The production and sales figures of the auto industry plunged dramatically during the first quarter of 2009. Yet the current automotive crisis is not merely the result of an economic downturn. It has revealed structural flaws within the industry itself. Climate change and dwindling fossil fuel resources, but also evolving mobility requirements in urban areas call for different cars – and a different kind of mobility. Integrated transportation systems that combine the strengths of a variety of modes of transportation while compensating for their respective shortcomings will be the only perspective for adequate efficiency and flexibility. Transforming the automobile into an element of a comprehensive range of mobility options is crucial in this regard. Mobility researchers Andreas Knie and Weert Canzler have produced a strategy paper on behalf of the Heinrich Böll Foundation analyzing the current crisis and outlining their vision of the “mobility products of the future”.
Publication series on ecology, Volume 4:
Green Solutions to the Auto Crisis
From Auto Makers to Mobility Service Providers
A strategy paper by Weert Canzler and Andreas Knie
Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation
Berlin, Nov. 2009, 32 pages
Download the entire strategy paper as PDF. (781 KB, 36 pages)
Urban Development and Urban Lifestyles of the Future
Cities are home to half of humanity. Cities are strongholds of our culture, powerhouses of our economy and test beds for new ways of life. Yet they are also responsible for the bulk of our greenhouse gas emissions. Urban centers are driving climate change and will feel its consequences in no uncertain terms – despite, and because of the technologies at our disposal. Together with traffic and industrial production, building-related energy consumption is one of the major sources of urban carbon emissions. Dealing with climate change will mean taking a critical look at our building work, and it is no coincidence that “greening the city” is the new trend. The experts contributing to this volume give insight into the answers that future-oriented urban planning and architecture must deliver.
This publication is a result of the international “Urban Futures 2030 – Urban Development and Urban Lifestyles of the Future” conference organized by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and held in Berlin on the 3rd and 4th of July 2009. It contains contributions from nearly all of the conference’s speakers that illuminate a variety of aspects of sustainable architecture, as well as future building and redevelopment. It is structured in three sections: Philosophy, Predictions and Positions, Projects and Policy.
Publication series on ecology, Volume 5:
Urban Futures 2030
Urban Development and Urban Lifestyles of the Future
Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation
Berlin, Feb. 2010, 104 pages, photos
Click here for the full publication (108 pages, pdf, 3MB)
It is mainly the inhabitants of the global South who suffer from the effects of climate change. They are faced with the destruction of their living space and the violation of their human rights. At the same time, existing human rights standards offer the possibility of establishing points of reference during international climate negotiations to address such questions as adjustment programs designed to confront the effects of climate change, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, technology transfers, and the future of development. As a frame of reference, human rights standards can serve to accurately evaluate policies and to pinpoint their failures, particularly regarding how these policies affect the world’s weakest inhabitants. This publication by the political scientist Theodor Rathgeber uses case examples to illustrate the dangers faced by indigenous peoples in particular, as well as the tools the UN human rights system gives them to support their struggle for just climate policies.
Publication series on ecology, Volume 6:
Climate Change Violates Human Rights
Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation
Berlin, Feb. 2010, 104 pages, photos
Download the entire publication as PDF. (799 KB, 44 pages)
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