I just heard a talk by Joseph Malki at Tarpon Springs; lots of major players in that town attended and plans are afoot to do some good things with sustainability there. He's putting on Green Cities in Orlando, May 20-21. It is "an innovative sustainability conference for business, government and community". If you care about sustainability, this looks like a good thing to go to. I'll be there. They're offering free admission to government employees and officials. That's a serious gesture toward achieving sustainability.
It takes a lot of coordination and cooperation to green a city, but more than anything perhaps, it takes conscious, intelligent design. That's where permaculture comes in. Permaculture is the science of designing for sustainability. It follows principles of natural law and designs are based on how natural systems work. The result is abundance for everything in the system, with no waste. The cleverness and subtlety of some permaculture solutions must be seen to be appreciated. Though we may not achieve the full elegant and beautiful efficiency of nature with our design - the wings of a bee, the energy production of bamboo, the multiple-dynamic function of an old tree, we can get pretty darn close by working with nature instead of against her.
