Landscape architects have been trying to grasp the concept of “social influence”, and propose to free academia from the narrow technicalization and specialization. One of the keys to increasing social influence is to capture public discourse and give it a new definition that can actually move the hearts of ordinary readers, change the way they think, and form new movements or strategies. Therefore, it’s a good chance to give manifesto towards the public as a landscape architect with a new definition- Green New Deal.
One question that has always been asked is how to persuade those who don’t agree to remove the fire-hazardous trees. My answer is: show the public that the site could still be beautiful and even more charming and welcoming to visitors without so many trees. So the first thing I’d like to present is how I am gonna do the fuel management and design the new vegetation system. The vegetation change could be visible and clear. Also, this new system should be accessible, interesting and safe.
The second thing is to show the public that they could benefit and help others benefit from the proposal—for example, Job, Justice and Decarbonization. During removing fire-dangerous vegetations and collecting them as forest biomass, jobs would be created. Reducing the risk of fire incidents helps improve social justice because once the housing is destroyed by fire, the vulnerable people will have no place to go while the rich could figure out the problem. Also, the fire creates a lot of embers and carbon dioxide, making the environment worse, so the proposal definitely contributes to justice and decarbonization.
While showing a new definition, it’s important to show systematic material and rigorous demonstration. Therefore, using precedents and computer calculation of the proposal’s result such as Flammap could be helpful.
