The next two weeks we will be highlighting the inspired thought leaders who will be speaking at Ecocity World Summit 2009.

Today: Parris Glendening & Arnold J. Goldman

Parris Glendening, former Governor of Maryland, President, Smart Growth Leadership Institute, USA

Governor Glendening is President of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute, and two term past Governor of Maryland, United States of America, 1995 to 2003. As governor, one of his primary agenda items was the development strategy known as Smart Growth, which focuses development in higher density mixed use centers that work well with transit, save energy and address environmental issues at their foundation. He led the creation of a Smart Growth Initiative for the state of Maryland and another initiative working with Trust for Public Land, that helps States to align land use and water protection. Smart Growth Leadership Institute: http://www.sgli.org

Sunday, December 13, 11:30-12:30 Session 2: The City and the Shape of the Future

Arnold J. Goldman, Chairman & Founder, BrightSource Energy, Inc., ISRAEL – USA

Arnold J. Goldman is the Chairman and Founder of both BrightSource Energy Inc. and BrightSource Industries (Israel), Ltd. (BSII). He holds a B.S. in Engineering from UCLA and a MSEE from the University of Southern California. Mr. Goldman was the founder of Luz International, Ltd. and served as its CEO. Luz International, Ltd. designed, constructed, financed, and operated the world’s nine largest Solar Electric Generating Systems (SEGS) which, at the time, generated 90 percent of the world’s solar electricity. Mr. Goldman also co-founded Electric Fuel Ltd., an electric battery/fuel cell company listed today as Aerotech on the NASDAQ. He was the VP of Engineering and co-founder of Lexitron, the first word processing company in the US. Lexitron was bought by Raytheon in 1977. Mr. Goldman is the recipient of two international awards for his contribution to solar energy development. He holds numerous patents for his inventions and innovations. BrightSource Energy, Inc.: http://www.brightsourceenergy.com

Monday, December 14, 09:00-10:45 Session 1: Energy, Economy and Innovation

The next two weeks we will be highlighting the inspired thought leaders who will be speaking at Ecocity World Summit 2009.

Today: Paul Downton & Veysel Eroglu

Paul Downton, Ecopolis Architects, Adelaide, Australia – Convener, the Second International Ecocity Conference in Adelaide, AUSTRALIA

Mr Paul Downton is Director and Principal Architect of Ecopolis Architects Pty Ltd. Working with his partner Cherie and colleague Emilis Prelgauskas in 1991 he formed Urban Ecology Australia, the national non-profit urban environmental community group which has been actively promoting ecological developments ever since. Paul is a talented artist as well as seminal thinker developing ecocity theory and giving countless public talks, radio, TV and newspaper interviews internationally on ecological architecture, urban ecology and ecopolis and unique experience actually building projects he designs. Paul and his partner Cherie were co-conveners of the Second International Ecocity Conference in Adelaide. Ecopolis Architects: http://www.ecopolis.com.au

Monday, December 14, 15:30-17:00 Session 4: Ecocity Architecture and Urban Design II

Veysel Eroglu, Minister of Environment and Forests, TURKEY

Mr. Eroglu is Member of Parliament for Afyonkarahisar of the ruling AKP. He graduated in civil engineering from Istanbul Technical University, going on to an academic career at the same university until becoming general director of the Istanbul water board in 1994. Here he is remembered for successfully modernizing and cleaning up the city’s water supply, which had previously been a victim of corruption and neglect.He became head of the State Hydraulic Works (DSI) in 2003, where again he supervised a program of investment for renewal. In the past, Eroglu campaigned for the position of the mayor of Istanbul from AKP. He was elected to the parliament in 2007, becoming minister of environment and forestry, where, as part of his duties, he will be responsible for Turkey’s strategy and approach to global warming.

Tuesday, December 15, 15:30-17:00 Session 4: Ecocity Future of Istanbul – Building the Future at the Crossroads of Civilizations

The next two weeks we will be highlighting the inspired thought leaders who will be speaking at Ecocity World Summit 2009.

