Climate change is already a heavy topic, and it's getting heavier because we're understanding that we need to do more than we are. We're understanding, in fact, that those of us who live in the developed world need to be really pushing towards eliminating our emissions. That's, to put it mildly, not what's on the table now. And it tends to feel a little overwhelming when we look at what is there in reality today and the magnitude of the problem that we face. And when we have overwhelming problems in front of us, we tend to seek simple answers. And I think this is what we've done with climate change. We look at where the emissions are coming from -- they're coming out of our tailpipes and smokestacks and so forth, and we say, okay, well the problem is that they're coming out of fossil fuels that we're burning, so therefore, the answer must be to replace those fossil fuels with clean sources of energy. And while, of course, we do need clean energy, I would put to you that it's possible that by looking at climate change as a clean energy generation problem, we're in fact setting ourselves up not to solve it.
Klimatske su promjene ozbiljna tema koja postaje sve ozbiljnija jer počinjemo shvaćati da moramo učiniti više nego što činimo. Zapravo, počinjemo shvaćati da bi oni od nas koji žive u razvijenom svijetu trebali nastojati otkloniti emisije štetnih plinova. O tome se, blago rečeno, trenutno ne raspravlja. I pomalo nas zaprepasti kada otvorimo oči pred današnjom situacijom i opsegom problema s kojima smo suočeni. Kada se tako golemi problemi nađu pred nama, obično tražimo jednostavna rješenja. Mislim da to radimo i s klimatskim promjenama. Pitamo se odakle emisije plinova dolaze -- dolaze iz ispušnih cijevi, dimnjaka i tako dalje, i kažemo, u redu, problem je u tome što dolaze iz fosilnih goriva koje koristimo, dakle, rješenje mora biti zamjena fosilnih goriva čistim izvorima energije. I dok nam, naravno, treba čista energija, naglasio bih da je moguće da se bavljenjem klimatskim promjenama kao problemom stvaranja čiste energije, zapravo udaljavamo od rješenja.
And the reason why is that we live on a planet that is rapidly urbanizing. That shouldn't be news to any of us. However, it's hard sometimes to remember the extent of that urbanization. By mid-century, we're going to have about eight billion -- perhaps more -- people living in cities or within a day's travel of one. We will be an overwhelmingly urban species. In order to provide the kind of energy that it would take for eight billion people living in cities that are even somewhat like the cities that those of us in the global North live in today, we would have to generate an absolutely astonishing amount of energy. It may be possible that we are not even able to build that much clean energy. So if we're seriously talking about tackling climate change on an urbanizing planet, we need to look somewhere else for the solution.
Razlog tome je to što živimo na planetu koji se ubrzano urbanizira. To nam ne bi trebala biti novost. Ipak, ponekad je teško imati u vidu razmjere urbanizacije. Do polovice ovog stoljeća, oko osam milijardi ljudi, možda i više, živjet će u gradovima ili na dan udaljenosti. Bit ćemo iznimno urbana vrsta. Da bismo osigurali vrstu energije koja će biti potrebna za osam milijardi ljudi u gradovima koji bar donekle nalikuju gradovima u kakvima danas živimo mi na sjevernoj hemisferi, morali bismo proizvesti potpuno zapanjujuću količinu energije. Moguće je da nismo čak ni u mogućnosti proizvesti toliko čiste energije. Ako ozbiljno govorimo o suočavanju s klimatskim promjenama na planetu koji se urbanizira, rješenje moramo potražiti negdje drugdje.
The solution, in fact, may be closer to hand than we think, because all of those cities we're building are opportunities. Every city determines to a very large extent the amount of energy used by its inhabitants. We tend to think of energy use as a behavioral thing -- I choose to turn this light switch on -- but really, enormous amounts of our energy use are predestined by the kinds of communities and cities that we live in. I won't show you very many graphs today, but if I can just focus on this one for a moment, it really tells us a lot of what we need to know -- which is, quite simply, that if you look, for example, at transportation, a major category of climate emissions, there is a direct relationship between how dense a city is and the amount of climate emissions that its residents spew out into the air. And the correlation, of course, is that denser places tend to have lower emissions -- which isn't really all that difficult to figure out, if you think about it.
To nam je rješenje možda bliže nego što mislimo. Jer svi gradovi koje gradimo prilike su. Svaki grad u velikoj mjeri određuje količinu energije koju troše njegovi stanovnici. Mislimo da korištenje energije ovisi o ponašanju -- ja odlučujem hoću li uključiti ovaj prekidač -- no zapravo, goleme količine naše potrošnje energije predodređeno je vrstom zajednice i grada u kojemu živimo. Danas vam neću pokazati mnogo grafikona, ali ako na trenutak obratite pažnju na ovaj, reći će nam mnoge stvari koje trebamo znati -- a to je, pojednostavljeno, da ako, na primjer, uzmemo u obzir prijevoz, bitnu stavku u emisiji štetnih plinova, postoji izravna veza između napučenosti grada i količine ispušnih plinova koje njegovi stanovnici ispuštaju u zrak. A povezanost je naravno ta da napučenija naselja imaju nižu razinu emisije -- što uopće nije teško razumjeti, ako malo razmislite.
