now:     7     by large-scale public health problems such as obesity, depression, and persuasive nearsightedness, all clearly     8     with time spent indoors. Strayer and other scientists are looking with renewed interest at how nature affects our brains and bodies.

In England researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School recently analyzed mental health data from 10000 city dwellers and used high resolution mapping to     9     where the subjects had lived over 18 years. They found that people living near more green space reported less mental distress, even after adjusting for income, education, and employment (all of which are also correlated with health). In 2016 an international team overlaid health questionnaire responses from more than 31000 Toronto residents onto a map of the city, block by block. Those living on blocks with more trees showed a boost in heart and metabolic health     10     to what one would experience from a $20000 gain in income. Lower mortality and fewer stress hormones circulating in the blood have also been connected to living close to green space.

Floating Cities: The Wave of the Future?

Rainwater pouring into the New York City subway. Towns and roads in Pennsylvania overtaken by floodwater. These dramatic scenes made     1     in September 2021. As many as 40.5 million people have already been     2     by the effects of the climate crisis. Rising sea levels, along with extreme flooding, are putting more and more coastal residents and others at risk. By 2050, more than 1 billion people will live in countries that lack the basic systems and services to     3     sea-level rise, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace. And all these climate refugees will need to seek out new homes on dry land.

One     4     architects and others have been exploring with more urgency in recent years is to build floating cities. In 2019, the United Nations brought together a group of innovators, scientists, and marine engineers to discuss the future of     5     sea-based communities. "As our climate and water ecosystems are changing, the way our cities retake to water needs to change, too." said U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed. "Floating cities are a means of ensuring climate adaption, as buildings can rise along with the sea."

These cities can be designed as climate     6     . They can take advantage of plentiful wind and water power for electricity, and grow food using hydroponics（水耕法）. "From traditional houseboat communities to high-tech experiments, there are many examples to learn from," she added.

Some of these experimental floating cities are already in development. Another planned community that's attracting a lot of attention is Oceanix City, which is     7     to have one-third of its 118 islands below sea level within 60 years.

Plans for Oceanix City     8     groups of hexagon-shaped（六边形）islands powered by solar and water energy. Tied to the seafloor, each human-made island would     9     around 300 people; the islands would be     10     together in communities of about 10,000 residents. Oceanix citizens would drink processed ocean water and extracted humidity from the air, and dine on a ready supply of seafood.

Save the World

The United Nations issued a report last week warning that humans are destroying nature at such a rate that life on Earth is at risk. When the report came out, it naturally     1     headlines. But obviously it did not hijack the news agenda in the manner of a major terrorist attack or     2     of war.

The report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is clear on what’s at stake and what needs to change. IPBES chair Robert Watson says the “overwhelming evidence”     3     an “ ominous (凶兆的)picture”.   “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is     4     more rapidly than ever,” Robert Watson said. “We are biting the very     5     of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” The report says it’s not too late if we make “    6     changes” ----fundamental, system-wide reorganization ----- at every level from local to global, we need to focus on how to make that happen.

First, don’t immerse yourself in despair, because despair leads to inertia (惰性) and doing nothing means certain disaster. Every action to save nature will improve our     7     and personal futures and the only action to respond to a threat of this scale is with     8     action rooted in optimism. Second, we need focus, just like when rescue teams arrive on a scene and use the concept of “triage(伤员鉴别分类)” to ensure the most     9     cases get treated first. Saving the natural world needs that kind of thinking. We don’t have the     10     to do everything at once. We need to make hard choices.