Today: Wulf Daseking & Marcel Diallo

Wulf Daseking, Director of Planning City of Freiburg, GERMANY

Mr Wulf Daseking has been the director of city planning in Freiburg, Germany, since 1984. For six years before that, he held a similar role at Mullheim/Ruhr. At Freiburg, Wulf is responsible for urban development, land development, landscape planning, master plan development and individual projects. He is an associate member of the German Federation of Architects, a member of the German Academy of Urban and Rural Development/Berlin an a member of the exert committee city planning of the German Congress of Cities. Wulf is also a lecturer in city planning at Freiburg University and at Darmstadt/University of Architecture City of Freiburg: http://www.freiburg-home.com

Monday, December 14, 13:45-15:15 Session 3: Sustainable City Design, Layout and Planning

Marcel Diallo, poet, musician, artist, philosopher, social entrepreneur, activist, California, USA

Marcel Diallo is an American musician, poet, artist and community builder, known for his founding of the Black Dot Artists Collective, The Black New World and his revitalization efforts in West Oakland, California’s historic, predominantly African-American neighborhood. As a performance artist and an activist, Marcel Diallo has performed and shared the stage with such legendary poets and artists as Amiri Baraka, The Last Poets, David Murray, Kahil El Zabar, Sonia Sanchez, Kamau Da’oud, Marvin X, Piri Thomas, Micheal McClure, Lawrence Ferlingetti, as well as actor Don Cheadle. Diallo is currently active in land-based community building in his West Oakland neighborhood, with the intent of making sure that African-American residents do not get displaced by the rapid wave of gentrification that is taking hold of the historically black neighborhood. Black New World: http://www.blacknewworld.com

Monday, December 14, 11:00-12:30 Session 2: Legacy, Equity and Design

The next two weeks we will be highlighting the inspired thought leaders who will be speaking at Ecocity World Summit 2009.

Today we’re excited to announce the addition of Engin Ayaz and Jake Levitas from Arup to our line-up of speakers. Engin and Jake enjoy exploring synergies across various technical focus areas and developing integrated design scenarios with strong visual outputs.

Engin Ayaz, Energy and Resources Consultant

Engin Ayaz is an energy and resources consultant in the Arup’s Buildings team in San Francisco. Engin has an interdisciplinary background in engineering and architecture and focuses on carbon, climate change and informatics in the context of architecture, engineering and planning. Engin enjoys exploring synergies across various technical focus areas and developing integrated design scenarios with strong visual outputs. Previously, he worked on a sustainability research assignment across five Arup offices. Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, Engin has a Civil and Environmental Engineering degree from Stanford University and is a LEED accredited professional.

Monday, December 14, 17:15-18:15 Session 5: Planning Tools for Sustainability

Jake Levitas, Sustainability Consultant

Jake Levitas is a Sustainability Consultant with Arup’s Planning team in San Francisco. His experience in sustainability consulting ranges from applying sustainability to design, construction and operation of urban planning projects and infrastructure to analysis of corporate objectives and implementing sustainability plans for organizations. He has contributed to environmental impact assessment work, as well as both public and private sustainable development projects. He has notable experience with GIS analysis, mapping, and database management in the context of integrated sustainable design.

Monday, December 14, 17:15-18:15 Session 5: Planning Tools for Sustainability

The next two weeks we will be highlighting the inspired thought leaders who will be speaking at Ecocity World Summit 2009.

Today: Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis & Sahar Attia

Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis, Founder and President, Biopolitics International Organization (B.I.O.), Athens, GREECE

The Biopolitics International Organization (B.I.O.) is an non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Athens, Greece. Over the course of its history, B.I.O. has been promoting a shift from an anthropocentric to a biocentric system of values in society, in order to curb environmental destruction and place appreciation of the environment at the core of every human endeavour. B.I.O. has held numerous international conferences and symposia, paving the way for the development of new strategies to secure environmental protection as a primary societal aim.

Appearing Sunday, December 13, 17:15-18:15 Session 5: Biology and Wildlife in our Lives

Sahar Attia, Cairo University, Cairo, EGYPT

Dr. Sahar Attia is Professor of Planning & Urban Design at Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. With a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the Urban Institute of Paris, France. She is Technical Coordinator and Urban Planning Consultant for improving the informal settlements in Eygpt. Her work is centered around cultural and natural heritage conservation in Mediterranean cities. Dr. Attia currently serves as Secretary of the committee of “Urban Planning and New Communities” – The Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, The Ministry of Scientific Research, Egypt. She is also a member of the Research Institute for Development.