Basically, we substitute, in our lives, access to the things we want. We go out there and we hop in our cars and we drive from place to place. And we're basically using mobility to get the access we need. But when we live in a denser community, suddenly what we find, of course, is that the things we need are close by. And since the most sustainable trip is the one that you never had to make in the first place, suddenly our lives become instantly more sustainable. And it is possible, of course, to increase the density of the communities around us.
Zapravo, u svojim životima zamjenjujemo pristup stvarima koje želimo. Izađemo van, uskočimo u automobil i vozimo se od jednog mjesta do drugog. Zapravo koristimo mobilnost da bismo pristupili onome što trebamo. Ali kada živimo u napučenijem prostoru, najednom shvaćamo, naravno, da su stvari koje trebamo blizu. A budući da je najodrživiji put onaj na koji ne moramo ni krenuti, odjednom naši životi u trenu postaju održiviji. Naravno da je moguće povećati gustoću zajednica oko nas.
Some places are doing this with new eco districts, developing whole new sustainable neighborhoods, which is nice work if you can get it, but most of the time, what we're talking about is, in fact, reweaving the urban fabric that we already have. So we're talking about things like infill development: really sharp little changes to where we have buildings, where we're developing. Urban retrofitting: creating different sorts of spaces and uses out of places that are already there. Increasingly, we're realizing that we don't even need to densify an entire city. What we need instead is an average density that rises to a level where we don't drive as much and so on. And that can be done by raising the density in very specific spots a whole lot. So you can think of it as tent poles that actually raise the density of the entire city.
Ponegdje se to čini izgradnjom novih eko područja, razvojem cijelih novih održivih četvrti, što je lijepo ako to možete postići. No većinu vremena, ono o čemu govorimo je zapravo prekrajanje urbanog materijala koji već imamo. Govorimo o stvarima poput unutarnjeg razvoja: iznenadne male promjene na mjestima gdje se građevine nalaze, mjestima razvoja. Urbana obnova: stvaranje raznih vrsta prostora i namjena na mjestima koja već postoje. Sve više shvaćamo da nije potrebno povećati gustoću cijeloga grada. Potrebno je postići prosječnu gustoću koja raste do razine na kojoj ne vozimo toliko i tako dalje. A to je moguće postići znatnim povećanjem gustoće izgrađenosti na određenim mjestima. Možete to usporediti sa šatorskim šipkama koje zapravo povećavaju gustoću cijelog grada.
And we find that when we do that, we can, in fact, have a few places that are really hyper-dense within a wider fabric of places that are perhaps a little more comfortable and achieve the same results. Now we may find that there are places that are really, really dense and still hold onto their cars, but the reality is that, by and large, what we see when we get a lot of people together with the right conditions is a threshold effect, where people simply stop driving as much, and increasingly, more and more people, if they're surrounded by places that make them feel at home, give up their cars altogether. And this is a huge, huge energy savings, because what comes out of our tailpipe is really just the beginning of the story with climate emissions from cars. We have the manufacture of the car, the disposal of the car, all of the parking and freeways and so on. When you can get rid of all of those because somebody doesn't use any of them really, you find that you can actually cut transportation emissions as much as 90 percent.
Shvaćamo da kada to činimo možemo imati nekoliko mjesta iznimne gustoće unutar šireg materijala naselja koja su možda malo ugodnija i postižu jednake rezultate. Možemo pronaći mjesta koja su veoma, veoma gusta no ne odustaju od automobila. Istina je da, sve u svemu, ono što dobijemo kada imamo mnoštvo ljudi u pravim uvjetima je efekt praga, pri čemu ljudi prestaju toliko voziti, a sve više ljudi, ako su okruženi mjestima zbog kojih se osjećaju kao kod kuće, u potpunosti odustaju od vožnje. Dolazi do goleme uštede energije. Jer ono što izlazi iz ispušnih cijevi samo je početak priče o ispušnim plinovima iz automobila. Imamo proizvodnju automobila, odlaganje automobila, parkirna mjesta, autoceste i tako dalje. Kada se uspijete riješiti svega toga jer ih netko uopće ne koristi, shvatit ćete da zapravo možete smanjiti emisije ispušnih plinova čak za 90 posto.
