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Originally Posted by MeTurk
I don't like the idea of bigger citys, I think that's the hole problem in fact. I think for the most part city folk are to far removed from nature and the daily facts of nature to appreciate just how essential our environment is to our survival. Big citys are a big drain on the world. You also have country folk all over the world working themselfs into poverty to supply big citys with cheap food. This is happening to farmers all over the world including in Ireland (a farming stronghold for millenia) and America.
I don't mind building large citys but I think nature needs to be brought into them and more effort should be made to build proper communities within citys.
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The thing is that living in a city is much more efficient than living in a rural area. People living in rural areas, provided they live the same lifestyle as one in a city, will consume more than said urban person. This mainly comes down to transportation - both individual transport, or how products and agricultural products get to you.
You can also think of it this way: what do you think consumes more energy and resources per capita? 200 people living in an apartment building (shared infrastructure, less space, etc) or 200 people living in 50 rural houses? Not to mention that one of the biggest benefits of living in a city is proximity to things. When it comes down to it, economics drives the choices that are made.... Ideally, if something is an economically smart decision - it will be a sustainably-smart decision.... AKA resources are expensive, which is why people live in urban centers moreso than rural. Consuming less is cheaper, and better for the environment.
What we are seeing a lot in North America is urban sprawl. Everyone wants a 'piece of the country' by living in the suburbs (shudders), and so cities are sprawling and sprawling. This means people are using more resources per capita (big yards, bigger houses that consume more energy) while at the same time - reducing the greenspace (fields that provide food, forests that clean the air and house biodiversity).
But I do agree with you that everyone is removed from the effects of their impact on the environment. Chances are most people on these boards are from a 1st world, western-developed country, where our externalities are exported to 3rd world or manufacturing countries. We don't see a lot of the effects because we are removed by thousands of KM's from the consequences (battery manufacturing in Chine where entire rivers are unusable due to toxic waste, mass deforestation in South America where cattle is bred for western consumption, etc).
Quote:
Originally Posted by MeTurk
The price of oil will never come down again no matter what new sources we find.
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Agreed. This is a fact, it may dip and hit a few valleys, but the upward trend is near exponential. We have passed peak oil - officially we have used more oil in our history than there is left in the earth. The oil we have used has been of the beautiful-bullion kind that is straight up pumped out of Texas or Saudi Arabia. The stuff that is left is mixed with soil in Alberta, or thousands of meters deep in the ocean. Not exactly easy to extract (which means extremely hard on the environment to extract, plus extremely expensive to consumer). Plus factor in increasingly exponential consumption too. Supply = down, demand = up.
Anyways, if you can't tell already - I am passionate about these topics. Just don't get me started !
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