One passage that hit home: "I'm very receptive to urban planning... What I'm not receptive to is when you take that argument to the Luddite level. There's no really important technology that's been developed that couldn't be used in a negative way"
How very true.
I'm sorry to say I'm not comprehending the overall point of the article...I'll blame it on the early morning.
ReplyDeleteI have read Kunsler's novel, which is perhaps the brightest, sunniest, most pastoral view of a post-apocalypse world I've read. There is badness in it, of course, but nothing worse than we see today, really. I believe he has often been accused of wishing for the collapse of society.
I found the most interesting bit of the quote to be the part you left out:
"I live in San Francisco, and I live in a place where I can walk to the market and walk to a movie, and I don't need to drive around the city and very often I don't."
Looking at the bigger picture, I wonder how much of the speakers urban lifestyle is dependent upon the use of oil by other people so that he can walk to the market....no such thing as a free lunch, and all that. It's nice to outsource these things so we can decrease of individual carbon footprint, but the big picture is important too.
Oh! And I agree with part of what I think the point is...the Luddite thing. It seems to me everything can be good and bad depending on perspective. I think that local, small scale solutions that are ideal for their individual particular place are the way of the future. Whey do we have to have a uniform, national energy solution? Seems to me that with 9 billion people, diversity is the way of the future.
ReplyDeletePlease elaborate on that first point - where is the oil usage by other people so he can walk to the market? I don't see the outsourcing.
ReplyDeleteHow did his milk get to the city? Especially in California, I think there are some tricky maneuvering of resources. It is so dry there, I'm not sure how they do agriculture sustainably.
ReplyDeleteThis is a new philosophy for me, so it still has some kinks. But, in my global way of thinking, unless you've got a cow that you're milking, you are outsourcing most or all of the work involved in obtaining a glass of milk. I think those processes should be included when calculating consumption.
It is possible that his walking to get milk from a store in a city is more efficient than my driving to a dairy to get milk directly from the producer, but unless you calculate the full cycle, I don't think we can automatically assume walking and city living is inherently more efficient.
Please disagree!
In this specific case I think Dairy requires less water than the rest of the infamous California agriculture industry, so it would be fair to say that San Franciscans buying local milk is more efficient than a rural comparison.
ReplyDeleteBut I have no way to prove it, as we do not have the info or tools to figure this out. Someone (grocery stores?) needs to get on the ball and give consumers this info.
Case in point from this discussion: when we say more efficient, are we saying food miles, or CO2 production? I read recently that growing lamb outside london has less food miles but more CO2 production than londener's eating New Zealand lamb, due to the amount of artificial feed needed in that client (if you believe that). So we should be specific when we talk about efficiency and comprehensive when we discuss true cost.
Further more, you compare your driving to a dairy to his walking, but how many rural residents buy milk from a dairy, vs how many urban residents walk to the store? We need to compare this as you say on a larger scale, and again, we need more info. It is widely assumed that higher density living equates to more conservation of energy, but we have no way to calculate this for our local populations and industries.
So while I will take you up on your offer and disagree, I think neither of us can prove our case.
See - I think we completely agree. I know I have no data to support my question. I wonder if there are studies, like the lamb example, where people are collecting this data.
ReplyDeleteIn general, I am skeptical when we try to make broad generalizations about what is good for sustainability and then craft our policies and views around that. I think a better approach is to look at it on an individual basis. What is the most sustainable, efficient way for me - JoAnna of the Indiana Moskal's - to obtain a glass of milk (or a milk analog that could be even better if milk on it's own was not sustainable - you know, like I shouldn't expect sustainable, local kiwis and rather, should suck it up and enjoy a strawberry instead).
We could do a lot of posts on peak oil. Like most things that are important, I think that many of the arguments and discussions that I've seen around Peak Oil have been a bit too simplistic...
ReplyDeleteI agree that the price of oil needs to double or triple before people take conservation seriously. This is what scares the shit out of me. If we had a transparent and free market, with open and well understood supply and demand figures, we could anticipate and adapt to price increases to make this transition in an orderly fashion, over time replacing oil with a diversity of geographically and task appropriate sustainable alternatives. I agree with JoAnna (and I think the guy quoted in the article, too) - diversity is the way of the future. Local biofuels might be great local solutions.
I fear that it may be too late though. We don't have that transparency or openness to verify that we have in fact passed the peak. We have unsustainable lifestyles and a government that tries to keep the party running at all costs, despite clear indications that expensive oil destroyed/is destroying our economy.
Minor diversion time here:
Except maybe as an immediate short term reaction, I disagree with the notion that Peak Oil will force people to live at greater densities as a general rule, or that this would somehow be a good thing. I think that this is the opposite of the Luddite argument - it is the hipster self congratulatory side of the issue - "My community is SO much better - if only everyone walked to Whole Foods and ate sustainable local asparagus, the world would be a better place!" I loved living in a community like that, but the fact is that most people can not afford to do so because they have over leveraged and become dependent upon subsidized and unsustainable systems that keep them in "security jobs". Driving from a suburban house to get bulk lettuce grown 1000+ miles away has become a significantly more economical option for most people.
I guess that with energy scarcity we will find a new balance. The geography and climate will determine what areas can support what densities, as bringing food in from outside a certain radius will become eventually more expensive than producing it locally and the demand (population) will likely spread out to find balance with the supplies. I think that it is true that in certain situations, densities might increase, and people could live in nice walkable environments and eat free range broccoli, etc., but the question I have is what sorts of important work are the people in the city doing to earn money to buy their food?
I don't think that service industries are gonna cut it anymore...
I don't think that the difference in the individual choices that Chris and JoAnna are describing are all that important. I have a set amount of money (a representation of potential energy expenditures that I have earned through my productive labor) and I can spend it however I choose. The importance will come from how much money is available to any given community. In a free market, the "average" choice will always shift to favor the most economical (less energy involved) or highest quality options.
ReplyDelete