And people are embracing this. All around the world, we're seeing more and more people embrace this walkshed life. People are saying that it's moving from the idea of the dream home to the dream neighborhood. And when you layer that over with the kind of ubiquitous communications that we're starting to see, what you find is, in fact, even more access suffused into spaces. Some of it's transportation access. This is a Mapnificent map that shows me, in this case, how far I can get from my home in 30 minutes using public transportation. Some of it is about walking. It's not all perfect yet. This is Google Walking Maps. I asked how to do the greater Ridgeway, and it told me to go via Guernsey. It did tell me that this route maybe missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths, though. (Laughter) But the technologies are getting better, and we're starting to really kind of crowdsource this navigation. And as we just heard earlier, of course, we're also learning how to put information on dumb objects. Things that don't have any wiring in them at all, we're learning how to include in these systems of notation and navigation.
I ljudi to prihvaćaju. Diljem svijeta svjedočimo tome da sve više ljudi prihvaća hodalački način života. Ljudi govore da se radi o prelasku s ideje o domu iz snova na susjedstvo iz snova. A kada tome dodate sveprisutnu komunikaciju koja se pojavljuje, ono što dobijete je zapravo još više pristupa raširenog u prostoru. Pristup prijevozu dio je toga. Ovo je karta Mapnificent koja mi u ovom slučaju pokazuje koliko daleko mogu stići od svoje kuće za 30 minuta pomoću javnog prijevoza. Drugi dio je pješačenje. Još nije usavršen. Ovo su Googleove Walking Maps. Pitao sam kako proći stazu Greater Ridgeway i rekao mi je da idem preko Guernseya. Ipak me upozorio da taj put možda nema nogostupe i pješačke staze. (Smijeh) No tehnologije napreduju i na neki način počinjemo iskorištavati takvu navigaciju. Kao što smo ranije čuli također učimo kako staviti informacije na nijeme predmete. Predmete koje nemaju nikakve žice u sebi, učimo kako u njih uključiti notacijske i navigacijske sustave.
Part of what we're finding with this is that what we thought was the major point of manufacturing and consumption, which is to get a bunch of stuff, is not, in fact, how we really live best in dense environments. What we're finding is that what we want is access to the capacities of things. My favorite example is a drill. Who here owns a drill, a home power drill? Okay. I do too. The average home power drill is used somewhere between six and 20 minutes in its entire lifetime, depending on who you ask. And so what we do is we buy these drills that have a potential capacity of thousands of hours of drill time, use them once or twice to put a hole in the wall and let them sit. Our cities, I would put to you, are stockpiles of these surplus capacities. And while we could try and figure out new ways to use those capacities -- such as cooking or making ice sculptures or even a mafia hit -- what we probably will find is that, in fact, turning those products into services that we have access to when we want them, is a far smarter way to go.
Ono što otkrivamo pomoću toga je da ono što smo mislili da je najvažnije pri proizvodnji i potrošnji, odnosno imati hrpu stvari zapravo nije najbolji način života u napučenim prostorima. Otkrili smo da je ono što želimo pristup velikim količinama stvari. Moj omiljeni primjer je bušilica. Tko ovdje posjeduje kućnu električnu bušilicu? OK. Ja također. Prosječna bušilica koristi se između šest i 20 minuta u čitavom radnom vijeku ovisno o tome koga pitate. I tako mi kupujemo te bušilice čiji potencijalni kapacitet iznosi na tisuće sati bušenja, upotrijebimo ih koji put za bušenje rupe u zidu i pustimo ih da stoje. Naši gradovi, rekao bih, rezerve su tih suvišnih kapaciteta. Mogli bismo se potruditi i pronaći nove načine korištenja tih kapaciteta -- kao što je kuhanje ili izrada skulptura od leda čak i mafijaški napad -- ono što ćemo vjerojatno otkriti je da je pretvaranje tih proizvoda u usluge kojima imamo pristup kada to želimo znatno pametnija mogućnost.
And in fact, even space itself is turning into a service. We're finding that people can share the same spaces, do stuff with vacant space. Buildings are becoming bundles of services. So we have new designs that are helping us take mechanical things that we used to spend energy on -- like heating, cooling etc. -- and turn them into things that we avoid spending energy on. So we light our buildings with daylight. We cool them with breezes. We heat them with sunshine. In fact, when we use all these things, what we've found is that, in some cases, energy use in a building can drop as much as 90 percent. Which brings on another threshold effect I like to call furnace dumping, which is, quite simply, if you have a building that doesn't need to be heated with a furnace, you save a whole bunch of money up front. These things actually become cheaper to build than the alternatives.
