TED Community » Bernie Amell

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Restoring natural water to urban settings - read below and above

An idea worth spreading

Water is the primary shaper and sustainer of the land on which we have built our cities and towns. In our desire to reduce the risks of water in our cities, we have abandoned many of the diverse benefits of streams, ponds and related natural life.

This gross simplification of nature in the city starves us of rich experiences everyday, and depletes unnecessarily the movement and habitat of other species. Meanwhile we are not taking advantage of the “free services” that a viable ecosystem can provide to deal with pollution, noise and other unfortunate side effects of modern development.

We can attend to the risks and functionality that are the proper focus of engineers, while restoring nature to our cities and to our everyday lives.

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Ecological economics, The Importance of engaging in your particular community

Comments

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• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Would you prefer sales tax to income tax?

  Apr 17 2013: Arkady
  
  I am a supporter of consumption taxes as a more mature and responsive source of money to fund our collective services and interests (government), than income taxes. Consumption tax is a larger frame than simply sales tax. It includes, for example, fuel used in transport trucks, ocean freighters and agricultural equipment. The net effect of consumption taxes is that they send a price signal to the market (that is, to all of us). The meaning of that price signal is that there is a serious cost to the earth and the rest of us in consuming material and energy. We cannot avoid consumption, but we can choose to reward and reinforce inventions and behaviours that create qualitative value for society with the minimum consumption.
  
  The price signals sent by income taxes, without proportional taxes taken from consumptive industries, sends a perverse set of price signals. Full employment is devalued, while the price of shipping goods from distant places or from energy inefficient production is subsidized. Faced with these price signals any corporation must focus its creative talent on exploitation of off shore jobs rather than jobs at home. On shore industries that are highly consumptiive (ie. irrigation agriculture of bulk grains) are subsidized while industries that are less consumptive and job creative (ie. permaculture farms) are discouraged.
  
  I look for the day when there are no income taxes and we charge every industry or carrier that sells to our market is charged for the all of the energy and material consumption involved in the production AND transport of their goods to us. I am not arguing for an increase or decrease in taxation - save that for a different debate.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Abortion: Wrong or right?

  Apr 14 2013: The sexual choice that leads to conception was, usually, shared. Yet biological and economic realities place most of the long term risk firmly on the mother. Until there is assurance that the consequences of continuing the pregnancy will not reside primarily with her, then I believe that even to debate such a matter is to continue the force of social coercion that is being disproportionately levelled against women. Certainly men are not in a position to pass judgment on abortion. I suggest that those who are intent on this debate should redirect their energies to creation of social safety nets that would alleviate single mothers of the onerously one sided risk that they are facing in choosing to bear a child. Or perhaps such an institution should be created by the state?

• A comment on Conversation: A No-Party Party

  Apr 9 2013: The connection between big money and elections must be severed. If there were no donations allowed from corporations and a strictly regulated and monitored cap per donor the automatic effect would be a return to "We the People" focus. I like something like $1000 per elector with a tax deduction to sweeten the pot and provide some degree of monitoring that is independent of the main political parties. By lowering the cost of running elections there would also be less barriers to the emergence of new parties. But there would be much less money to spend on attack ads...The end of democracy as we have come to know it...anyone concerned about that!

• A comment on Talk: Margaret Heffernan: Dare to disagree

  Apr 2 2013: Thank you, Margaret for this clear articulation of several essential qualities of leaders in any human endeavour. First, the compulsion to speak the true as it presents itself to you. Second, appreciation for the subtle art of collaborative dispute. Third, willingness to suffer the ostracism that often stifles unconventional ideas. Perhaps there can be a follow up talk, profiling other successes...and even some failures that are instructive.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What obstacles do you think sustainable architecture is facing?

  Apr 1 2013: I am an environmental design professional who has worked periodically on LEED certified projects.
  
  My experience with LEED certification is mixed. While admiring the motivation behind the certification system, I find that it supports the assumptions of the authors of the system rather than encouraging good design. I assume that the designers of the LEED system are mainly technically oriented architects. LEED provides them with a validation system that gives them the implied accolades of other people of like mind ... This is quite distinct from experiences and opinions of the actual residents/users of the spaces. At worst the design professional is encouraged to put inappropriate and expensive components into the project simply to score the desired LEED points.... Yes this happens!
  
  By good design, I mean delightful spaces, well suited to the functional, social and emotional needs of the actual users. If the users of a "green building" find it to be too limiting or pose behavioural demands that are too extreme, they will soon enough tire of the supposed environmental values of the building or site.
  
  This is the modern equivalent of the medieval monks who whipped themselves then wore horse hair shirts to prove their devotion.
  
