TEDxJacksonville Salon on Jacksonville's Environment

Topic: Protecting Nature and Inspiring Innovation Jacksonville is projected to be home to 1,000,000 people by 2030. As our urban core revitalizes and the city continues to expand, how do we build a community that mirrors the complexity and efficiency of the natural world? We must embrace our connection to our native ecosystem and recognize its role in our growing community.  

Led by: Melissa Beaudry, Outreach Director

Michael Mutlio provided notes from Beaudry's group:

Discussion Points & Questions
Preserving the natural world is best done by mirroring the natural world; however, man needs to create better systems, sometimes more dynamic (the bar man needs to aim for is higher that nature).
• People need to be aware of what can be learned from the natural world and its systems.
• Older civilizations existed with the environment, balancing lives with the seasons and surroundings.
• Modern society has lost that harmonic balance. When was it lost?
• We have unsuccessfully tried to manipulate nature to suit the way we feel it should be and our immediate needs.
• Point about Feng Shui brought up-- working with nature, understanding that it is a cohesive system.
• Everything in the natural world is perfect? That which isn’t perfect or balanced in nature is corrected, save humans.

Is there a significant difference between Eastern and Western ethics? How or did imperialism play into modern thought processes regarding our use and treatment of the environment? What about modern capitalism?

Building processes have become less effective and inferior, possibly due to the push for less expensive but larger spaces. The effect has been a stripping of resources, excessive materials usage, and increased waste. Older building processes were better (materials were not discussed).

Jacksonville has a great number of natural buffers including parks and preserves. How can we as a community enhance the natural areas? How can we as a community best utilize the green space, educationally and functionally?
• Timiquan Parks Foundation is putting together a report regarding the economic value of natural areas and their importance
• People create ecosystems, good and bad.
• When nature is confined it move vertically –something other communities are embracing.

Effective planning and communities need to embrace natural systems and biomimicry, especially when considering retrofitting spaces.

Spaces and ‘natural’ environments need to be brought closer so people don’t have to drive 45 minutes and burn excessive fuel to enjoy them. Urban planning and engineers need to engage long-term thinking and take into account more than immediate surroundings.

Where does Jacksonville fall in terms of innovation compared to other cities?
• While the city is working toward better regulation and improvements, including use and treatment of the St. Johns River, the city is far behind other communities.
• Jacksonville is a reactionary city, moving only when a problem arises.
• Landmass plays a role in Jacksonville’s lack of innovation and engagement –residents of Mandarin don’t necessarily care what goes on the north side or downtown.  Out of sight, out of mind mentality?
• Companies need to take initiative and get behind environmental innovation.
• JEA is looking at doing more – efficiency, conservation, electric vehicles.
• Revenue is a big player for what cities do and wheat happens in the community.  Politics hinders real progress?
• Look at older homes and properties, as some have cistern wells.
• What are the incentives or disincentives for coming off the grid or using alternative power or water sources?

Duval County has one of the highest water usage rates per capita (not mentioned if this is in the state or the nation) while Central Florida, Orlando specifically, embraces gray water and water reuse (recycling?) practices.
• Keystone Heights’ lakes have dried up over the last 20(?) years. Jacksonville plays ignorant to the problem because it has not actually hit here (reactionary mentality).  As long as the problem is elsewhere people don’t care. Water, here, is essentially free to us or at least cheap, so people are wasteful.

What needs to change?  
• Reeducation to change people’s mindsets and the way they treat the environment.
• Engaging children to teach them about the natural world and the environment.
• Grow the voices in the community, especially at the ballot box.

Systems don’t change unless there is a force behind the change. People don’t change, for the most part, unless forced to change.
• “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” --Gandhi