Ways in which the City Harms Our Health and Solutions to Stop it from Doing so

Greener cities 

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There is no single environmental solution that can be applied to all cities across the 
world - their issues, needs and opportunities are different. But a big issue that needs 
to be tackled everywhere is where cities obtain their energy, and how they use it. 
This means the main ways cities can become greener are to: 
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Reduce the amount of energy and resources used through improving the 
efficiency of systems, for example transport, and changing citizens' behaviours 
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Reuse and recycle waste energy and materials 
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Obtain energy from cleaner sources 
While there is no single technological magical bullet, cities can make significant 
reductions in the carbon emissions by using many different measures together. 
Here are some of them: 
Clean energy 
Many cities can create cleaner energy within their boundaries but, as they consume 
tons of energy, it's very unlikely that most cities could be “self-sufficient” in that 
respect. The good news is that they don’t need to be, as they can draw in clean 
energy from other sources, for example offshore wind farms. 
Clean ways to generate energy in a city include: converting the Sun’s energy into 
electricity; using building design and solar thermal panels to heat buildings and 
water; using timber from local woodlands to generate low-carbon energy for 
heating, electricity generation, and transport fuels; and what is known as 
geothermal energy, which means generating heat from hot layers beneath the 
Earth’s surface. 
Affordability is a key issue here as the costs of clean energy can vary massively from 
one place to another. 
Buildings and streets 
Buildings often use the most energy and emit the biggest quantities of carbon in 
cities. There are some very interesting examples of how cities around the world have 
approached this issue. 
For example, we know creating efficient buildings (insulating walls, windows, and 
roofs, and using energy-efficient lighting and heating systems) is often more cost 
effective and productive than generating green energy. The German Passive House 

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design is an example of a building so highly insulated it has almost no need to be 
heated. 
New York and Singapore have shown how tiny steps such as painting roofs white and 
planting trees can reduce city temperatures by up to 2C, thus reducing city energy 
consumption significantly. 
In Scandinavian and Eastern European countries, hot water for heating is delivered 
to buildings through insulated pipes beneath the streets. The heat can be generated 
from highly efficient power stations that generate both electricity and heat, or use 
heat recovered from businesses such as breweries, bakeries, and distilleries. 
In the UK, Glasgow is fitting smart street lights in some areas. Older yellow sodium 
street lights can be replaced with LED lights that can reduce emissions while making 
streets safer.