Kieran's piece was encouraging while Bill and Porus' was I suppose characteristically bleak - funny that the write the same way they teach. It was also interesting to think about the improvements in the urban environment that Bill and Porus wrote about in the 1990s. For sure the Amazon is still being destroyed for (perhaps just as fast as before), but I think Sao Paulo's rivers and significantly cleaner thanks to a grassroots movement that took hold in the area in the 90s!
While working on a project in the Town of Wayne, NY (about an hour west of Ithaca) I learned that Keuka lake's water is drinkable and that the smaller lake nearby, Waneta Lake, was not. I also learned that the rivers and run-off that feed Waneta lake eventually flow into the Chesapeake Bay (not far from my home town). This reminded that environmental problems comprise a network of local environmental challenges and that planners need to have the capacity to see the full network as well as the local problems.
There are a lot of wealthy people around the Chesapeake Bay, working hard to keep Purdue chicken plants from polluting Maryland's ground water and streams. At the same time, Town of Wayne residents should have two clean lakes, local septic systems should be improved or upgraded to a sewage system connected to a treatment plant. An improvement in Wayne is a small one for the Chesapeake, but there are hundred of towns along the Chesapeake watershed that could use a hand. Full network, many and varied local solutions....sounds like they need a planner :)
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