Ecopolis
The Science channel has a new(ish) show called Ecopolis. The premise is that a renowned scientist examines new technologies that can help us live a more environmentally friendly future. It is fascinating and wonderful to get to see and learn about all of these new technologies (20 total over the six episodes of the show). The problem I have with the show is that the scientist examining the technologies must pick the “best” technology from each episode to help the hypothetical city of the future when all the technologies should be embraced... why pick 6 new technologies when we can have 20? Used together net savings in carbon-outputs, conservation of water and energy, etc. could only improve, probably compound the improvements.
The other issue I have is that the entire show is based on carbon footprint calculations that all appear to use existing fossil fuels as the basis for calculations...
The episode I have just seen is about providing food and water for our future cities. The technologies examined are urban aeroponic gardens, acoustic-powered refrigeration units, water purification and re-use, and finally animal dung energy conversion. So there are 4 only semi-related technologies, and only one is allowed to be chosen, solely on how much carbon-footprint is reduced based on our common usages.…
Apparently new cooling and water processing technologies would only cut back our carbon-footprint 10 and 12 percent respectively, so we just can't have them at all because urban farms can cut the carbon-footprint more. Why? Why do we have to choose so few new technologies? Put some money into solar and wind, and then do all of four of these too, that is my suggestion. If renewable make up an increasingly larger portion of our power supply the technologies that still require larger amounts of energy are still viable.
Anyway, good show, good information, and they just need to tell people to take ALL of the technologies into account, and not just a few. Watch the show, but think about everything they talk about and don't just focus on the few they pick as “most viable.”