United Earth // Teresa Coady
An essay response to Lindsay Kirker’s This is a Love Story.
We are failing to protect Earth because we assign global governance to the United Nations. We forget that in this geo-political world, nature knows no national borders. Who speaks for Earth? We need a new assembly, United Earth, with representatives from earth scientists, global finance, and green NGOs. Even if we achieve Net-Zero through United Nations efforts at COP26, it will not be enough. All nations have a voice through the United Nations. Earth needs her own voice to be heard through a new assembly, United Earth.
This essay is about how the world wants to work and how our behaviors must change to support it. Construction and infrastructure development is our most impactful human activity. We must learn to alter our approach so that we ‘Design for Life, not Machines’.
This is a Love Story, oil on canvas, 2021, 48'‘ x 60". Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, November 5- December 18, 2021.
How does Earth want to work? To understand her better, I ask that you imagine yourself flying above Earth, looking down. What do you see? You see dark ribbons across the land. These lines mark underground waterways and riparian systems. Forests used to thrive above and around them. This is where nature wants to create its wilderness corridors. Nature lives in ribbons: rivers, coastlines, mountain ranges, and forest corridors. She does not form grids.
“Look at Earth again. We have paved one kilometer of road for every square kilometer of habitable land around the world. Most of these roads form grids. The center of every grid block, the hole in the doughnut, is an island.”
Look at Earth again. We have paved one kilometer of road for every square kilometer of habitable land around the world. Most of these roads form grids. The center of every grid block, the hole in the doughnut, is an island. Science writer David Quammen said: ‘Islands are where species go to die’. Because our road base is dense, deep, and comprises compacted gravels, the roots and fungi that allow trees to communicate through soil cannot pass under our roads. Trees trapped in these islands will eventually weaken and die over time. As we work and shop from home and as we begin to share cars, we will need our roads less. It will eventually become easier for us to abandon the paved grid and align the few remaining roads we absolutely need with ecocorridors. Our existing grid pattern destroys ecocorridors, and the wildlands and wildlife they support. Ecocorridors cross national boundaries and expanding and protecting them will require a United Earth effort.
Lindsay Kirker’s This is a Love Story exhibiting at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, November 5 - December 18, 2021.
So where are all these roads going? Look down again, this time toward the coastlines. See all the big cities there? By 2050, 80% of us will live in coastal cities. Although they are near water, our coastal cities function as deserts. About 70% of the unbuilt surface of every city is paved. Roads and roofs do not absorb water. They encourage run-off. Whenever nature sees run-off on land, she reads that land as desert. All deserts contribute to the process of desertification by disrupting the natural rain cycles. This effect is felt 400 miles inland. The land impacted by the desertification will experience drought and wildfire. Rather than paying to maintain extensive roads and city plazas, it costs us less to work with nature and let our cities become greener.
“Look along the coastline. See the river mouths? These are wetlands, peat bog, and deltas. Notice that most of our cities are built here. This is because our industrial age needed riverports for the distribution of goods. Wetlands and peat bogs are carbon and pollutant scrubbers. They should never be drained or built on. If we do not build on wetlands, we support wildlife habitat and prevent floods.”
Look along the coastline. See the river mouths? These are wetlands, peat bog, and deltas. Notice that most of our cities are built here. This is because our industrial age needed riverports for the distribution of goods. Wetlands and peat bogs are carbon and pollutant scrubbers. They should never be drained or built on. If we do not build on wetlands, we support wildlife habitat and prevent floods. Coastal development crosses national boundaries, as does the associated inland desertification effect. For this reason, we again need a new United Earth assembly to manage coastal development patterns in support of a healthy Earth.
Look again at the blue planet below you. From up here it looks like we have an infinite supply of water – but that water is 97% salt, 2% ice, and only 1% fresh. That 1% includes all the aquifers, rivers, and lakes. Without freshwater there is no life on land. We must follow in nature’s footsteps, and reuse and protect freshwater locally. Aquifers and rivers cross national boundaries, so we need a geo-based United Earth to understand and protect them.
Detail, Apparition (2021), Lindsay Kirker. Oil on Canvas, 75” x 100”. This is a Love Story exhibiting at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, November 5 - December 18, 2021.
Oceans produce 70% of Earth’s oxygen. Look at the oceans and you will see 5 naturally occurring whirlpools. In 1972 garbage was discovered in the North Atlantic gyre, followed by the South Atlantic gyre in 1980, the North Pacific gyre in 1997, the Indian Ocean gyre in 2010, and the South Pacific gyre in 2013. Half of this garbage is construction waste. Oceans cannot replenish our oxygen if they are sick. We must keep our oceans clean.
