“Plants make up 85.5% of our planet’s biomass. Animals, barely 0.3%. It’s urgent that human beings stop being at the centre,” Stefano Mancuso.
Last July 7th we attended Stefano Mancuso’s talk at the CCCB. Mancuso is a plant neurobiologist, science communicator and advocate for plant intelligence. He champions vegetal cities, or “Phytopolis” — not as we picture them today, with tree-lined streets, the occasional plaza with a patch of grass, the occasional vertical garden, yet still waterproof and hard, but rather cities that drain and are covered in vegetation, on their ground as well as on their walls and roofs.
Cities make up 2% of the land yet consume 85% of the planet’s resources, and some cities consume far more still — what is known as the ecological footprint, an indicator that measures the impact of our way of life in terms of biologically productive land per person.
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2050 that figure is expected to reach two thirds — not a very optimistic prospect if we’re thinking about tackling the planet’s deterioration.
What we call “global warming” refers to temperature and to the gases that trap heat. Temperature is a factor that limits the distribution of living beings, affects their life cycles, and impacts their survival, reproduction and development. Carbon dioxide is the main driver of this disruption, due to the burning of fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) and to industrial processes. This, combined with excessive deforestation, is generating a disorder that is already evident in current environmental disasters and in the inability of many species to adapt to change.
Some scientists -geoengineering- are seeking to slow global warming with controversial experiments such as, for example, dispersing aerosol particles to create a shielding effect, reducing the amount of solar energy received by the Earth’s surface, like a parasol.
But what would happen to rainfall cycles, the ozone layer, and the growth of the vegetation that needs this radiation?
Isn’t it simpler to reforest?
Vegetation is the perfect machinery to fix the temperature imbalance and absorb CO2, but of course, it doesn’t generate economic profit, so what’s the real crux of the matter? Saving the planet, or saving our wallets?
According to the prestigious scientific journal “Nature”, approximately 3 trillion trees have been felled since the dawn of agriculture 12,000 years ago, and of that number, 2 trillion have been felled in the last 100 years alone — evidence of a brutal impact. The point is that it isn’t enough just to stop this trend; it must be reversed. According to Mancuso, if tomorrow the entire planet turned vegetarian, switched to electric cars and green energy, there would be no improvement at all — we would simply halt the deterioration at that exact moment and stop the situation from worsening further, but by then it clearly would no longer be sustainable.
Mancuso, like so many other researchers, champions trees — reforesting, recovering what we have been destroying in the name of civilisation and development. Vegetation doesn’t just give us oxygen; it regulates temperature, humidity, water cycles and the conservation of species, while also providing physical and psychological benefits. Sounds sensible to us — what about you?
La Companyia Verda shares this vision 100%; all that’s missing is for institutions and governments to take responsibility and commit to it. In the meantime, we’ll keep filling our projects and surroundings with vegetation, bringing nature into them and, ultimately, contributing to a plant-based city.