Zapravo se sam prostor pretvara u uslugu. Otkrivamo da ljudi mogu dijeliti isti prostor, raditi svašta s praznim prostorom. Zgrade se pretvaraju u skupine usluga. Imamo nove projekte pomoću kojih možemo mehaničke stvari na koje smo trošili energiju -- poput grijanja, hlađenja itd. -- pretvoriti u stvari na koje ne želimo trošiti energiju. Tako osvjetljavamo zgrade prirodnim svjetlom. Hladimo ih strujanjem zraka. Grijemo ih sunčevom energijom. Zapravo kada koristimo te stvari, otkrili smo da se u nekim slučajevima uporaba energije u zgradi može smanjiti za čak 90 posto. To nas dovodi do još jednog efekta praga koji zovem odbacivanje peći. Što je, pojednostavljeno, ako postoji zgrada koju nije potrebno grijati pomoću peći, unaprijed ćete uštediti veliku količinu novca. Zapravo postaje jeftinije graditi takve zgrade nego alternative.
Now when we look at being able to slash our product use, slash our transportation use, slash our building energy use, all of that is great, but it still leaves something behind. And if we're going to really, truly become sustainable cities, we need to think a little differently. This is one way to do it. This is Vancouver's propaganda about how green a city they are. And certainly lots of people have taken to heart this idea that a sustainable city is covered in greenery. So we have visions like this. We have visions like this. We have visions like this.
Kada razmislimo o mogućnosti smanjenja uporabe proizvoda, rezanja korištenja prijevoza, rezanja potrošnje energije u domu, sve je to divno, no ipak ima svoje posljedice. Ako zaista želimo postati pravi održivi gradovi moramo razmišljati malo drukčije. Ovo je jedan od načina. Ovo je Vancouverova propaganda o tome koliko su zelen grad. I zasigurno je mnogo ljudi ozbiljno shvatilo ideju da održivi grad treba biti prekriven zelenilom. Ovo su vizije kakve imamo. Ovo su vizije kakve imamo. Ovo su vizije kakve imamo.
Now all of these are fine projects, but they really have missed an essential point, which is it's not about the leaves above, it's about the systems below. Do they, for instance, capture rainwater so that we can reduce water use? Water is energy intensive. Do they, perhaps, include green infrastructure, so that we can take runoff and water that's going out of our houses and clean it and filter it and grow urban street trees? Do they connect us back to the ecosystems around us by, for example, connecting us to rivers and allowing for restoration? Do they allow for pollination, pollinator pathways that bees and butterflies and such can come back into our cities? Do they even take the very waste matter that we have from food and fiber and so forth, and turn it back into soil and sequester carbon -- take carbon out of the air in the process of using our cities?
Sve su to dobri projekti, no zapravo im je promakla temeljna činjenica da se ne radi o lišću iznad, nego o sustavima ispod. Skupljaju li, na primjer, kišnicu kako bismo smanjili uporabu vode? Voda je energetski snažna. Uključuju li možda zelenu infrastrukturu da bismo mogli uzeti kišnicu i vodu koju ispuštamo iz svojih domova, očistiti je i filtrirati za navodnjavanje urbanog zelenila? Povezuju li nas ponovno s ekosustavima oko nas tako da nas povezuju s rijekama i omogućuju obnavljanje? Omogućuju li oprašivanje, putove za oprašivače kako bi se pčele i leptiri mogli vratiti u naše gradove? Uzimaju li uopće sam otpad od naše hrane, vlakana i tako dalje, i vraćaju ih zemlji i odvajaju ugljik -- uzimaju ugljik iz zraka u postupku iskorištavanja gradova?
I would submit to you that all of these things are not only possible, they're being done right now, and that it's a darn good thing. Because right now, our economy by and large operates as Paul Hawken said, "by stealing the future, selling it in the present and calling it GDP." And if we have another eight billion or seven billion, or six billion, even, people, living on a planet where their cities also steal the future, we're going to run out of future really fast. But if we think differently, I think that, in fact, we can have cities that are not only zero emissions, but have unlimited possibilities as well.
Priznao bih vam da su sve te stvari ne samo moguće, nego se već rade što je stvarno dobra stvar. U ovom trenutku naše gospodarstvo općenito funkcionira kako je rekao Paul Hawken: "ukradite budućnost, prodajte je u sadašnjosti i nazovite je BDP". Ako dodatnih osam milijardi ili sedam milijardi ili čak šest milijardi ljudi živi na planetu na kojemu njihovi gradovi kradu budućnost ubrzo će nam ponestati te budućnosti. No ako počnemo drukčije razmišljati mislim da zapravo možemo imati gradove ne samo bez emisije štetnih plinova, no također s beskrajnim mogućnostima.
Thank you very much.
Puno vam hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)