Sometimes the only thing I can do to be green is to be careful how I spend my money. To that end, among other things, my broker has instructions to screen envionmentally. I assumed TNC did that too until I read Naomi Klein's article "Time for Big Green to go Fossil-Free" in "The Nation" May 20, 2013. She said TNC spokes person refused to comment on TNC's investment strategies. She said other things about TNC investments. Please do comment.

So many kids grow up in the inner city here in San Diego within a short bus trip to the beach and have never been there. It's shocking how little of nature they experience. They can't play in the park or the many canyons because of drug dealers, etc. Yet, when we take inner city kids to a natural area they love it immediately. They desperately need safe natural areas within walking distance. We can't afford to abandon them.

I believe it's extremely important to promote sustainability in urban areas. I'm only 13, but I hope to become and environmental engineer when I get old enough to find a career. I believe environmental engineering is important for the same reason I believe sustainable cities are important. Of course, it would be a lot more eco-friendly if we all went back to living like cavemen, but that just isn't realistic. People wouldn't accept living like cavemen. So, we can't backtrack in technology so we can live primitively and help restore the environment. Instead, we have to make further enhances in technology so that we can live like we do now, but in harmony with nature. The fact is, you can't get rid of cities, and lots of people love them. All we can do is make them more sustainable. They will never be natural, but they can potentially have little impact on the environment.

I grew up in an urban environment in East Boston, MA. When I was four Logan airport was built; one of Frederick Law Olstead's largest parks, Wood Island park, was replaced by a runway. Over the years residents here have contributed to the addition of an urban wild park, a small patch of land along the Chelsea river, designed without lamps at night that might disturb birds in the area. While we try to expand this site, and to keep the city away from from encroaching on it and other reclaimed lands, we fight an uphill battle. And that is the problem in the city. Whenever you think you have accomplished something, some business tries to either take away the land you want to expand to or ruin the effort itself. The land around our urban wild, which we have tried to use to add to the park, has recently been taken by the city of Boston and is being paved over and used for machinery and storage. I could offer other examples of these kinds of uphill battles, such as the plans to put a casino in across from Belle Isle marsh; the marsh was saved by a grassroots effort. It is the last salt march in the confines of the city of Boston. It just seems like the Nature Conservancy and other large organizations ignore these kinds of efforts. Nature conservancy in the city is not as glamorous as buying acres of pristine land around large tracks of park land. But to residents in these areas it is very important.

An urban issue that has a huge effect on human and environmental health, an issue that is hidden from public attention, is that of waste disposal. I don’t mean garbage which is piled high as a small mountain. I’m referring to sewage. Sewage treatment plants, to the best of their ability, remove pollutants and toxins from the sewage. This removed semi-solid material, called sludge, then needs to be disposed of. Since ocean dumping was banned in 1989, the cheapest means of disposal is to rename the sludge “biosolids”, and give it to farmers and landowners to be used as free “fertilizer”. It is high in nitrogen and phosphorus. However, sewage sludge also contains many pollutants such as antibiotics, hormones, steroids, toxic chemicals, and disinfectants, as documented by the Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey. This survey was limited to 145 chemicals and was conducted in 2009 to help guide the USEPA, the agency that regulates the sludge biosolids program. No action other than further study has yet been taken. So what can cities do with all that never-ending supply of sewage sludge “biosolids”? There are alternatives such as using it for energy or for roadways. But this technology will be slow to develop as long as land applying remains the economic choice for municipalities, spreaders, and government agencies, all of whom work together and profit from the practice. The land applying of sewage sludge “biosolids” flies in the face of land conservancy and sustainability. This toxic mixture of “biosolids” is spread on land that grows food, and on land that pastures meat and dairy animals. EPA regulates a mere ten metals out of the thousands of pollutants that are concentrated in sewage sludge. The Federal Clean Water Act defines sewage sludge as a pollutant. This makes for a dangerous situation that puts our food supply, our health, and our ecosystems at serious risk. Recognizing that risk, several countries including Switzerland and the Netherlands have banned the practice. Let’s bring this hidden practice out into the open. Urban conservation has everything to do with Nature conservation. To start learning, go to Cornell University’s Waste Management Institute site: http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/

i think its great

i think it would be great to have citys cleaned up.and join nature habitats with human habitats. were all animals right?

Hmm. I believe Thoreau had the luxury of having lived in a less condensed and populated world. Asking us to accept that wilderness is the only way is like saying the founding fathers contemplated nuclear weapons and intercontinental combat missions. If we are to save nature in some manner for future generations to experience and enjoy we need to find a way to express our love of, and connection with, nature in an urban environment as well as wild places. We have seen many adaptations of wildlife to an urban landscape. The most recent (in the East) being coyotes after raccoon, and other smaller mammals, birds and the like have begun to make inroads to these environments. Issues? Of course there are. We need to collectively put our thinking caps on and find ways to integrate our existence with wildlife in these situations and realistically envisioned urban landscapes of the future. Urban farming, in it's many variations, is important as a building block to finding that elusive, and yet "more perfect union" for the betterment of mankind, our society and individual lives. As we become more aware of the impact of unrestricted and unsustainable transportation methodologies it makes incredible sense for us to source as much food from local producers. Vertical farming is in it's infancy and some gains must be made to achieve economy of scale but if we don't try, what does it say us, ultimately? I would hate to see the world become one great big city broken up only by large polluted and dead bodies of water. We need to change the way we think, if we dare to think at all. Otherwise, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead. Here we come God! Consider this a reservation call. We'll be there sooner rather than later.

Community tree gardens are an attempt to rediscover the fruit and nut trees that have fed the world in centuries past. By reclaiming urban land for micro orchards we will bring folks that have never experienced the beauty of an ever changing, growing and giving tree to learn more www.givinggrove.org. Find us also on facebook.

I think management of our cities is the 3rd most important step in conserving wildlife. (after 1. Habitat Protection and 2. Wildlife Friendly Farming) If we can somehow grow all of our food in our cities in the form of vertical farming, it would greatly help conservation efforts. This would help keep our CO2 levels in check and it would help with Number 2, which is Wildlife Friendly Farming.