  In my opinion, the rush to codification was too rapid and procedurally complicated. It is better to have a variety of design experiments going on with radically differing technologies, forms and aesthetics. Then run competitions that include judging by actual users of the spaces..not just technical or aesthetic architects. We might then have one project that exhibited particular brilliance for energy efficiency, another for supporting multiple uses, another for residents delight. If you think that Leadership in Environmental Design" does not include residents/users delight...consider the embodied energy and materials in a building ... A delightful space is kept viable for decades or centuries longer than a mundane one.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: How does the sum total of ALL US healthcare costs compare to the sum total of ALL US health insurance premiums paid by Americans, annually?

  Mar 27 2013: Fabio
  
  You may find the following reference useful - it delves deeply into this matter. Particularly note the necessity of using a PPP (purchasing power parity) model, when trying to understand effective health care delivery models among widely differing economies. This might even be true of regional differences within the US due to marked variability among States.
  
  Jonas and Kovner's Health Care Delivery in the United States, ... - Page 68 - Google Books Result
  books.google.ca/books?isbn=0826106870
  Anthony R. Kovner, James R. Knickman, Steven Jonas, M.D. - 2011 - Medical
  A better alternative is to compare total health care spending per person (per capita), adjusted to achieve purchasing power parity, or PPP. ... Economists generally prefer to compare different countries' total spending on health care as a percent ...
  
  The Economist Magazine also ran an issue focussing on this topic about 5 years ago that might be worthwhile digging up.
  
  I am astonished that this issue is not more vigorously argued in the US. Perhaps it is being argued, and I am in a state of denial when I cannot comprehend why the current flawed model that is expensively delivering poor results to so many people is so vigorously defended. I also confess to never being a fan of either Horatio Alger or Ayn Rand.
  
  Bernie Amell
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Is the golden rule flawed?

  Mar 26 2013: The ethical principal of reciprocity appears to be a natural philosophy for any person who appreciates their own humanity. The following is an excerpt prepared by the Unitarians:
  
  "Ethic of Reciprocity" (Golden Rule) passages from various sources
  
  Native American Spirituality:
  "Respect for all life is the foundation." The Great Law of Peace.
  "All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One." Black Elk
  "Do not wrong or hate your neighbor. For it is not he who you wrong, but yourself." Pima proverb.
  
  Roman Pagan Religion:
  "The law imprinted on the hearts of all men is to love the members of society as themselves."
  
  Shinto:
  "The heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form" Munetada Kurozumi
  "Be charitable to all beings, love is the representative of God." Ko-ji-ki Hachiman Kasuga
  
  Sikhism:
  Compassion-mercy and religion are the support of the entire world". Japji Sahib
  "Don't create enmity with anyone as God is within everyone." Guru Arjan Devji 259
  "No one is my enemy, none a stranger and everyone is my friend." Guru Arjan Dev : AG 1299
  
  Sufism:
  "The basis of Sufism is consideration of the hearts and feelings of others. If you haven't the will to gladden someone's heart, then at least beware lest you hurt someone's heart, for on our path, no sin exists but this." Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, Master of the Nimatullahi Sufi Order.
  
  Taoism:
  "Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain, and your neighbor's loss as your own loss." T'ai Shang Kan Ying P'ien.
  
  Unitarian Universalism:
  "The inherent worth and dignity of every person;"
  "Justice, equity and compassion in human relations.... "
  
  This is not the only useful moral precept... and it may conflict with other precepts at times... such as when disciplining children who are at risk of damaging themselves... but I don't consider a limitation to necessarily indicate a flaw.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: What do you think of fear? Do we need? Can you take it out of your life?

  Mar 22 2013: There are many people who have a strongly vested interest in selling fear to as many of us as possible...it is the most effective way to make us controllable. As others have stated, there are few natural fears and many culturally induced ones. I say heed well the difference and distrust persons who too often counsel you to be fearful.

• A comment on Conversation: Is it possible to be too open-minded?

  Mar 22 2013: In a world and a life full of tough choices, being too open minded can be a self serving mask, justifying no-choice...the thinking person's comfortable cocoon. Beware then of simply becoming a pawn for whoever now holds the power and is willing to exercise it while you sit by the side practicing openmindness.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Do elite private schools have a responsibility to improve local public schools?

  Mar 21 2013: In Alberta, we have a few private schools but the public system is perhaps more universalist than I perceive is the local experience for many of the responders to date. My daughter is a teacher in a private school (specializing in language immersion teaching) and my son in law is a teacher in the public system. The private schools do have an overall better standing in respect of universal tests ... But not that substantially different from the upper tier of public schools. One experiment that has proved to be quite successful here was to allow the parents and administration of particular public schools to form a "charter school" that is focused in some way... For example, advanced training for the arts, or for gifted children. Parents and children then apply for entry to the school, but once accepted there is no tuition, though there may be extra cost for musical instruments, for example. This middle way is I suppose quite Canadian, neither completely socialist nor absolutely free enterprise. In any case, it seems to work, and I understand creates an improved teaching and learning environment.