Scientists Are Key to Making Cities Sustainable
Mark Fischetti
Culture Notes
1 You’ve heard the numbers: More than half of the world’s people now live in cities, and in just a few decades more than two thirds of the globe’s rapidly growing population will be urban. Because cities already suck up much of the planet’s resources and generate much of its waste, these trends threaten to make Earth miserable unless cities become more sustainable.
你对这些数字已有耳闻：如今世界超半数的人口居住在城市，而仅仅几十年后，全球迅速增长的人口中将有超过三分之二在城市居住。城市已经榨取了地球上的大部分资源，产生了地球上的大部分垃圾，因此，除非让城市以更加可持续的方式发展，否则这样的趋势将使地球的处境更加糟糕。
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2 Scientists could hold the key — if city leaders will invite them in as partners. “Sustainability is driven by science, technology and innovation,” said Bernard Meyerson, chief innovation officer at IBM. He was speaking at the Science and the Sustainable City summit held by Springer Nature on July 11 (2014) in Singapore. Meyerson made his case based in part on the World Economic Forum’s lists of top emerging technologies. Many of these, he noted, could directly improve urban life if city leaders bring in scientists and engineers to apply them.
科学家们可能掌握了其中秘诀──如果城市管理者愿意邀请他们一起合作的话。“可持续发展是由科学、技术和创新驱动的。”IBM首席创新官伯纳德•迈耶森说。他是在（2014年）7月11日施普林格•自然集团在新加坡举行的科学与可持续城市峰会上说这番话的。迈耶森的观点部分基于世界经济论坛推出的顶尖新兴技术榜单。他指出，如果城市管理者引入科学家和工程师来应用这些技术，其中许多技术可以直接改善城市生活。
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3 For example, cities are gathering vast amounts of real-time data, “but they don’t have good ways to understand what it might be telling them,” Meyerson noted. In London 500,000 video cameras record what is going on around town. China recently ordered two million to install in cities. These fire hoses of video data could improve everything from traffic to crime prevention, but human operators cannot possibly keep up with the information deluge or make sense of which data matter, Meyerson said. Neuromorphic technology — software that can analyze images — on each camera could do that, “and submit the data to a central repository only when it has significance. It could also erase the data locally when it does not, to help protect privacy,” he noted.
例如，城市正在收集海量的实时数据，“但他们没有好方法来理解这些数据可能说明什么问题”，迈耶森指出。在伦敦，50万个摄像头记录着城里发生的一切。中国最近订购了200万个将要安装在城市里的摄像头。迈耶森说，这些源源不断的视频数据流可以用来改善从疏导交通到预防犯罪的方方面面，但人类操作员无法对这些铺天盖地的信息进行及时处理，也无从知晓哪些数据有用处。将神经形态技术──一种可以分析图像的软件──应用于每台摄像机，就可以做到这一点。他指出“该技术只有当数据有用时，才会将其提交到中央存储库，它还可以把没用的数据在本机删除，以保护隐私。”
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4 Artificial intelligence could help cities predict infrastructure failures before they happen, preventing deaths and disasters. Using these technologies, IBM’s supercomputer Watson can predict when an elevator is approaching failure by comparing noises it makes during operation with a baseline of noises made during routine safe operation. “Cities could apply similar AI and machine learning to broader infrastructure citywide,” Meyerson said. The technology “could warn city engineers and administrators when sewage pumps are going to fail or when power outages are about to arise.” Science and scientists, he noted, underlie effective use of all these kinds of technologies.
人工智能可以帮助城市在基础设施出现故障之前作出预判，从而预防死亡和灾难。利用这些技术，IBM的超级计算机沃森可以将电梯运行时发出的噪声与日常安全运行时发出的基线噪声进行对比，以此来预测电梯何时将会发生故障。迈耶森说：“城市可以将类似的人工智能和机器学习更广泛地应用到全市范围的基础设施中。”这项技术“可以在污水泵即将发生故障或即将停电时，向城市工程师和管理人员发出预警”。他指出，科学和科学家是有效利用所有这些技术的重要条件。
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5 Arron Wood, deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Australia, confirmed Meyerson’s view. Scientists have already helped his city design and deploy a system of stormwater holding tanks that have lessened flooding during heavy rainstorms and also provided water during the dry periods that prevail most of the year. Researchers have helped Melbourne set up science-based targets for annual carbon dioxide emissions that will allow it to gradually become a zero-emissions city.
澳大利亚墨尔本市副市长阿伦•伍德证实了迈耶森的观点。科学家们已经帮助墨尔本市设计和部署了一个雨水蓄水池系统，该系统减少了暴雨期的洪涝灾害，也能在占一年中大部分时间的干旱期为该市供水。研究人员帮助墨尔本制定了科学性的二氧化碳年度排放目标，使其能逐步发展为一个零排放城市。
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6 Much more could be done. Researchers are now helping Melbourne expand its forest cover — the proportion of the municipality shaded by trees — from 22 to 40 percent. The increase, Wood said, could lower the city’s heat island effect (added warmth due to buildings and roads absorbing and reemitting heat) by 4 degrees Celsius. “The trees will make the city look good,” Wood said, “but they will also prevent hundreds of deaths from heat stress, lessen fires, reduce violent crimes (which go up when air temperatures get very high), and even help the economy — because fewer people come into the city when it gets too hot.” Lena Chan, senior director of international biodiversity conservation at the National Parks Board of Singapore, added robust research shows more greenery also improves people’s physical and psychological well-being, helping a city to be healthy and productive.
能做的还不止这些。研究人员目前正在帮助墨尔本将其森林覆盖率（市内被树木遮蔽的比例）从22%提升到40%。伍德说，这一升幅可以将气温降低4摄氏度，从而减弱城市热岛效应（由于建筑物和道路吸收并重新散发热量而增加的热度）。“树木会让城市赏心悦目,”伍德说，“还可以防止数百人因热应激而死亡，减少火灾，减少暴力犯罪（气温飙升时，暴力犯罪也相应增多），甚至能促进经济发展──因为当城市太热时，进城的人就少了。”新加坡国家公园局国际生物多样性保护高级主管莉娜•陈补充说，已有确凿的研究结果表明，