Tree Uproots Concrete

On the balcony, there's a big pot of dirt, littered with a half-dying, yet somehow half flourishing, poinsettia plant from Christmas and a few dwarf-like weeds. In the middle of the pot, a bare snake-like twig crawls upwards. “It's my mother nature pot,” my friend says. “Whatever grows, grows.”

“What's that?” I ask, pointing to the twig.

“It's a tree! It pollinated from the one downstairs”. We run down the fire-escape and. . . There! Beside the stairs, a small sapling has defiantly grown through the pavement. A jaunty warning that the trees can return to uproot their destroyer. The city is not hopeless.

As news of the oil spill ominously fades, we await the next environmental disaster that will bring the planet one step closer to its end. You cannot read a newspaper without seeing the word “crisis” 147 times. The ever-growing, parasitic human colonies are quickly swallowing the natural world. Listening to the media, you would think the apocalypse has already come and gone. Where is that glass half-full, earth-loving happy hippie bullshit when we need it most?

Enter Jeb Brugmann, albeit more urban optimist than earthy hippie, and author of Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities are Changing the World. The reshaping of the globe into thousands of highly concentrated cities requires an effective urban strategy, not nihilistic ignorance. Brugmann calls for the city to be considered as a system, one in which the principles of biology and ecology reign. Citysystems can become sustainable by mimicking the energy-efficient trophic structure of natural, functioning ecosystems. Wait, huh?

So maybe it's been a while since our last science class, but we all remember the food web, yes? Sun gives energy and food to plant. Insect eats plant. Frog eats insect. Snake eats frog. Hawk eats snake. Hawk dies. Detritivores turn dead hawk body into nutrient-rich compost. And onward the cycle turns. . .

Now that everyone's up to speed, why not apply the same cyclical model to a city? Afterall, a city is a system of living organisms. We can observe basic biology in the very downtown core of Toronto. Encircled by traffic, the squirrels in Queen's Park have started to speciate, becoming genetically distinct from other squirrels in the city. Pigeon flocks govern the streets by day, raccoon clans by night. The eyrie-speckled office towers that are now home to the once endangered peregrine falcon prove that the city is not devoid of nature, but rather the tremendous potential for nurturing urban biomass.

It is imperative that we look upon our city with the same cyclical biological principles that govern the “natural” world so that the city may move away from the unnatural linear model of enormous energy inputs transferring in equally enormous waste outputs. Energy needs to be recycled, not just consumed.

As individual citizens, we have a responsibility to reduce the amount of energy we consume. In Toronto, the top energy sinkholes are transportation, electricity, and food. We need to drive less, use less electricity, and grow our own food. Blogger and author Gayla Trail has proven that we can get tremendous food output from our confined urban dwellings (Check out www.yougrowgirl.com).

The responsibility of honing the ideal urban ecosystem also falls to the city. The following are some initiatives the city of Toronto is leading to ensure its sustainability.

• Deep Lake Water Cooling – In order to reduce energy consumption from air conditioners during the summer months, the City of Toronto (partnered with Enwave) is pumping the frigid water from Lake Ontario into the office buildings lining the waterfront to serve as a cooling system. http://www.toronto.ca/environment/initiatives/cooling.htm 
• Toronto and Region Conservation Authority – Their vision is “The Living City”, the ideal urban ecosystem in which no energy is wasted, and nature is embedded in urban life.  http://www.trca.on.ca/understand/about-the-living-city.dot 
• Green Fleet Plan 2008 – 2011 – A city initiative to ensure that all city-owned and operated vehicles are of the highest environmental standard. http://www.toronto.ca/fleet/pdf/gfp.pdf

So, we have our individual responsibilities, the efforts put forth by the city, and finally, the most powerful reservoir of human potential: the collective initiatives of the citizenry. The following are some not-for-profit organizations that have sprung from the mass cooperation of eco-conscious Torontonians:

• http://www.greenestcity.ca/
• http://www.notfarfromthetree.org/
• http://www.greenhere.ca/GREENHERE/Welcome_to_GREENHERE.html
  
• http://www.foodshare.net/garden12.htm
  
  
  
  

So turn down the dooms-day prophecies that are spewing from the tv/radio/internet. All is not hopeless. Be happy to live in Toronto, a city sprung from the glacial bedding of the Pleistocene, where the man-made and the natural will come to pleasantly co-exist.