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The energy consumption (and therefore carbon emissions) per capita in the west/US comes almost entirely from the feedback loop between single-family-detached ho

The energy consumption (and therefore carbon emissions) per capita in the west/US comes almost entirely from the feedback loop between single-family-detached housing and the car-or-two it takes to live in that kind of sprawled out lifestyle. Put another way, Transportation and Housing (heating & cooling) are the #1 and #2 sources of carbon emissions for suburban, exurban and rural dwellers. People who simply live in urban cores automatically cut their carbon emissions in half: http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps If you live in a 5+ unit building, do not own a car, rarely fly, sign up for your utilities low-carbon supply option, and cut out red meat, its possible to be a full order of magnitude below the american average. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/American-carbon-footprint.gif http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Am... So the #1 thing an American can do to fight climate change is be "pro-city". Move there. Encourage building/density there. Help fix the schools. Use, vote for, and demand more and better public transit. People who insist on having a yard and several feet of air-gap between them and their neighbors are the real climate change deniers.

XaspR8d 9y ago
Sadly, being "pro-city" is extremely political. Even if we could set aside people's personal preferences, I'm not sure how we start to overcome the ideological gap between urban and rural residents...
aeorgnoieang 9y ago
> So the #1 thing an American can do to fight climate change is be "pro-city". Move there. Encourage building/density there. Help fix the schools. Use, vote for, and demand more and better public transit. This seems nearly as impossible as direct political action against climate change. Effectively, none of the current residents of cities want anyone else to move there, let alone allow more development, especially of greater density. Cities themselves seem to be pretty uniformly terrible at scaling-up to support larger populations. NYC's subways seem pretty close to crippling failure as-is. I don't prefer revolution, but some kind of significant 'shake-up' seems pretty inevitable given the ossification of all of the relevant 'systems'.
- sosodaft 9y ago
  This is another area where technology is hugely beneficial. Not everyone can move to a city, but people who drive to work could work remotely one day a week. Hell, let's make it Friday, who wouldn't like that? There are few office-type jobs that one just CAN'T do remotely at least one day a week, so you've cut a significant part of the emissions of a significant part of the American population. And this can be instituted as an economic incentive; employers could get a tax credit or something in exchange for the proportion of work they allow employees to do remotely.
scottLobster 9y ago
Are American cities ready to build enough housing and infrastructure to handle a collective influx of over 120,000,000 Americans currently living in suburbs and rural areas? HA! I wouldn't and actually couldn't (financially) move to a major city as it stands barring a pretty sumptuous raise or downsizing from my 2 BR apartment to a studio. Rents are ridiculous, taxes are higher, air is much more polluted, traffic is horrible, public transit is hit or miss and often unreliable. If all of that improved I might reconsider, and I'll land my flying pig on my urban apartment balcony when that happens. For all the mayors' talk about meeting the Paris accords, or as "enlightened" as many cities think they are (looking at you SanFran), many of those cities will need their own bastille day where the city zoning laws are literally torn up burned in the streets before being "pro-city" is even reasonable for anyone lower than upper-middle-class. Complete revolution would be ideal for meaningful change but is highly unlikely. As it stands we have to adapt existing systems to be clean, or at least cleaner. That means LED light bulbs, more solar (rooftop or grid) and wind/hydro/geothermal where possible, and electric vehicles. Which is where we're heading right now. Given the current rate of expansion, I imagine suburban emissions from housing/transportation will drop drastically over the next 50 years. Meanwhile those yards are carbon sinks.
- gorkonsine 9y ago
  The problem with American cities is NIMBYism: existing property owners are the ones with control of the zoning and the approval for new construction. So SanFran can't replace its too-small housing with lots of high-density high-rises because the people who own the other land there don't want it. The fix for this is to move control of zoning and construction permits to the state level.
Caveman_Coder 9y ago
>"People who insist on having a yard and several feet of air-gap between them and their neighbors are the real climate change deniers." Why are we the climate change deniers? What about those of us with yards that are completely edible and green and don't require our food to be hauled in from across the country? I don't think the issue is as cut-and-dry as you make it sound. I'd also recommend you look into the agricultural and food supply chain for these large dense cities.
gorkonsine 9y ago
>So the #1 thing an American can do to fight climate change is be "pro-city". Move there. I love the idea of higher-density living, the problem is that it's simply unaffordable for a large part of the population. They can only afford houses with yards and several feet of air-gap, as you put it. How do you propose to fix this? For example, look at Japan. In Tokyo, you can rent a small (very small) efficiency apartment for perhaps $500, according to what I hear on YouTube. A larger one big enough for a couple might be $900 or $1000. Such a place will be clean, safe, and just a few minutes' walk from the subway. Now look at NYC: there's no possible way you'll find something to rent at that price in a place that's at all safe. So telling people to "move there" is really rather asinine; are you going to pay me $1500/month so I can afford a livable apartment in Manhattan? (I'll make up the other $1000 on my own, your $1500 is a subsidy) As long as the property owners in a municipality have all the power over building and density, we're going to have this problem.

