Making our urban environments greener can help to save species, cool the warming cities and make us happier.
The current climate and ecological crisis demands a radical redesign of how we live and organise our societies. Yet these urgent changes, though complex, are far from impossible.
Plants can help cool cities through the water that evaporates from their leaves when exposed to the sun’s rays, and by shading surfaces that otherwise might have absorbed heat. Research has found that on a sunny day, a single healthy tree can have the cooling power of more than ten air-conditioning units.
Others have shown how involvement in community gardening can increase social cohesion and social bonds among participants and the wider community, in addition to providing local and affordable food sources. Perhaps most importantly, greening and rewilding our cities can offer vital refuges for rapidly vanishing biodiversity. Human socioeconomic activities, especially those of the world’s rich, have destroyed natural habitats, consumed vast tracts of forest, polluted waterways, and disrupted the seasonal rhythms on which life depends. In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, many species are increasingly finding themselves with nowhere to go.
Singapore, a partner city in the Biophilic Cities Network, is a shining example of how to incorporate “nature” into building and city designs. The Parkroyal on Pickering Hotel, for instance, is shrouded in thickly forested terraces and sky gardens that are inhabited by local insects and birds.
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