How to improve urban climate




The Driveway

Very many posts in this blog have stressed the usefulness of growing more trees and green plants of all kinds to improve the planet we live on. It may be mentioned that an increasing human population on the planet has caused an expansion of cities and this is one of the factors that contributes to adverse climate changes. Not only is there less oxygen and bird songs when cement and concrete filled spaces increase but such cities act as heat sinks contributing to global warming.

Humans do need strong homes to live in but there are ways in which cement can be minimized. An example is my urban home. A portion ahead of the gate is paved to create a driveway in my area, but mine has left a foot unpaved on a side to grow trees and bushes as shown in photo. Then a central portion on which a car tire would not come has been pebbled. That way rain can soak in. There was a time grass grew in the pebbled portion but now because of shade it does not. Some worry about tree roots spoiling foundations but that is only true for some trees and in any case bushes do not do that.

What if one has a driveway that is already paved from neck to neck? No problem! ask a mason, he will pull it out in a day. Pile up the rubble that came out in another corner to build a rockery with a water fall and fill in the new space with compost and grow strawberries and other curry leaf, herbs, white mulberry, drum sticks, luscious fruits, vegetables and flowers in it. You will never be out of fresh healthy organic salad at home and fresh organic herbs for the soup and garnish then, would you? Our compost came from collecting the leaves and cuttings we compost in another corner as described in an older post.

A few feet between one and three feet wide all around buildings needs to be well paved to protect foundations from moisture, however on other sides of my home I have covered that with soil too for shallow root plants. Or one can place potted plants on it or even develop a rockery as we did in a corner shown in the bottom picture.

Elsewhere in this blog it has been described how green agricultural spaces can be incorporated within city designs to improve urban areas even more (see here) and reduce the damage that is caused by use of much concrete and cement in cities while filling cities with life giving oxygen, low pollution, farm fresh vegetables, the song of birds  and joy.

Green reduces stress. Modern urban dwellers are so stressed that they start screaming and bashing each other on the street, as some tend to nowadays when their cars bump into each other. However one can't win with humans, with that impediment out of the way some would get into fornication instead  :)   LOL

If you read my novel, Nude besides the lake (it is besides not beside) you will find the lady who pebbled her driveway ended up doing just that, even in old age,  LOL.

While humor is great fun at times, the message of the present one is the same as a  tweet today, "False pride, ego and anger drive servants of the demon, the majority are driven by lust and greed. The godly on the other hand are driven by love, light and beauty

We all have to leave our homes, cities and life behind one day, but while we are around would it not be wonderful if we could do our bit to improve it and leave a better place for those left behind or those to come, just a little cleaning of the train seat before you get off for the next train, or perhaps even leave a flower at the window, the Lord shall place some for you in advance around your next seat, perchance then.

A rockery in a corner


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From Birds to Telepathy

Image
  Sparrow by  Laitche T he house that I live in presently was built in stages  beginning in 1991 during  vacations and sabbaticals in my career. By 1995, the ground floor of the house was more or less complete except for some finishing that continued later. In the center of the roof of the living room was a hole meant for a center light. To hide the protruding wires a small round plastic sheet covered it with another circular hole in the center of it for the light. A similar one existed in the front porch of the house. I lived in the house through most of 1995 with frequent visits of three or four days to Delhi. At this time a pair of house sparrows occupied the porch roof cavity and made it their home. There were no complaints about that since it was not intended to fix a light there in a hurry. Sparrows are cute little birds anyway and I often leave seeds out for them in the garden. Sometime later the female of the pair moved into the living room cavity and began
Read more

Inflation: Stealing from the Poor for the Rich

Image
Robin Hood and his Merry Men I n today’s complex economy it is useful for the ordinary citizen to understand a few simple principles about economics. That way, they can manage their own money better and also contribute their voice to policy making in their countries. This post is about inflation, its causes and ramifications and how it can be managed  in any country. Money is a used for acquiring goods and services and when the price of goods and services rise we say that inflation is taking place. The price of something depends on many factors but two of the primary ones are 1. Demand and supply balance 2. Extent of Money Supply.   Both factors are easy to understand. If a commodity becomes in short supply then its price tends to rise. If apple crops have been destroyed by untimely frost then apple prices will rise. If the demand for a product increases then too its price rises but if demand falls prices fall or crash. The balance of demand and supply is one of the f
Read more

Neem tree: As the Magical Sleep Aid

Image
  T here is an older article in this blog on the Neem tree and its medicinal benefits but it does not mention its effects on sleep. For years now what was happening to my sleep is that after sleeping well for a few hours, sometime in the middle of the night I used to get up and feel completely awake. If   I stayed awake after that, I would feel tired the next day. Therefore I would just take a cup of tea, sit out in the patio for about half an hour, or work on a computer when after an hour or so a second round of deep sleep came. However, this also delayed the morning hour to get up. Four days ago, due to some unrelated reasons, I took a bunch of Neem leaves from a tree nearby and chewed them in the evening at around 5 pm. That night, I woke up again in the middle of the night for a visit to toilet and from old habit decided to check emails for an hour or so. But the moment I turned on the computer, I was sleepy again and began to doze off on the keyboard so I shut off t
Read more