XaspR8d 9y ago

Sadly, being "pro-city" is extremely political. Even if we could set aside people's personal preferences, I'm not sure how we start to overcome the ideological gap between urban and rural residents...

aeorgnoieang 9y ago

> So the #1 thing an American can do to fight climate change is be "pro-city". Move there. Encourage building/density there. Help fix the schools. Use, vote for, and demand more and better public transit. This seems nearly as impossible as direct political action against climate change. Effectively, none of the current residents of cities want anyone else to move there, let alone allow more development, especially of greater density. Cities themselves seem to be pretty uniformly terrible at scaling-up to support larger populations. NYC's subways seem pretty close to crippling failure as-is. I don't prefer revolution, but some kind of significant 'shake-up' seems pretty inevitable given the ossification of all of the relevant 'systems'.

sosodaft 9y ago
This is another area where technology is hugely beneficial. Not everyone can move to a city, but people who drive to work could work remotely one day a week. Hell, let's make it Friday, who wouldn't like that? There are few office-type jobs that one just CAN'T do remotely at least one day a week, so you've cut a significant part of the emissions of a significant part of the American population. And this can be instituted as an economic incentive; employers could get a tax credit or something in exchange for the proportion of work they allow employees to do remotely.

scottLobster 9y ago

Are American cities ready to build enough housing and infrastructure to handle a collective influx of over 120,000,000 Americans currently living in suburbs and rural areas? HA! I wouldn't and actually couldn't (financially) move to a major city as it stands barring a pretty sumptuous raise or downsizing from my 2 BR apartment to a studio. Rents are ridiculous, taxes are higher, air is much more polluted, traffic is horrible, public transit is hit or miss and often unreliable. If all of that improved I might reconsider, and I'll land my flying pig on my urban apartment balcony when that happens. For all the mayors' talk about meeting the Paris accords, or as "enlightened" as many cities think they are (looking at you SanFran), many of those cities will need their own bastille day where the city zoning laws are literally torn up burned in the streets before being "pro-city" is even reasonable for anyone lower than upper-middle-class. Complete revolution would be ideal for meaningful change but is highly unlikely. As it stands we have to adapt existing systems to be clean, or at least cleaner. That means LED light bulbs, more solar (rooftop or grid) and wind/hydro/geothermal where possible, and electric vehicles. Which is where we're heading right now. Given the current rate of expansion, I imagine suburban emissions from housing/transportation will drop drastically over the next 50 years. Meanwhile those yards are carbon sinks.

gorkonsine 9y ago
The problem with American cities is NIMBYism: existing property owners are the ones with control of the zoning and the approval for new construction. So SanFran can't replace its too-small housing with lots of high-density high-rises because the people who own the other land there don't want it. The fix for this is to move control of zoning and construction permits to the state level.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago

>"People who insist on having a yard and several feet of air-gap between them and their neighbors are the real climate change deniers." Why are we the climate change deniers? What about those of us with yards that are completely edible and green and don't require our food to be hauled in from across the country? I don't think the issue is as cut-and-dry as you make it sound. I'd also recommend you look into the agricultural and food supply chain for these large dense cities.

gorkonsine 9y ago

>So the #1 thing an American can do to fight climate change is be "pro-city". Move there. I love the idea of higher-density living, the problem is that it's simply unaffordable for a large part of the population. They can only afford houses with yards and several feet of air-gap, as you put it. How do you propose to fix this? For example, look at Japan. In Tokyo, you can rent a small (very small) efficiency apartment for perhaps $500, according to what I hear on YouTube. A larger one big enough for a couple might be $900 or $1000. Such a place will be clean, safe, and just a few minutes' walk from the subway. Now look at NYC: there's no possible way you'll find something to rent at that price in a place that's at all safe. So telling people to "move there" is really rather asinine; are you going to pay me $1500/month so I can afford a livable apartment in Manhattan? (I'll make up the other $1000 on my own, your $1500 is a subsidy) As long as the property owners in a municipality have all the power over building and density, we're going to have this problem.