Appearing Monday, December 14, 13:45-15:15 Session 3: Sustainable City Design, Layout and Planning

The concept of a high-density ecocity that caters to people and not cars actually necessitates large-scale renewable energy “power plants” such as large solar and wind farms.  These would require power to be transported from remote locations where solar and wind power are generated to urban homes in a central metropolis – via the smart grid.  The reason for this is that in such a high-density “ecocity,” there simply is not the rooftop space per capita to mount enough solar panels to meet everyone’s needs.  Thus, the idea of renewable power generated remotely and “piped in” via smart grid is pivotal to the functionality of such a city.  While it is true that transmission losses do occur when power is piped in, the heat energy that “bleeds” from the exterior walls of dwellings in wintertime is perhaps an even greater consideration.  Thus, the efficiency gains by many shared walls in city dwellings may trump the efficiency losses of transporting power from a solar or wind farm (via smart grid) to a household in the city.

According to the Houston Chron, the momentum for a smart grid that can handle solar and wind power has been building over the last year. Two Houston companies recently landed nearly $220 million in federal stimulus funds to bolster “smart grid” projects aimed at improving power system reliability and helping consumers use less electricity. Nearly 100 such projects nationwide will split $3.4 billion in grants from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.  Federal grants will be matched with industry funding for a total investment of more than $8 billion. The government estimates the projects will create tens of thousands of jobs and reduce overall power use.

The burgeoning solar industry is on the up as well.  According to Environmental Leader, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric has announced it will buy 500 megawatts of solar power from Nextera and Abengoa Solar. This adds to other solar deals by PG&E recently, for a total of 830 MW, according to a press release.  In Florida, the DeSoto and Space Coast Next Generation Solar Energy Centers has been completed, and will provide 25 megawatts of solar, or enough to power about 3,000 homes.  It is said to be the largest in the U.S. to date, at 90,000 panels. The list of solar projects is long and optimism for this clean technology is high.

A new report recently cited by Environmental Leader indicates that many states across the U.S. could become more self-reliant by producing renewable energy within their borders.  According to a recently updated report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, at least 30 U.S. states could satisfy 100% of their electricity needs from in-state renewable energy based on the assumption that there is sufficient distributed storage or distributed generation capable of generating on-demand, and at least 40 states could supply half their electricity with domestic renewable resources.  The key implication in the report, however, is that electric car batteries will serve to store the generated electricity until it is needed.

The current vision for the smart grid seems to assume reliance on electric car batteries to store electricity. Thus, the mainstream smart grid idea does not yet align with the ideals of an ecocity that is truly sustainable.  The truth is batteries do not require a 3,000-pound mobile vehicle to do the work of storing electricity.  While electric vehicles (EV’s) may be seen as a free energy storage tool (an “anyway expense”), this alone is not a good reason to continue pursuing car-centric cities.   Such cities offer air pollution, urban sprawl, urban runoff, farmland and habitat destruction, sedentary lifestyles that propagate obesity, and myriad other problems that can be abated when cities are designed for people instead of cars.

Research and development for EV’s may be bringing us the tools we need to create a mode of storage for our solar and wind-derived power.  This is a handy tool for the coming smart grid, but let’s leave the cars behind.

Author:
Stacey Meinzen
www.ClimateActionPlans.com

As the person who first coined the term “Eco-city”, Ecocity Builders founder Richard Register questions the interpretation of the term in such places as the upcoming Abu Dhabi World Future Energy Summit in January of 2010. Register has been an advocate for the idea of ecologically healthy cities since 1965, and he started using the word variously spelled ecocities, eco-cities and EcoCities in 1979. According to Register, the ecocity is designed on the measure of the human being, not the car, powered by solar energy, fed by organic farming and designed to build soils and restore biodiversity and climate stability. He says we know it can be done because he knows people who are doing it.

