Description: Overpopulation and Urbanization are some of the most-compelling inspirations
for creating our cost-effective Emerald Eco-City SUSTAINAABLE 3D Solution
Before rural electrification and petroleum-powered farm equipment, muscle power (from horses, mules, oxen, and especially humans) was required to feed our society. In 1900, there were only 76 million Americans, mostly living in rural communities. Electricity and gasoline cars were extremely rare.
41% of Americans (roughly 30 million) were farmers little more than a century ago. Today, USA has over 300 million people
to feed, and less than 2% (perhaps 4 million, depending on the definition of a “farm”) grow far more food for four-times more Americans PLUS starving people around the world.
90% of farmers have to work at other jobs to make enough money to operate their farms. Only about half-a-million U.S. farms
are classified “commercial farms” with over $50,000 of gross annual sales. Where did the 41% farmers of yesteryear go?
and sad burden on their families.
Total World Population Explosion 1950-2050
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base
Year |
Billions People |
Percent Change |
Population Increase |
Year |
Billions People |
Percent Change |
Population Increase |
Year |
Billions People |
Percent Change |
Population Increase |
The above table shows that the rate of population explosion is slowing somewhat. Birth rate is stabilizing, BUT Death Rate
Is Increasing, due to over-exploitation of resources. Earth can NOT support current population at current consumption rates.
The worldwide proportions of urbanization rose dramatically from 13% (220 million) urban sprawl dwellers in 1900, to 29%
(732 million) in 1950, to over 50% (3.4 billion) today. The overcrowded urbanization trend is now accelerating worldwide.
Percent of Urbanized Population By Country
Average Country-Wide Population Density (humans per square kilometer)
Satellite Nighttime Photos Showing Population Urbanization Concentration Locations
Many of the world’s largest cities had their basic foundations laid out over a century ago. Most of today’s older megacities have rapidly devolved into very-poorly-planned, unoptimized, inefficient, UNSUSTAINABLE, CHAOTIC CLUTTERS OF ISOLATED BUILDINGS, and disconnected lonely people, who suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder
China has over 600 million people living in crowded urban environments - That is twice the number of total people in the USA.
It seems like very few of the streets in London meet at a 90 or 180 Degree Angle, and the name of the street changes every block or so. It takes three years to learn how to be a cab driver in London. WHEN London floods (along with many other at-risk near-sea-level cities worldwide), what will the residents do?
Will inundated megacities repeat random unoptimized chaos and extreme urban inefficiency forever? What will eventually trigger radical reinvention of megacity efficiency and lead to true environmental sustainability?
Alarming Explosion of Worldwide Megacities
It took from 1997 until 2009 (a dozen years) for world population to explode from 5.8 to 6.8 billion people. All things considered (births, wars, murders, famine, starvation, lack of clean fresh water, and deadly diseases), the next one-billion humans are predicted to be here by 2023. We can argue and speculate about the exact date, but the historical population growth trend
is clearly established, and well documented scientifically.
IF half of the next one billion humans continue (or accelerate) the urbanization trend, Earth will need an additional FIFTY NEW MEGACITIES of 10 million people each, which do NOT exist today. If they all live in cities of one million each, we will need 500 NEW CITIES BY 2023. How will we make unprecedented urban explosion happen in such a short period of time?
It is now reasonable to believe that this population + urbanization trend is HIGHLY PREDICTABLE (unless at least 20% of humanity is wiped out by man-made nuclear destruction, a huge meteor strike, unstoppable plague, climate change, etc.).
Do you know ANYONE who has a rational, BELIEVABLE plan in place to construct 50 new cities of 10 million each, OR
500 new cities of 1 million each by 2023 ? ? ?
Zero Energy Design DOES – It is called Emerald Eco-City. We need the first
working prototype IMMEDIATELY.
2010’s 5-year-olds will graduate from high school (if they don’t drop out) by 2022.
What kind of environmental legacy and opportunities will be available for them? Will there be any living-wage new jobs, or places for them to live? Will we have
outsourced all of our good jobs and money-making technology overseas?
Will our education, healthcare, law enforcement, and retirement systems all be bankrupt? Will there be any funds for ineffective Homeland Security, or overseas oil-related wars? Will suicidal fanatical terrorists have a wide-open door to our destruction?
