Once Upon a Time in Ecotopia, 2121
The green a.k.a. ecological Utopia
Utopianism comes in many shapes and forms – as we will see later – one of them being Ecotopia focusing on the ecological ideal of society. Ecotopia was first coined and described in 1975 in the eponymous novel written by Ernest Callenbach. In line with More’s style he describes the Ecotopian society in 1999 (note, then 25 years in the future) which separated themselves in 1980 from the post-World War II America characterized by consumerism, materialism, waste and pollution.
While the story definitely revived the utopian spirit it is highly doubtful whether it had it’s impact since the following decades seem to have continuously raised the bars of all Ecotopians fled from. Moreover, the story would for a large part still be very applicable nowadays. But apart from that, it at least inspired another great initiative!
In 2016, to honor and celebrate Thomas More’s Utopia’s 500th birthday Alan Marshall initiated the Ecotopia 2121 project. The main goal of the project was to challenge contenders to think out of the box and imagine how the future of their habitat could look like by describing a “green Utopia” a.k.a. an Ecotopia.
And so Ecotopia’s of 100 cities worldwide have been imagine, conceptualized and visualized. And while there is not accounting for taste, each Ecotopia being a version of itself, the sum of all green utopias putted forward together definitely solve all environmental challenges we face today. In my view a brilliant piece of “utopianism” that might trigger the minds of (often uninspired) decision makers and politicians like art sparks the minds of its viewers.
Obviously most of the Ecotopia’s are rather fantastic as opposed to realistic, but that’s not the point. The point is to stretch and challenge ourselves to think in alternative futures, places, scenarios and break loose from the known comfort zone that doesn’t bring radical change about. Among the 100 cities are well-known cities such as New York, Tokyo, Paris and London but also various places I had never heard before like Lazika, Kosice, Moynaq and Katun.
And probably you are thinking the same I was thinking while watching, reading (and writing) about Ecotopia, what about Ecotopia’s in the “real” world as of today? Do these ecologically ideal places only exist in science-fiction-like images yet or can we think of places which are nearly as ideal as some of the 2121 Ecotopia’s? Unfortunately my short answer would be ‘no’ there’s no such thing as 100% ecological cities apart from some remote, rural and isolated communities which are not providing a blueprint for highly dense populated cities. U
In search of any eco-friendly place in the world various rankings are presented and proposed but the sources are mainly “blogs” which comprises someone’s opinion about apparently eco-friendly cities or the plans they pursuit for 2020, 2030, 2040 etc.. Even the “European Green Capital” award powered by the European Commission is more like a competition which any city could and should apply for with the main benefit of gaining a better reputation then that it is based on a independent, objective and thorough study. Nevertheless, and in all fairness, most introductions of the rankings available already start explaining that each listed city is not 100% eco-friendly but on the way to become so and therefore inspiring for other cities on how to anticipate, address and transform into a eco-friendly city.
Whether all these lists copy-cat each other (to some extend they probably do), popular in any list are apparently the northern European cities. Copenhagen, Amsterdam Stockholm, Helsinki and Reykjavik lead the lists. But as mentioned before, perhaps in the eye of the beholder those cities (and pictures of them) already are perceived as more natural with plenty of water, trees, authentic buildings as opposed to the abundance of concrete stereotypical concrete jungles.
Other popular cities in the lists are Vancouver, Curitiba, Oslo, Singapore, Cape Town, San Francisco, and Portland. But with all due respect, if even major cities such as New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Mexico City make it to lists of “most eco-friendly cities in the world” than the validity of any such list is highly questionable. If those are allowed to enter the list then in my view all cities with some sort of ‘plan’ or ‘action’ in the domain becoming ecological is qualified to be “most eco-friendly city in the world”.
Don’t get me wrong, obviously it is wishful and unrealistic thinking to find or belief economic-bound nations, cities (or money-driven multinationals for that matter) can transform overnight. Any effort to become more eco-friendly should be supported, motivated and praised. But considering the pace of change, or I should say, holding on to the comfort zone, our leaders don’t seem to be seriously interested nor realizing the urgency. Or as Greta Thunberg – the Swedish teenage climate change activist – would say “I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.” as she did during the World Economic Forum in Davos, January 2019.
Earlier, in December 2018, she strikingly accused world leaders by saying “since our leaders are behaving like children, we [young generation] will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago.”. For too long (and still) we watch an avalanche approaching us while we’re having our coffee and cake in all tranquility, a metaphoric scenario brilliantly displayed in a scene from the Norwegian movie “Force Majeur”.
Hopefully we are able to avoid or survive the avalanche called Climate Change and hopefully we don’t have to really wait until it is 2121 before our cities have transformed into Ecotopias. It is the challenge of our age, a challenge which for the philosophers in Ancient Greek some 2.000 years ago was non-existing yet. Nevertheless, if we would have learned more from their thoughts and insights already, the current situation might have been radically different as you can read in the next story in Athens, 380 B.C.