The City of Cape Town’s draft Climate Change Strategy is available for public comment from 1 to 30 September 2020. Climate change is a global threat and Cape Town is particularly vulnerable. Residents and interested parties are encouraged to please participate in this process. It is the City’s vision to create an urban environment that is climate resilient, resource … [Read more...]
iThemba Tower combines art, recycling and community
Officially opened in July 2016, the iThemba Tower is a community art project made with over 7 000 recycled plastic drinks bottles decorating a decommissioned 20m high cellular tower. The tower, in the garden of the Spaza Art Gallery in Troyeville, Johannesburg, has become a point of pride for people living and working in the area. https://vimeo.com/226310331 The project … [Read more...]
China could lead efforts to end global warming
Pollution costs China billions of dollars a year in health and other losses, but that hasn’t slowed China’s growth. Necessity places this great city ahead of most in fixing humanity’s shared global warming problem. Its economy is No. 2 behind the U.S., and it is the world’s largest auto market and growing. Last year new car sales jumped 7 percent to 15.5 million. Used car … [Read more...]
Convention centre expands into the green
The winning trio of architects selected to expand the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) were chosen for their green credentials! They are some of the country’s leading green architects involved in setting standards for winning projects - Piet Bakker of Stauch Voster Architects, Anya van der Merwe of Van der Merwe Miszewski Architects and Mokena Makeka of … [Read more...]
Maria, Queen of Cardboard
Her territory is a labyrinth of hidden refuse rooms bathed in charcoal light. Masterfully she flattens a mountain of discarded cardboard boxes into an efficient bundle. Later she will haul her treasure to a buyer a few roads away and earn her income for the day. Maria Vilakazi is a collector of cardboard at the Workshop Shopping Complex in central Durban. Over the eight … [Read more...]
The gift of trees
In the spring of 2006 I decided to plant a tree. Not because it is environmentally correct to do so, or because people now donate trees to counter the pollution from their air trips, or because I have measured my carbon footprint. It was simpler and more heartfelt than that. I had been involved in the publication of two books that generated many thousands of pages of proofs. I … [Read more...]
Cape Town’s new energy plans
Cape Town has experienced a significant number of disasters and events which have been associated with weather conditions. These include the Cape Flats floods (1994 and 2001), the Manenberg wind storms (1999 and 2002), the South Peninsula fires (2000), the Joe Slovo informal settlement fires (2000, 2004, 2005), cut-off low severe storms (2003, 2004, 2005) and recurrent severe … [Read more...]
