Film Review- A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil

Keith Rockmael — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:08:35 +0000

When discussing the world most progressive “eco” cities one might toss out San Francisco for it various green initiatives (such as banning plastic bags), New York City for its effective subway system, or Munich with it’s use of alternative energy especially solar but after watching this recent documentary “A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil” some people may change their green tune. The film highlights the surprisingly progressive sustainable city and using urban examples to highlight various topics into well paced film.

First time director Giovanni Vaz Del Bello neatly divides the film down into four areas of innovation: Transportation, Recycling, Affordable Housing and Urban Parks. Convenient Truth shows how convenient the transportation remains in this million plus city. Their progressive mayors like Jamie Lerner, city planners and designers determined that the city should revolve around people, not cars. From the cost-effective yet expansive bus system (with the notable bus station tubes) to the pedestrian-only walkways, then documentary highlights how effective, people friendly and sustainable changes can be made with minimal or no cost.

Ecocity World Summit 2008

Keith Rockmael — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:47:17 +0000

The 7th International Ecocity World Conference continues this week in San Francisco, California and if a positive aspect exists about globalization, it can be seen at this conference. A buzz exists in what feels like a combination of the World Cup (the passion), the U.N. (the international flavor) and something like Greenpeace (the Green aspect). We ran into a potpourri of organic architects, city planners, NGO leaders, and other interested in sustaining the earth as we know it.

The speakers ranged from keynote speaker Jaimie Lerner, former mayor of Curitiba Brazil co-founder of the IPPUC, Parris Glendending (Former Governor of Maryland and President of Smart Growth Leadership Institute and Janet Larsen, Director of Research for the Earth Policy Institute and advocate for Lestor Brown’s Plan B. Larsen mentioned how Plan A refers to as “business as usual” and most of us can see that that plan isn’t working. Plan B doesn’t just refer to the U.S. Countries like Algeria who depend on their oil revenue can see the oil-less future and continue to create solar and thermal alternatives to power their future. Imagine an oil country funding alt energy sources.

Green Options » city_planners

Film Review- A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil

Ecocity World Summit 2008