In the lexicon of urbanist jargon, the term ‘sustainability’ has become virtually meaningless. We know cities will never be sustainable, not in their energy use, their food production, or their ability to afford economic or housing stability to large numbers of their populations. This is, of course, largely by design. Cities are epicenters of global trade and finance. A few community gardens aside, few will ever grow the majority of their food within a metropolis.
The new buzzword floating about forums and lecture circuits is ‘resiliency’. Resilient cities in theory will collapse less under the crushing effects of capitalism and climate change.
This acceptance was hauntingly apparent in the so-called Cop21 climate agreement lauded by politicians this month. All the corporate sponsors had to do was Tweet out the word ‘historic’ next to the word ‘agreement’ and everyone started jumping up and down. Finally our world leaders were taking climate change seriously!
But of course, they weren’t. The agreement was a sham.
#COP21 failed to take action needed to prevent #climate catastrophe. See my take at https://t.co/Tplp3VqkVi pic.twitter.com/VUxWCMIloc
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) December 10, 2015