You are what you eat, and drink

Image
C onsume an ounce of whiskey and you will notice the change in mood and behavior immediately. However, it is not just whiskey everything we drink, even the quality of water, or anything we eat has some subtle or significant influence on our behavior. Consumed over a period, not just the weekend binge, the type of food we consume literally shapes our personality prompting ancient thinkers like Hippocrates to remark, “You are what you eat”. Some question this by saying that it is our experiences and habits that shape our personality but the two are linked because it is our habits that shape our tastes and food choices. In another post in this blog it was  mentioned that a human personality is shaped by memory and experiences and one might ask which of the two is more significant - food or experiences?. My understanding is that humans gravitate towards the foods and actions that agree with their inner inclinations and personality and so in the end both causes are two sides of the sa
Read more

Edgar Cayce and the Almond Tree

Image
A s one advances in age it is inevitable that one would have to contend with some health issues. Some that I have faced in recent years is reduced energy, occasional disturbed sleep, stiffness in muscles and occasional lapses of short-term memory. However if one works on these or other such health issues it is definitely possible to improve the situation. It is wonderful if one can age gracefully without any major health issues and move on to the next world when still physically independent. It is tragic and basically bad karma if one undergoes a prolonged disability requiring help or hospitalization before exit from this life. There is much about karma in older posts. I do not rely on modern medicine and allopathic methods for chronic and minor ailments. For me allopathic methods are a resort for acute conditions, emergency or diagnosis. Therefore I have been working on my health issues through more natural means such as diet, exercise, yoga, life style changes,
Read more

The Balsam Flower - Magic of Medicinal Herbs and Flowers

Image
     Balsam flowers W hile a huge variety of seasonal flowers grow on our planet when it is neither too hot nor too cold, unfortunately some do have to put up with extreme heat or cold for a part of the year. In northern Indian plains, summer temperatures may easily exceed 40 Celsius in the months of April, May and June and it is only the early mornings and evening that are cool to get out into the garden and have late evening garden parties. However the difficulty at this time is what flowers to grow in the garden. Few can tolerate that heat. However, with the grace of the Lord, there are some. The most popular are Zinnia, the yellow Cosmos, Portulaca and Balsam. The botanical name of the flower is Impatiens Balsamina.   It is an annual plant growing to 20–75 cm tall, with a thick, but soft stem.   Aside from the flowers the plant has beautiful leaves that are toothed and spirally arranged and that is something one has to look for in a pretty garden. The flowers range
Read more

The Palash Tree - Magic of Medicinal Herbs and Flowers and Back Pain

Image
The Palash Tree Flower B efore modern medicines became prevalent, humans treated many ailments with flowers, leaves, roots and barks of plants and trees. Ayurveda,  an ancient Indian medicinal science, makes use of many herbs and plant materials without substantial extraction of active ingredients as modern medicine does. The idea is that additional compounds in a medicinal or edible plant is an organic whole and a part of life that supports other life.  The complimentary compounds appear to play a useful balancing role whereas individually extracted and isolated compounds can be harmful. A modern example in wide use as food is sugar, a pure chemical isolated from the juice of sugar cane. Indeed there is no food or herb that does not contain a compound or two that could be from mildly to extremely dangerous if isolated and consumed but is beneficial as a group with other compounds. That is the reason why alcohol distilled from a natural fermented fruit juice and then dilu
Read more

Spirituality and Evil

Image
Albert Einstein   " A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”   Albert Einstein I t is so much nicer to talk of beautiful things that exist on our lovely planet that it is really a pity that I had to write this post that touches on something that to me is evil. Nevertheless I have written it because if an evil is ignored it is difficult to eradicate it. The evil I am referring to is about the denial of freedom of belief and imposition of beliefs on people and that is something even the followers of the greatest of religions on earth have not been free of though they have done so much g
Read more

Impact of Lust and Nudity on Spiritual Growth

Image
S ome modern philosophers have argued that sexual pleasures, beyond those necessary for procreation, of the appropriate kind are a useful part of the human experience and therefore worth pursuing. What exactly is considered appropriate varies with thinkers but in no case does it involve compulsion, inducement or force by one human on another. Sexual indulgence, if any, must only be between adults and from mutual interest and agreement. However, spiritual literature and saints across diverse traditions of the planet have advised humans to overcome urges of lust and described that along with two other emotions - greed and anger – it is a cause of driving humans to hell. The Bhagvat Gita, a revered scripture of the Hindus, describes these as the three gates to hell. It only lauds limited sexual desire i.e. that associated with procreation as divine. The new testament of the Christians warns not just against lustful activity but even lustful thoughts. However sexual desire w
Read more