The Abu Dhabi conference will feature engineering firm Arup’s design of Dongtan, China (on hold for three years now) and San Francisco’s Treasure Island, as well as Abu Dhabi’s Masdar eco-city.   The conference ventures to design the whole city a little differently, using renewable energy systems, better recycling, rooftop gardens and shade roofs over building in hot climates, and more pedestrian-oriented streets. Register says these goals are virtuous, but he also says that the emPHAsis is on the wrong syllAble.  The talk is more about massive new renewable energy supplies than energy conservation by city redesign ­ and Masdar’s so-called “pods” look suspiciously like a different design for cars after all.  Biofuels are also problematic, as it requires

According to Register, the Abu Dhabi conference attempts, once again, to make cars a central feature of the ecocity. Register believes this is a contradiction.  The automobile, he says, is on average about 30 times heavier than a human being and takes up about 60 times the volume standing still.  Moreover, car accidents kill a million people every year and contribute heavily to climate change. In Register’s view, the car is intrinsically incorrigible. When designing cities on the demands of automobiles, you have to invest billions of extra dollars on streets, parking lots and parking structures, freeways and interchanges, police and ambulance services, insurance, hospital bills and on and on. What if you put that money instead into designs based on the dimensions of the human body supported by bicycles and transit? Register suggests that car companies switch to a different product line building streetcars, trains, elevators, bicycles and the mixed-use cities that bring jobs, commerce and social life close together on much smaller areas of land.  “It’s a full employment, planning and intelligence-rich strategy for green jobs,” says Register.

Register is not alone in his interpretation of the “ecocity.”  The term has similarly been defined by the likes of Arizona architect Paolo Soleri, Curitiba Mayor Jaime Lerner (Brazil), Chinese ecocity theoretician, Congress member and Director of the Research at the Research Center for Ecological and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Science Rusong Wang, and climate scientist Stephen Schneider who accepted the 2007 Nobel Prize on behalf of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes.

“I met Arizona architect Paolo Soleri in 1965,” Register recounts, “in the early years of his talking about the disasters of the sprawl/automobile/paving/cheap energy way of designing and laying out cities. Soleri’s comment that no complex living organism is flat and spread out like a sheet of paper or the suburbs ­ two-dimensional rather than thee-dimensional in his words ­ and that cars are intrinsically an anti-city anti-human and ultimately anti-nature invention struck me as absolutely fundamental to understanding what human civilizations should be building.”

Register calls the relationship between complex living organisms like our own bodies and the complex built environment of cities, towns and villages “The Anatomy Analogy.”  He believes it prescribes a much more compact city like those of Europe as compared with those of the United States. But he and Soleri take the idea farther in proposing cities with buildings linked by bridges and the full range of community life and economy organized in much smaller spaces, leaving much more land and water for nature and agriculture while demanding far less in resources for life in the city. The lean and frugal city is Soleri’s term for such design.

Register’s organization – Ecocity Builders – along with Parantez Fair International in Istanbul, Turkey will hold the Eighth International Ecocity Summit in Istanbul this December. The world-renowned series follows the first, held in Berkeley in 1990, and five subsequent conferences in Australia, Senegal, Brazil, China and India. Ecocity World Summit 2008 will take center stage before a highly influential community of architects, planners, designers, policy makers, green businesses, political and nonprofit leaders, with the added participation of international experts and delegates.

Information on the upcoming Eighth International Ecocity Conference in Istanbul is available at www.ecocity2009.com and information on Ecocity Builders in Oakland, California is at www.ecocitybuilders.org

An article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle titled S.F. transportation costs lower than in suburbs quotes a report being released by the Urban Land Institute with the all-encompassing title of “Bay Area Burden: Examining the costs and impacts of housing and transportation on Bay Area residents, their neighborhoods and the environment.”

Not that we didn’t know this already, but it says that “the average San Francisco household spends roughly $500 less on transportation each month than households in such suburban outposts as Antioch or Livermore.” All the talk about the inherent costs and problems associated with suburban life is great, but it’s the hard numbers that often drive the point home.

For families in more distant automobile-reliant suburbs, though, the monthly transportation costs spike. The estimate for Antioch is $1,311, for instance, while in Livermore it’s $1,281. Cities with little connection to transit also suffer – such as Pacifica, where a household’s monthly transportation is estimated to cost $1,246.

Read the whole article, it’s a good one to quote the next time someone tells you they live in the suburbs because it’s cheaper. Also check out the full report at bayareaburden.org. Also, check out the recent article Investment in public transit creates U.S. jobs for new green economy in The Hill.

