Smart Green Infrastructure: How To Grow Sustainable Cities

If they can rehabilitate Los Angeles anything is possible. In Canada we are blessed with some of the largest fresh watersheds on the planet. The Quebec government recently announced it would ban fracking, and that is a good start to preserving and encouraging this most precious of all natural resources.

Andy Lipkis, Founder and President of TreePeople, describes how this organization has pioneered an integrated approach to managing urban ecosystems as watersheds in the Los Angeles region. This involves strategic tree planting, tree-mimicking technologies, and community engagement to generate multiple solutions to the environmental threats facing our cities, including ensuring a sustainable water supply, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, preventing water and air pollution, fostering stronger neighborhoods, and creating jobs. For a summary of TreePeople’s six demonstration projects that are now collecting 1.25 million gallons of water every time it rains 1″ in Los Angeles, visit www. treepeople.org. Video Going to Green: Planting Seeds of Change with Community Forestry produced by the Media & Policy Center Foundation for PBS.

TreePeople

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Blog Action Day: Water

Blog Action Day: water – Dirty Laundry – hand-crafted goods.

“Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us. Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.”

Full story off the link above.

Here in Quebec we are truly blessed with an over abundance of  fresh water, something a billion people worldwide can only dream about. Today, let’s take a moment to be grateful for our fresh water and perhaps think of ways that we can preserve it and use it in sustainable ways. It makes no sense to take fresh water for granted and the future of humanity rests in how we manage this most precious of all resources.

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World Water Day

We really should be grateful that we have a lot of water in Quebec. World Water Day.

More pictures and story here.

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Ferry To Nun’s Island

Runs all summer and costs $2.50 per one way trip. Can be a very interesting leg of a bike tour of the area.
The Verdun “Marina” or what used to be the Verdun Yacht Club before politics and greed entered the Verdun Waterfront equation.

That’s a lot of water out there.

Traffic. Maybe he was fishing at Cote Saint Catherine or coming back from his cabin on Heron Island?

Looking east.

Bike path on Nun’s Island. I wonder what those poles are for? They seem to have canvas wrapped around them as though they are screens of some kind.

Condo towers on south west side.

Facadism. Jane Jacob’s once wrote that parts of Manhattan look like green paradises from out on the water.

Docked at Nun’s Island with senior’s residences in background.

On the way back in….

There were some cyclists waiting when we got back. Depending on how busy it is, the schedule can be flexible. Takes about 12 minutes each way.

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Seagulls

On the Verdun Waterfront last Sunday.

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Bridge 1913

The Largest Bridge Of Its Kind In The World.-The new barscule bridge at Ville Saint Pierre (near Montreal) as it looks when hoisted for the purposeof allowing boats to pass up and down the Lachine Canal. It was built by the Domimion Bridge Company and is the largest structure of its kind in the world. It weighs 2,200,000 pounds, and it is 165 feet long and 30 feet wide. Instead of swinging it tilts up perpendicularly, the tilting being affected by means of a counter balance weighing 1,600,000 pounds and two 40 horse-power motors. The operation of tilting requires but three minutes.

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The Gowanus Whale

Interesting but sad story of The Gownaus Whale over at The Gowanus Lounge.

Photo by Gowanus Lounge.

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Photoblogs 3

Our friend and contributor, Tap-Urbex has just started up a new photoblog called Urban Lookout which has entire histories of abandoned factories and the like in Montreal.

Urban Lookout

Darrell Klein out of Nashville, Tennessee, has a terrific photoblog called Through My Eyes where he quite openly and honestly discusses the process of making photographs and all are welcome to comment.

Through My Eyes

Tugster is a unique look at the harbour of New York City, the 6th borough.

Tugster

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Nicole Dextras

Vancouver artist in residency on Toronto Island brings us some frozen art.

From her website, “Ephemeral art is by its very nature impermanent.
Dextras works with organic materials to create
outdoor installations that will with time disintegrate
and return to the earth. The photograph is the only
permanent trace of the artwork’s transitory existence.
These images speak to the temporal quality of our
lives and our relationship to the environment.”

Nicole Dextras

And be sure to check out all the works at her Flickr page.

And I am not going to say how great it would have been if someone had done something like this at Turcot Yards this winter. No, I won’t say that, but I will wish I had thought of it.

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The Gowanus Canal

Saw this posted at The Gowanus Lounge and couldn’t help notice the similarity with this and the Turcot Interchange flowing above the Lachine Canal.

Photo by Roger Kenner

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Tugster: A Waterblog

If you like ships and harbours then this blog featuring New York City Harbour ( the 6th borough) is for you!

Tugster

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