The swindle?

In response to my post about Al Gore, Lat wrote:

Ever see "the great global warming swindle"? I personally think that human contribution to global climate change is minimal at best, but we still have a huge environmental responsibility regardless, and there are plenty of other reasons to change habits for the sake of the environment.

There is a small but dedicated group of people, mostly on the far right, who'd like to keep saying that the human causes for global warming is a myth. [But I do agree with Lat that we should take global warming in context of other environmental issues.] Paul Krugman has a good commentary about what he calls the Gore derangement syndrome. I've been following this viewpoint as well, and I strongly question their motivations. Their films and websites contain too much vitriol to be credibly scientific. [Coincidentally, Joel Achenbach has been thinking the same thing.]

After living in Beijing for nearly a year, it is practically impossible to deny the human impact on the environment. The air here is thick and brown. On the worst days, I can't run for more than 15 mins without gasping. I've also been monitoring air quality every day for the past month, and in terms of particulate matter (soot) in the air, Beijing is among the worst. The best days for good air is only after it rains, or if there are strong winds. Without that, the air progressively gets worse. Then there is the issue of cloud seeding. When important events take place in the city, the sky is guaranteed to be blue because they had triggered rainstorms during the night. The sky was deep blue at the 1 year mark before the Games, during National Day, and now for the Party Congress. Winter, like in Canada, is becoming warmer and warmer. Beijing used to enjoy significant snowfall, but now, during the whole year there might be 1 day of snow, which then quickly melts away. As I witness the environmental catastrophe happening here, there is no doubt in my mind that humans are to blame for climate change.

Shenzhen Biennale

This Saturday, Urbanus hosted a little shindig for some young architects participating at the HK/Shenzhen Biennale, coming up in January. It is a fantastic group of people, from Ma Yansong to Liang Jingyu. Although I cannot reveal specific ideas, I was intrigued by a comment that Laurence Liauw made about the current relationship between architecture and planning in Hong Kong. The key diagram for urban planners in HK is a colored plan that shows land value for each parcel of land. This plan drives development and dictates the type of architecture that will be built. The city (and the architectural profession) is a kind of a slave to this system, as architecture is produced with a certain degree of inevitability. But, Laurence remarks, architecture is not inert. Design can subsequently affect land value in the area in a positive (and negative) way. Sometimes, it can dramatically affect land value (ie. Bilbao effect). If there is this very obvious feedback loop, why is it, then, that planning and architecture continue to be mutually exclusive?