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World has already become urban dominated entity living more than 50% of the world's population in cities (set to reach 60% by 2030 and more than 70% by 2050). But, the cities have developed as centers for the secondary (industry) and tertiary (service oriented) economic activities without proper care for primary (basically agriculture) economic activities. The expanding urbanized society is therefore continuously consuming more and more resources and uses the rural lands and rivers/oceans as its waste sinks. Hence, present cities act like parasite, growing and being transformed over the years, consuming resources from nature without giving anything back in return becoming more and more unsustainable. A tool developed by William Ree's called `Ecological Footprint' is gaining popularity as a means of getting conceptual idea of level of sustainability. Higher the use of resources for providing food and energy in a city, the value of Ecological Footprint of the city will be higher and vice versa. Resources use in providing food to the city dwellers measured by Food Footprint is one the major component of the Ecological Footprint. Thus, if we want to lower the Ecological Footprint of a city, it is very important to lower the Food Footprint. How can our city become self sufficient in terms of food so that we can lower the Food Footprint? Then, Ecological Footprint will be lower, which means that the place will be more sustainable. In such context of limited resources we have, it was searched a way towards urban sustainability and a Concept of Food Green City was developed to practice for productive greening with PLEASURE principles. This hopes to minimize use of resources in the city as a process of urban sustainability. Similarly, cities are responsible for human impact for environmental degradation including climate change with more than two-thirds of global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions covering just about 2% of the earth's surface. Today, there is 30% more CO^2 in the atmosphere compare to the period at the beginning of the industrial revolution. With the beginning of the 21^st century there has been a chain of awaken calls for saving the planet against climate change. By this time, global temperatures have risen by nearly two degrees Fahrenheit than pre-industrial period. Scientists believe that only massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions can stop the process of global warming. In response to it, a low-carbon society (LCS) adopting patterns of consumption and behavior that are consistent with low levels of green house gas emissions is under discussion and practicing in various cities. Thus, this study tries to analyze the both concept of Food Green Cities and Low Carbon Society comparing their principles and identifying similarities in supporting for the urban sustainability with case study of some relevant selective cities (City of Havana, Dongtan City and 13 Eco-Model Cities) of the various countries (Cuba, China and Japan). This study finds positive relationship between Food Green City and Low Carbon Society and gives some recommendations for the practicability of the implementation to achieve urban sustainability for saving our home earth. |