Will there even be a middle class? How will the next generation pay for the Trillions of dollars of selfish debt we have already created for them? (Immoral Deficit Spending As Usual: Don't tax you. Don't tax me. Selfishly tax that baby on your knee.)
Will China, Japan, and OPEC foreclose on the many loans they have granted USA? Will U.S.-Dollar-based assets become worthless? Will America in the 21ST Century go the predictable way of all previously-failed democracy experiments before us?
All this may eventually come to pass, IF we ignore Objective Zero Sustainability for yet another decade.
Will new urban areas randomly spring up chaotically for the next generation, in the same haphazard way that today’s
inefficient, unoptimized, UNSUSTAINABLE CITIES have done, to the detriment of the entire worldwide environment
and worldwide resource depletion ? ? ?
Today’s explosive urban growth trends are TOTALLY UNSUSTAINABLE for our children's predictable future.
We must radically reinvent almost everything.
SMALL incremental improvements to today’s insufficient man-made community infrastructures can NOT begin to satisfy
a world with 7.8 billion humans (in about 2023).
Communities-as-usual are going to undergo a rapid catastrophic collapse in less than one generation (15 years).
Simply changing a few light bulbs, recycling a fraction of our mountains of disposables, increasing miles per gallon,
and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by small fractions, are beyond any doubt FAR TOO LITTLE, FAR TOO LATE.
The world has NO plan or funding for a sustainable future – Not even close
We MUST have a cost-effective, extremely-efficient, pragmatic, practical, WORKING PROTOTYPE of an Emerald Eco-City
AMOST IMMEDIATELY, with Objective Zero (OZ): ZERO Emissions – Never Burn Anything (no coal, no oil, no gas, no biofuel,
and no nuclear waste), ZERO Pollution, ZERO Crime, ZERO Poverty, ZERO Energy – Self Sufficiency, ZERO Waste, and
ZERO Impact – NO Disposables, NO Landfill,
Cradle-to-Cradle
Design of Everything.
Partial slow baby steps simply will not do. Small reductions in existing bad lifestyle habits can NOT possibly work. When we fully comprehend the situation we are NOW IN, we will realize that we MUST THINK BOLDLY, and ACT BOLDER THAN HUMANITY HAS EVER DONE BEFORE. Don’t let anyone make you settle for less than the very-best OZ.
Sustainable Eco-Cities are A MILLION TIMES MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE $125 BILLION (in today’s dollars) THAT WE SPENT TO SEND MEN TO THE MOON, or the terrible investment that was required to win World War II. 50 megacities of 10 million people, or 500 cities of 1 million will cost mega billions in less than 15 years – An unimaginable astronomical sum by any modern measure.
The only alternative may well be massive death – The ultimate suicide of humanity. Our inefficient coastal megacity skyscrapers may soon become the tombstones of humanity. Is that what YOU will allow to happen, while ignoring clearly-predictable trends? If you think: “It’s not my job”, you might as well think: “It’s not my life – I’m ready for my children to die soon.”
The U.S. Census suggests that in 1900, there were 76 million people living in America. Population grew rapidly to 122 million by 1930, triggering The Great Depression. There was insufficient water for one third of America. Over-grazing and over-extraction of scarce water created the Dust Bowl Desertification . It literally took decades to recover, and yet, our non-learning nation is re-making many of the same Great Depression mistakes today. The 2008 Great Recession was merely a small hint of how we have ignored overwhelming scientific environmental predictions, and proven off-the-shelf solutions, for many decades.
In only about one generation, America will add an ADDITIONAL 100 million residents (many of them here illegally). Half will want to live in urban sprawl that does not even exist today. We are doing almost nothing to control over-population, and massive non-renewable-resource depletion. (Do you know what “UNSUSTAINABLE” means?) USA disaster is approaching haphazardly, with no rational plan for predictable-catastrophe mitigation. It is precisely following historical trends that have been ignored for far too long.
What will we do with “only” 400 million people? How will we do it? When will we start? The longer we wait, the more traumatic the situation will surely become.
Should the world thoughtlessly allow 20% of humanity to starve to death without food, water, or a home? Do you think you are invincible, and that it will not impact your family? One billion are already famished worldwide, why not many billions more? What can possibly prevent it from happening, based on well-documented current trends?
