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First of all, I said we need to reorganize our society, so the existence of one or two hypocrites is totally irrelevant. Reorganizing society means changing ho

First of all, I said we need to reorganize our society, so the existence of one or two hypocrites is totally irrelevant. Reorganizing society means changing how cities are planned, how, when, and where roads are built, and changes in the regulations of whole industries. One person's behavior is not really the issue here. The issue is how hundreds of millions of people go about their daily lives. That aside, I already live in a place where the majority of people do not own a car (and I did not even get a driver's license until I was 25 years old), and of those that do the majority do not use their car in their daily commute. As a first step we should reorganize other cities and their suburbs to be less automobile-centric and to be more walkable and to have more effective public transit. There are local efforts underway even in very conservative areas of the United States (Salt Lake City comes to mind), but we need a larger effort that is part of a national strategy. The only thing holding us back is fear of change and an attitude of laziness (which is what the "it's too expensive and hard to do" argument represents -- especially given the fact that we already did something at that scale in the 20th century when we reorganized our society to support a car-based commute), and both of those are problems that require competent leadership more than anything else.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
> The only thing holding us back is fear of change and an attitude of laziness Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. > especially given the fact that we already did something at that scale in the 20th century when we reorganized our society to support a car-based commute No. We didn't rebuild the cities to do that, for the most part. We built the new growth in a different way than the existing cities. But fixing the existing setup to be less car dependent would require a whole lot of rebuilding. (You mention Salt Lake City. Trax and Frontrunner are fine, but they haven't emptied I-15. You want to change Salt Lake so that I-15 is empty? You're going to have to do a lot more than extend Trax.)
- chimprich 8y ago
  > Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. Not doing it will likely be more expensive. There have been plausible studies that indicate the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change is significantly greater than what it would cost to avoid it.
- arbitrary_name 8y ago
  So, instead of rebuild, legislate to ensure forward planning and ongoing redevelopment is progressive and sustainable ( let's leave the definition of that alone for this conversation). Tearing down and rebuilding is not the only option. And as another commenter notes, the cost of dealing directly with climate change could be orders of magnitude higher. So let's try to have a more open and honest debate rather than covering our ears and shouting :)
  - yostrovs 8y ago
    Yes, please try that. That includes saying something new in your comments instead of simply lecturing others how to behave.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

> The only thing holding us back is fear of change and an attitude of laziness Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. > especially given the fact that we already did something at that scale in the 20th century when we reorganized our society to support a car-based commute No. We didn't rebuild the cities to do that, for the most part. We built the new growth in a different way than the existing cities. But fixing the existing setup to be less car dependent would require a whole lot of rebuilding. (You mention Salt Lake City. Trax and Frontrunner are fine, but they haven't emptied I-15. You want to change Salt Lake so that I-15 is empty? You're going to have to do a lot more than extend Trax.)

chimprich 8y ago
> Baloney. We'd have to rebuild all our cities. Stop for a minute and think seriously about the cost (even just the energy cost) of doing that. Not doing it will likely be more expensive. There have been plausible studies that indicate the cost of dealing with the effects of climate change is significantly greater than what it would cost to avoid it.
arbitrary_name 8y ago
So, instead of rebuild, legislate to ensure forward planning and ongoing redevelopment is progressive and sustainable ( let's leave the definition of that alone for this conversation). Tearing down and rebuilding is not the only option. And as another commenter notes, the cost of dealing directly with climate change could be orders of magnitude higher. So let's try to have a more open and honest debate rather than covering our ears and shouting :)
- yostrovs 8y ago
  Yes, please try that. That includes saying something new in your comments instead of simply lecturing others how to behave.