One Day Symposium 10 July 2012
Race against Time: Population, Urban Growth and Miracles of Technology
Summary
Population and urban growth are leading to problems such as increasing traffic congestion, the depletion of conventional energy sources and greater environmental pollution. For example, population growth has led to more houses, more facilities, more energy and more cars, while urbanisation means more roads, more trees cleared, more concrete, greater urban sprawl and an increase in kilometres travelled. Moreover, the combination of these factors means that increasing numbers of people live, work and recreate in greater proximity to pollution sources. Whilst new technologies may alleviate some of these problems, for example solar energy, modern public transport networks and better urban planning, this requires a substantial investment of money during global economic conditions that are increasingly restrictive to this type of activity.
With around 20% of the world’s population living below the poverty line, millions of people in developing countries are cooking on primitive stoves that release dangerous pollutants into indoor air. While in the developed world, many thousands of people are displaced every year by natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, and are subsequently forced to live in cramped and unclean conditions, unable to regain a reasonable standard of living.
Balancing and reconciling the problems of equity and environmental pollution that come with inevitable population growth versus the cost of new technologies to mitigate these issues will be the subject of this symposium. Bringing together key industry stakeholders, this will be an opportunity to hear from experts on the current situation, contribute to the discussion on future directions, and provide a chance for interdisciplinary networking.
Program of the Symposium
The program of the Symposia will have a very strong international component, but will also include very relevant local and regional issues. It will include plenary presentations, submitted papers sessions, interactive workshops, poster sessions. The workshops will be lead by panels of top practitioners and academics in this broad field.
Tentative Program
Plenary #1: Professor Jiang Yi
Director of Building Energy Research Centre, Tsinghua University, China
Plenary #2: Professor Kalpana Balakrishnan
Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health and
Head of the Department of Environmental Health Engineering at Sri Ramachandra University, India
Convenor of the Symposium
Professor Peter Sly, Deputy Director of the Queensland Children’s Medical Research and
Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on Children’s Environmental Health