A lot of the things that we now like to blame on climate change is really the result of local human actions. For example, the coastal erosion that is plaguing the beautiful Mersea Island (population 6,925) on the coast of Essex, England. Is all coastal erosion really inevitable?
For politicians, "climate change" is a godsend: nothing can be done, no blame can be laid, and no need to investigate further. If action is called for, it comes in the form of a concrete shield that doesn't work and only makes things worse. Meanwhile, the land is disappearing.
In reality, coastal erosion turned out to have human origins: "In the 1920s, Mersea was surrounded by vast, richly biodiverse marshlands. These mudbanks supported meadows of seagrass like eelgrass that played a vital role in reducing the impact of wave energy on the marshland."
...when industrial farming started in the 1940s, "the use of fertilizer on farmlands in the post-war years polluted the Thames estuary, negatively impacting seagrasses on the foreshore. As the grasses died, the mudbanks became unstable and coastal erosion increased."
And in the 1960s, the last line of defence was decimated: the oyster beds were killed by chemical pollution: "tributyltin, a new anti-fouling paint used on boat hulls, polluted the water further, threatening the dwindling numbers of native oysters and other shellfish."
Figuring these things out isn't easy. In the case of Mersea it was the heroic efforts of local volunteers and citizen action groups putting in million of hours of unpaid work over decades to document the changes to the estuary causing the coastal erosion.
All these things, industrial farming, protecting boat hulls from fouling with clever chemicals, placing concrete barriers (that end up accelerating erosion) might all make sense on their own, championed by experts, but there is no one who is tasked with taking in the big picture.
To start local governments need to task local organizations and citizens, scientists, etc. with finding out what is causing problems, and then delegate power (decentralize, principle of subsidiarity) to local groups to come up with ways to implement changes where-ever possible...
...second, a "path of appeals" must be created, where the smallest entity/person/group can appeal to any level of authority to address problems that originate outside of their own place/area of responsibility, more like the Middle Ages courts, less Brussels.
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2000 years. The longest continually operated overland "railway" was the 6km long Diolkos, of ancient Greece, used to transfer ships from the Aegean to the Ionian, over the Isthmus of Patras, built around the 8th c. B.C. it was last used by the Byzantines in the 12th c. A.D.
The trackway was built to let military and merchant vessels avoid the lengthy and dangerous detour around the Peloponnese peninsula. It would have taken 3 hours to transport a ship, and on several occasions entire military fleets were moved over a couple of days.
There would have been local experts that helped the ships across for a fee but the main power was the muscle power of the human crews of the ships. A warship with hundreds of experienced rowers could probably have pulled their ships over in a matter of minutes.
Tachikawa Hiroaki's (1933-2016) famous giant "bird's eye view" painting of Edo (now Tokyo) as it would have looked like in 1862, accurate down to individual buildings and outhouses. Tachikawa was a master of the three-point perspective and often worked with modern city planners.
Even as renderings became popular his help in visualization of modern projects was much sought after. Here's a close up of the 1862 view of Edo. Each building lot was researched before drawing, through city archives, maps, surveys etc.
It was common for cities to commission three-point paintings. Here is one of Okayama City in 1932 by Yoshida Hatsusaburo (1884-1955). You can see barracks, factories, trunk roads, railways, canals, ponds, etc. Industrialization is in full swing.
Hassan Fathy's 1980 Murad Greiss House could (overlooking a couple of things) as well have been built in 2020 A.D. or 2020 B.C. for a high ranking government official or land owner. Hand built in local limestone and lime mortar. Animated CGI here:
Minus the swimming pool and the picture windows it is not difficult to imagine how a well to do ancient Egyptian would have instructed his architect and builders on the site. Here are photos from the 1980 construction site.
The barrel vaults and the domes were made in slightly stiffer mortar and what looks like fired clay bricks (ancient Egyptians would have used sun dried bricks which probably works just as well). The wood construction beams would have been removed and reused: wood was valuable.
The most insidious aspect of modern architecture is how it pretends to be considerate of the common good: a friend of the people. "Modern buildings are so much safer to construct. You wouldn't understand!", "Modern buildings are so much more economical. You wouldn't understand!"
But the worst is also the boldest lie: "Modern buildings are so much more beautiful. YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND."
"Modern construction and modern ideals are the only way to house the poor: it is called progress. YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND."
“No house can be conceived more warm and cosy than that built of cob, especially when thatched.”
— A Book of The West, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1899
“Cob walls for garden fruit are incomparable. They retain the warmth of the sun and give it out through the night, and when protected on top by slates, tiles, or thatch, will last for centuries.” — A Book of The West, Sabine Baring-Gould, 1899
“Walls of mud, or of compressed earth, are still more economical than those of timber, and if they were raised on brick or stone foundations...their durability would be equal to that of marble, if properly constructed and kept perfectly dry.” — An Old Authority, 1833
Gus Willard Van Beek (1920-2012, Dept. Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution) on the thermal properties of traditional earth and mud homes, citing a 1970s experiment in Iran. Stellar result from the "free dug at site material".
A preliminary understanding of how soil and earth works as a building material can be easily tested digging a hole and measuring the temperature therein. (Photo of the authors at a site in Egypt.)
In the late 1950s James Marston Fitch and Daniel P. Branch measured temperatures in traditional adobe homes in the U.S. Southwest. You really do not need air conditioning in a house built like this: the interior temperature is stable. (Example of a traditional home to the right.)