All those urbanites growing organic food in the city has a certain appeal for the media, but to the average person, it may feel like a temporary marginal fad at best.  So why are city governments around the world taking it so seriously?  As it turns out, this trend has the potential to solve some of the worst problems that cities face – namely, climate change and water shortages – with a simple element: Topsoil.

Over the last several decades, many of the rainforests that act as our “carbon sinks” have been slashed and burned to make way for agricultural production.  Likewise, grasslands and savannas in Africa and America are routinely burned to make space for agriculture.  The farms that consequently inhabit those places feed the world’s cities – from Buenos Aires to Anchorage, Tokyo to Sydney, and everywhere in between.  Moreover, as cities expand to make room for sprawling communities, former farmlands are converted to suburbs because land-holders typically sell to the highest bidder – developers.  Consequently, more farmland must be created and more wild places (habitat) destroyed to make room for more farms.

The global market for agricultural products has obvious implications for climate change, as carbon-sequestering forests are cleared and products are shipped long distances using vast amounts of fossil fuels.  However, what may be less obvious is the solution to feeding the world’s cities without encroaching on our wild lands and carbon sinks.

Most people know by now that forests pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, helping to fight climate change.  What might be less apparent is that soil sequesters carbon with far less risk than forests.  As temperatures rise due to climate change, bark beetles have begun to infest many of North America’s forests, killing off thousands of acres of forest and priming these vast swaths of land for massive forest fires.  Once the trees are dead, one lighting strike or one match will be all it takes to send all that sequestered carbon back up into the atmosphere.  If sequestering carbon in forests is our plan, this is quite a gamble.

Healthy topsoil, on the other hand, can soak up carbon with a remarkable rate of absorption and no risk of loss to the atmosphere during forest fires.  Collectively, tillage management and cropping systems in the U.S. are estimated to have the potential to sequester 30–105 million metric tons of carbon per year, says R. F. Follett in an abstract on ScienceDirect.  Unfortunately, we are losing topsoil around the world at an alarming rate. According to Allan Savory and Christopher Peck of Natural Investment Services, LLC, it is estimated today that our crop and range lands lose 4 tons of soil every year for every person alive. That’s 21 gigatons of soil lost to the sea, lost to productive use on land and releasing vast amounts of carbon (New Scientist, December 2006).  Thus, the problem with our current practices lies not only in deforestation, but also in our astronomical loss of topsoil to the world’s ocean because of overgrazing, poor farming practices, resulting erosion, and urban runoff.

Topsoil is not the only thing we are giving away to the world’s oceans.  Fresh water is systematically being diverted from our aquifers in an attempt to avoid flooding.  The unintended consequence of our diversion strategy is that we are depleting our aquifers and causing severe water shortages for ourselves and for species that rely on fresh water.  The water wars that happen every year in communities around the U.S. have as much to do with our ecological illiteracy as with a drought in any given year.  Our cities’ lack of permeable surfaces and topsoil to store the water mean that it’s not sinking into the ground and reaching our aquifers, nor is it being caught and stored for use in the dry season.  Instead, this fresh, drinkable rainwater is often contaminated by chemical lawn fertilizers, motor oil, and other products before hitting the asphalt and concrete gutters that will carry it to storm drains and ultimately, to the ocean.

Although the system may seem too set in asphalt and concrete to change, cities are catching on and, along with community-based organizations, pioneering a new pathway to solve many of their woes at once.   They are addressing climate change and water shortages (and epidemic obesity) simultaneously by building sustainable local agricultural systems that feed their residents on-site while acting as a giant sponge for both water (to recharge the aquifers) and carbon.

One example of such a city is Petaluma, CA.  On October 24th of this year, the City of Petaluma, along with nonprofits Daily Acts, Rebuilding Together Petaluma, and Petaluma Bounty, came together with over 200 citizens to sheet mulch 25,000 square feet of unused lawn at City Hall and install edible landscaping, community gardens, and a rooftop water catchment system.  Leaders at the event spoke about carbon sequestration in the soil, replenishing the aquifer, and providing a source of local organic food for city residents.  Large-scale private-public partnerships include the City of Detroit and Hantz Farm, which together may soon create the world’s largest urban farm, although it’s unclear what their plans are as far as sustainable farming practices go.