Is anyone listening? Does anyone care about their OWN grandchildren’s future?
The unprecedented motivation for Emerald Eco-City that we just presented above is not even one half of the huge problem that we MUST solve very soon in the 21ST Century.
Let’s assume hypothetically that thousands of worldwide climatologists are correct. And that the predictions about near-future sea level rise are accurate (from the kind of NASA scientists that successfully sent men to the moon, with far less computing power than we have available today). What IF sea level really does rise and a billion people (living in at-risk urban areas near sea level, like New York, et .al.) become homeless at about the same time?
In addition to the new cities required to accommodate predictable population growth + urbanization, a billion displaced
coastal city dwellers will need 100 new megacities of 10 million each, OR 1,000 new cities of 1 million each that
DO NOT
EVEN EXIST TODAY !
Can anyone in the entire world (with functional powers of observation) be so ignorant as to believe that we do NOT need
at least ONE Objective Zero / Emerald Eco-City working prototype to demonstrate to worldwide city planners the potential
of fully-integrated, 3D-optimized, COST-EFFECTIVE Sustainable Objective-Zero Eco-Cities of tomorrow?
Can YOU begin to realize the FANTASTIC MOTIVATION for our compelling Emerald Eco-City vision to become the largest human construction project in history, AND humanity’s MOST SUCCESSFUL UNDERTAKING EVER ? ? ?
How enthusiastic will YOU be? Will you merely talk about it and tell your influential friends and government representatives? OR, will you play a critical role in making it happen QUICKLY?
ASK NOT how the greedy CEO’s and corrupt governments that created today’s problems will eventually solve them for you
in time. (It jus’ ain’t gonna happen!)
“The thinking that created today’s problems is insufficient to solve them” – Albert Einstein
If you apply the same stinkin’ thinkin’ selfish evaluation criteria that created our crisis, to how to correct it in the future,
the best-possible Objective Zero criteria will sound WHACKO.
ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO to help make humanity rapidly learn exactly HOW
to Cost-Effectively
LIVE ABUNDANTLY IN HARMONY WITH NATURE
“You must BE the change you wish to see in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi
We anxiously solicit the world’s-best CONSTRUCTIVE criticism from our peers. We love suggestions to help make our plan totally irresistible, and guarantee complete success. E-Mail To: ZEDMaster@ZeroEnergyDesign.com
Naysayers, foot draggers, curmudgeons, unenlightened Architects / Builders / City Managers, and greedy special-interest
fossil-fuel profiteers need not send us any of their purely DESTRUCTIVE thoughts. We know that we have a solid track record
of doing what others thought was impossible. We don’t have time to argue with the intransigent sources of today’s many crises.
We learned long ago that “It is futile to enter into intellectual battles with unarmed opponents.”
(Our automated systems filter out spam and messages containing profanity, so don’t waste your time. We won’t even see
any negative abuse from immature idiots. We are already extremely busy. We do not accept any unscheduled phone calls.)
But, we very-much look forward to interacting extensively with everyone who offers POSITIVE supportive refinements
to our Compelling Emerald Eco-City Vision. We know full well that “We stand on the shoulders of intellectual giants.”
We would have achieved very little over the last 30 years without them. So it will continue to be in our future.
Zero Energy Design now claims to be World’s Foremost Solution-Integration Experts – Please help prove that wrong.
Emerald Eco-City MUST become the largest, best-and-brightest collaboration of all time. We want to eliminate any flaws
and oversights immediately, well before construction begins. Overcoming deeply-entrenched resistance to change
requires that our vision and message must become bullet proof, and irresistible to all.
Never before has a catastrophic crisis created such a wonderful opportunity to change the entire world for the better.
This monumental effort is far too important to fail. It will take everything that all of civilization has learned up until now
to make it happen correctly and quickly, before it is far too late (which may have been last year).
Sustainability is not a zero-sum football game – We are creating a whole new game where everyone (except the intransigent)
will win – Please join our team – Lead, follow, or get out of the way of our fast-moving all-electric Emerald-Green free-fuel train.
We sincerely wish all of our readers an Abundant New Life In Harmony With Nature
Lifelong Learning In An Ever-Expanding Universe Of Endless Possibilities.