I found out the about EcoCity World Summit 2008 through Scott Fossel. Scott as executive director of Green Century Institute is working with Berkeley based EcoCity Builders to organize the conference. In particular GCI’s Califia Sketchbook contest will be a contest that will feature several exhibit proposals for ecocities that will be featured at the Conference.
The Ecocity World Summit, (7th International Ecocity Conference) San Francisco, California, USA, will take place on April 22-26, 2008. According to Ecocity World Summit organizers Kirstin Miller, Conference Director and Richard Register, Conference Convener:
The event puts the largest things humans create – cities, towns and villages – squarely within the context of the triple crisis of peak oil, species extinction and climate change, and focuses on how we can redesign the built environment so that it works for everybody, not just the few, and is contributing to bio-diversity on the planet, not destroying it.
In order to communicate and further develop this shared vision of the city, town and village built in balance with nature, we’re assembling the world’s ecocity visionaries and thought leaders, plus the people, businesses and organizations out there working to build the better city right now.
Life-threatening global environmental problems and limitations on resource consumption demand a restructuring of cities and transportation systems worldwide for long-term energy efficiency and conservation. Concerned citizens in every community – in every city, town and village – must get involved in formulating and implementing new land use and transportation policies and practices, preserving and reclaiming agricultural lands and open space, and reclaiming natural habitat. More about the conference is here.
I was particularly intrigued by Featured Speaker State of California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma who is Chair of the Legislative High-Speed Rail Caucus She says that:
In order for our state to continue innovating to protect our environment and to stay economically competitive, California needs the vision to prioritize spending for the modern day transportation system that is desperately lacking. The cost of building the project is a small price to pay for the enormous environmental and economic benefits of high-speed trains. In California, the high-speed train system will combat global warming by saving the state more than 5 million barrels of oil annually and by reducing CO2 emissions by 12.4 billion pounds per year. High speed trains will also create jobs. Over 450,000 high-paying permanent jobs are estimated to be created once the system is up and running and these jobs cannot be sent overseas. The project also has the potential to provide thousands of construction jobs throughout the state, including a substantial amount in the Central Valley.
The system, which will carry 86 million passengers annually across the state, will be reliable and affordable. No longer will you have to wait in traffic, wait in long lines, or languish at the airport. A trip on a train, which will travel over 220 mph, from San Francisco to Los Angeles will only take 2 ½ hours and will cost about half the price of a plane ticket.