See the white clouds up here in the atmosphere. Water vapor, not CO2, is the most powerful greenhouse gas. The ocean-atmosphere dynamic is a magical dance that controls our climate. 3 of every 4 molecules of CO2 in the atmosphere today was put there by us. The oceans have absorbed 90% of the heat energy resulting from the greenhouse effect we have caused, or the equivalent of 5 Hiroshima bombs per second since 1990. This is the reason our atmosphere has not heated up as much as expected. But the oceans are reaching heat saturation. Total decarbonization of human activity must start now. No nation rules the oceans. There are few rules out here. It is over the oceans, more than any other part of Earth, that a science based United Earth assembly will have the greatest positive impact.
It is still daytime, but the lights are coming on as dusk approaches. Look again at the land. See the power lines strung across it? They run for miles connecting hydroelectric, coal-fired, or nuclear power generation plants. There is a 70% loss of power from the plant to the plug because of associated line-losses. These centralized power plants are an industrial age legacy. 25% of the world’s hydro-electric power is dedicated to the production of aluminum even though aluminum is 100% recyclable, and we don’t really need to make it any more of it. Centralized power supports industries we don’t need and has a 70% inefficiency built into it. We need decentralized power systems. Hydro-electric power requires the construction of major dams. Dams flood lands. Dams also block water supply downstream, often across national borders, causing drought. Both upstream floods and downstream droughts force human migration with all its attendant conflicts. We don’t need any more dams. The United Nations cannot stop climate related conflict unless a United Earth assembly is in place to prevent the harms caused by centralized power infrastructure.
Lindsay Kirker’s This is a Love Story exhibiting at the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art, November 5 - December 18, 2021.
Now, drop down to city level. Listen to the night sounds in the city. You can hear the wind and wildlife, even here. However, noise pollution is the number one complaint in cities. We don’t like to hear machines, cars, and trucks. Nature sounds are soothing to us. We need to restore them. Listen to the sounds of people in the city. All over the world, people get together to talk, laugh, and enjoy music and dance. Music and speech are encoded in our genome. We are pack animals. This is the real reason we build cities. To get together. To feel safe, connected, and happy.
You are resting now, looking around the city in the night. The buildings are massive. You see lights everywhere, but the schools, offices, and government buildings are empty, as are 1 in 5 apartments. We are 20% overbuilt and 30% unused worldwide in Europe, North America, and China. We have removed more stuff from Earth since 1990, than in all human history. Half of it for construction. 75% of it is already back in landfill. Global population grew 12% since 2010, but construction grew 22% in the same period - almost double the rate of population growth. Nature never overbuilds and wastes resources like this – we need to follow her example and build only what we need. What are we really doing when we think we are building wealth? By ignoring human, social, and environmental capitals, we are not building wealth, we are creating a debt to the future. We need to understand how nature achieves its own resilience. Then, we can direct our actions to support all life on Earth.
“By ignoring human, social, and environmental capitals, we are not building wealth, we are creating a debt to the future. We need to understand how nature achieves its own resilience. Then, we can direct our actions to support all life on Earth.”
Now it is 5 minutes to midnight. You have seen and understood a lot today. We often ask ourselves ‘How do we change the world?’. The answer is, we don’t. We need to stop trying to change the world to support our ideas. Instead, we need to change our ideas to support Earth. And to do that, we need to stop thinking of ourselves solely as United Nations and begin to see ourselves also as United Earth.
As a first step, we can adopt the 12 Principles of Conscious Construction, discussed in my book ‘Rebuilding Earth’:
Design for life, not machines
Protect all waters and wetlands, discharge nothing to the oceans
Restore and protect all forests, keep cities green
Restore and protect ecocorridors, abandon the paved grid
Use solar first
Embrace distributed energy systems first
Limit manmade CO2, discharge no toxins or pollutants to the atmosphere
Regulate EMFs. Mandate EPDs, build only what is needed, design to human scale
Design for speech music and dance, eliminate noise pollution, restore natural sounds
Restore natural connections
Measure happiness first
Balance financial, produced, human, social, and environmental, capitals
Teresa Coady is an award-winning architect, currently living in Vancouver, B.C. She was the President and a Founding Partner of B+H Bunting Coady Architects, one of Canada’s leading sustainable architectural design practices. Coady is also the author of “Rebuilding Earth: Designing Ecoconscious Habitats for Humans”.