You should read the current issue of Wired for the cover story on how nothing else we are doing to help save the environment will matter if we don't do everything we can to stop global warming. But here's the shocker: Things that we used to think as harmful to the earth are now the very things we should be doing. Like cutting down forests. It sort of makes sense. Read the story here.
The thing that got my attention was the section on urban living. Apparently, "urban living is kinder to the planet, and Manhattan is perhaps the greenest place in the US. A Manhattanite's carbon footprint is 30% smaller than the average American's." That makes sense too. Sarah and I don't own a car, so our commutes don't contribute to greenhouse gases. We live in an apartment building, among "the most efficient dwellings to heat and cool." We have easy access to local produce, recycling facilities and electric buses and trains. These things are hardly within our realm of responsibility -- they're simply incidental to our geography.
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Easy access to local produce?
Darren, very sorry for writing so much. The Wired article gives the impression that Canadian forests were an overall source of carbon because the trees were old growths, but the Canadian report actually points the finger at mountain pine beetles and emissions due to natural forest fires - both unpredictable factors, and hence best not included in the target formula (for Kyoto purposes).
Incidentally, Michael Specter wrote couple months ago about how Brazil and Indonesia together account for 10% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions despite not being heavy industry powerhouses. The cause? Deforestation.
It was hard to read the section where Matt Power balked at China being paid to destroy HFC gas. The West, having sated its own big rapacious appetite, really can't now insist that others abstain from the buffet without giving some form of compensation. It was also hard to read Power's glib dismissal of the "Kyoto we-are-the-world approach", when the Americans can't even muster enough political will to ratify the treaty, let alone pass a national law for such a scheme. (Hopefully someone will write and say I'm wrong about this.)
A carbon tax is better in many ways, but the problem is no one wants to pay a tax. The last para of Power's source article admits as much - that carbon credits are the 2nd best alternative. But the market would still be capable of producing the desired effect even if it's to a lesser degree: rewarding innovation and efficient practices. As for Wall-Streeters...we should suck it up, because are we or are we not capitalists.
I should probably go write a letter to Matt Power now!
Joseph: I assume Darren means the greenmarkets and coops that are available. The benefits are lessened if you eat out a lot and order that fish from New Zealand, obviously. But consumption of products is going to put a dent in any of the gains from living in Manhattan, but probably not enough to offset all the benefits.
Anyway, I think that urban living section is misleading...I don't think the "ecological nirvana" is the same thing as "sprawls". Those are suburbs, which I hope no one thinks as being greener other than aesthetically. I love cities, and all that entails (mostly, due to the efficiencies of designing for mass populations), but I'm guess that an "ecological nirvana" would be living off the grid. And living off the grid is probably greener. This is me being pedantic, really, I don't dismiss the point.
I think the 9th one (about used cars vs. hybrids) is misleading outright, though. It's like incandescents versus compact fluorescents. The latter lasts much, much longer, but as they have mercury are more intensive to manufacture. Use CFLs when you're out of the old stock...but use the old stock as the "energy cost", if you will, has already been paid. The choice is between hybrids and purely gas powered cars going forward (the former will get better manufacturing efficiencies as it goes), and reuse and recycle in general (used cars--used anything, is better).
I suppose that it's the tack of the articles in general, that these are heresies, but opposition to a lot of these plans, as Michelle points out regarding the carbon tax and the like, aren't all on environmental grounds. Genetically modified foods are fine as a principle if it generates more food, for example, but are a more complicated issue when you account for the fact that Monsanto wants to patent it's seed strains...which are designed for annual use. In other words, what farmers once used and saved for next season, or harvested from crops for next season, needs to be purchased again and again. So business and production goals aside, do you want to create a class of farmers entirely dependent on one set of products, to one company?
Joseph, by "easy access to local produce" I meant that produce grown within a 100-mile radius of Manhattan (using the widely accepted definition here) is easy for me to purchase at the closest supermarket, which happens to be Whole Foods on Houston and Bowery.
I hope you haven't yet fired your missive off to Matt Power, Michelle, because you'd be targeting the wrong guy. Wired Contributing Editor Spencer Reiss wrote the "Carbon Trading Doesn't Work" article. That aside, I agree with you. I hope you read Alex Steffen's counterpoint to the Wired story here. And please don't apologize for writing so much. That's like Barnett Newman apologizing for making his paintings too big.
hcduvall, I don't know about you, but despite living in the city, I still feel woefully inadequate as an eco-conscious resident. It's that darn coal-oven pizza you find in Little Italy.
Thanks for pointing that out Darren; I almost gored the wrong guy in the side. I always charge too quickly at the red flag, especially where the UN is concerned. It might be a toothless lumbering behemoth, but it’s our toothless lumbering behemoth, you know?
Had no idea about the Monsanto patents until I read hcduvall’s comment. It’s astounding. A feudalism for our time, when you can own arable land and still be beholden to a master, for seed.
My sister told me a fun fact recently about New Zealand snapper reaching Japanese plates. To prevent the stress (and subsequent lactic acid build-up) of the fish being caught, scientists have found a way to hypnotise them and keep them calm, from the net right up until they get a steel spike through the brain at the foreign port. The how of it is, naturally, a patentable trade secret.
Ha! You only need coal ovens because your borough doesn't have DiFara's.
That bit about New Zealand fish...wow. That reminds of Temple Grandin, an advocate for the autism and animal welfare movements. She designed things like curved corrals which lead livestock to slaughter without the sort of stress the animals would experience in traditional methods.
Mind you, I only know this bit because of going to a barnes and noble while she was speaking with a friend. That's another benefit of living in a city...though I suppose it's a stretch to call it a green one.
Living in New York... The rest of us are still a long way off from reclaiming our cities... New Kuala Lumpur... New Singapore... New Bangkok... oh what environmental resource we would give to get there... anyhow, this better not be the another Atkins diet for the environment
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