Jaime Lerner has a bone to pick with Al Gore. Granted, as one of Brazil’s leading lights in terms of green urban planning and architecture, he’s grateful for Gore’s ability to raise awareness on global warming. But he’s frustrated that people have become so overwhelmed that they don’t know what to do. “People are behaving like terminal patients,” says the 70-year-old Lerner. “Instead of acting, they are just talking. Instead of looking at their own lives and seeing that they can do something about carbon emissions – the majority of which come from cities – they’re just throwing their hands in the air. And this makes me very anxious because we could change all this very easily and very quickly.”
[media#1]
Lerner should know. As a three-time mayor of Curitiba, a city of three million in the southern region of Brazil, he has seen his hometown grow into one of the most sustainable municipalities in the world. Its residents use 25% less fuel than other Brazilians, recycle 70% of the city’s garbage, and an astounding 99% of them claim to be happy with the way their city is run. With that in mind it’s hardly surprising that Curitiba received the United Nations Environmental Award (UNEP) in 1990, the Worldwatch Institute Prize in 1991 and the CITIES Award for Excellence in 2002. “I call it urban acupuncture,” explains Lerner of his approach, “which is where you focus on key points that increase energy and flow.”
[media#2]
That might also descr...