According to a U.N. climate change paper on agriculture last year, by 2030 an estimated 5.5 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent a year could be avoided by agriculture with about 89% achieved by soil carbon sequestration.  Cities have an opportunity to build carbon sequestering capacity, thus potentially qualifying for carbon credits while also reaping the benefits of tax revenues from the sale of agricultural products within their borders.  By creating permeable surfaces and building topsoil, cities will also begin to recharge their aquifers, avoiding the water wars with farmers that are so common in today’s system.  Perhaps those urban farmers are really onto something.

To learn more about urban agriculture around the world, consider attending the Eighth Annual International EcoCity World Summit.   A highly influential community of architects, planners, designers, policy makers, green businesses, political and nonprofit leaders, with the added participation of international experts and delegates will be convening for the conference to present papers and ideas on the EcoCity and its role in the escape from dangerous climate change.  Participants from Australia, the U.S., the U.K., Israel, France, Senegal, Egypt, Singapore, India, Nepal and more will join together in the discussion in Istanbul this December.  In addition, more than 100 papers will be presented in concurrent sessions from more than 40 countries representing young emerging and pioneering talent from around the world.

For more information, go to: http://www.ecocity2009.com

Author:
Stacey Meinzen
www.ClimateActionPlans.com

In the early 1960’s, International Ecocity Conference Series Founder and President of NGO Ecocity Builders’ Richard Register was living in Los Angeles when it was, as he says, “Hell on wheels, smog burning your throat and eyes and hundreds of ‘excess deaths’ a year from air pollution.”  Register has never been fond of cars, but he concedes that almost five decades later, despite millions more cars on the road, catalytic converters have done much to clean up the smog problem in LA. However, he still takes issue with car-centric cities. While no one would disagree that clearing the air of smog is a good thing, we must ask ourselves if slapping a filter on our tailpipes is enough to abate the other problems that come with lots of cars.  Nothing we add to our tailpipe can alleviate traffic, prevent car accidents that kill 40 thousand people in the U.S. every year, make our communities more walkable, or stop climate change.

While owning a car has become a common aspiration in many developing countries, those Los Angeleans who daily spend two or more hours sitting in traffic on LA freeways may wonder why anyone would want to follow suit.  According to Forbes.com, the annual delay per driver in the U.S. is in excess of 47 hours per year, creating delayed shipments and wasting more than 2.3 billion gallons of fuel each year.  Moreover, according to the Texas Transportation Institute the cost of U.S. traffic delays is, conservatively, $63.1 billion a year, based on 2003 figures.

Yet the world drives on.

In Sao Paulo, nearly 1,000 cars are added to the streets each day. Traffic in Bangkok has gotten so bad that hundreds of women over the past few years have been forced to give birth in cars. The Royal Thai Traffic Police has trained 145 of its officers in basic midwifery.  While some may admire the multi-tasking that’s inherent in such a situation, perhaps it’s time to think about creating a different kind of city.

As we approach the UN Climate Talks in Copenhagen this December, we might consider stepping back – way back – out of our cities and looking in at what has happened to them.  Could they not be better designed to meet humanity’s needs and to avoid catastrophic climate change?  Could they not afford us more time with family and friends and less time stuck in a metal box with wheels on a four-lane road?

Register believes the answer is yes.  His solution? The EcoCity.  Register first conceived of the idea several decades ago, calling it, “One stop shopping for all your solutions.” According to Register, EcoCities could not only run on one tenth of the energy that cities currently do, but also could bring on the age of bicycle and rails while reducing car crashes and supporting solar and wind energy.  EcoCities also hold the promise of reforestation and restoration of vast areas of green space and farmland recovered from urban sprawl.

Register is far from alone in this idea.  A highly influential community of architects, planners, designers, policy makers, green businesses, political and nonprofit leaders, with the added participation of international experts and delegates will be convening at the Eighth Annual International EcoCity World Summit to present papers and ideas on the EcoCity and its role in the escape from dangerous climate change.  Participants from Australia, the U.S., the U.K., Israel, France, Senegal, Egypt, Singapore, India, Nepal and more will join together in the discussion in Istanbul this December.  In addition, more than 100 papers will be presented in concurrent sessions from more than 40 countries representing young emerging and pioneering talent from around the world.

For more information, go to: http://www.ecocity2009.com

Author:
Stacey Meinzen
www.ClimateActionPlans.com