9 ms·

Really - what solution is there for heating and cooling? Especially given that insulating houses with plastic seems to cause other problems like mold, or pollut

Really - what solution is there for heating and cooling? Especially given that insulating houses with plastic seems to cause other problems like mold, or pollution with toxins to prevent mold? And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose?

eropple 7y ago
> And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose? Walk. Bicycle. Use public transit. In extremity, buy an electric car (but that has issues, too). If your question is "what should people who live, heavily subsidized, in suburbs and exurbs, do?", then the answer teases itself out pretty elegantly.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  Why the dismissive attitude about where people live?
  - fowkswe 7y ago
    If you are consciously making decisions to not live a carbon heavy life, you'd naturally choose to not live in a ex/suburb.
    - mfatica 7y ago
      So we should all pile into cities? Do you realize how ridiculous that is? We can't concentrate everyone in a walkable / bikeable area, it's just not feasible.
      - eropple 7y ago
        Everyone? No. There are legitimate economic activities in non-urban places; there's unavoidable resource extraction, there are agricultural activities, that sort of thing. Most people? Sure. It requires re-thinking how we (Americans particularly) structure our cities, and will not be an overnight process, but what is preventing us from doing this generally? Aside from the idea that such re-thinking is impossible, anyway.
        mfatica 7y ago
        > but what is preventing us from doing this generally The fact that people don't actually want to do that? People are free to live their lives the way they want. There's no reason to pile most people into cities just "because cars"
        eropple 7y ago
        Are they free to consume more and more limited resources in doing so without fairly compensating the body politic for that consumption? Or, put more bluntly: why must I and my children pay for them?
        mfatica 7y ago
        If they have proper right to those resources then they certainly can consume them however they want.
        eropple 7y ago
        Beyond the basic rights afforded by civil society one has remarkably few rights without corresponding responsibilities. Consumption comes with a lot of them. How are you proposing to fairly and equitably address those while leaving a better world for our children?
        mfatica 7y ago
        Not sure what methodology you follow, but freedom means freedom. If I don't care to leave a better world than that's my right. It doesn't make me a good person but freedom is freedom.
        eropple 7y ago
        So, to be clear, you don't subscribe to any social contract? None? You don't think there's any responsibility for one's externalities? None? Because uh. That's literally sociopathic.
- gowld 7y ago
  Saying people should avoid living in pleasant environments so conserve resources is nearly identical to saying people should avoid traveling to pleasant environments to convert resources. What point are you trying to make?
  - eropple 7y ago
    I could travel a lot and not get into the carbon footprint of your average 10K+-a-year commuter. So people who think those are desirable places to live should actually pay for what they consume, instead of freeloading--both economically and ecologically--off of those who do.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      From what I see, you could do about 18K short-haul or 30K airline passenger miles to match the CO2e emissions of a 10K commuter (assuming you yourself have a carbon-free commute). 30K is you and 2 guests round-trip San Francisco to Paris or you and one guest one round-trip L.A. to Sydney. I agree you could do a lot of hiking or road trips and fit within that footprint.
- bubblewrap 7y ago
  Building housing produces a lot of CO2, too. So if you suggest all people living in the countryside should move into cities, you are also taking about a huge economic undertaking that would also produce huge amounts of CO2. Presumably some people are also needed in the countryside, to do the farming, and support the farmers. Subsidizing suburbs is of course stupid. But simply rolling everything back is not really feasible. Even in the past when people moved to the suburbs, presumably they did so because living in the city would have been prohibitively expensive.
  - eropple 7y ago
    That presumption doesn't hold. It's pretty well understood, sociologically, that the creators of suburbs moved to the suburbs in no small part to attain racial homogeneity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight Cities used to be inexpensive. Not cheap, but not crushing. (We made them less so by letting up on the development of housing.)
    - bubblewrap 7y ago
      Not even the link you provide supports your argument. Maybe at some times or for some time it was a motivating factor, but it is really stretching the narrative a lot to claim it is the determining factor. Is that seriously your world view? I think then you are too eager to swallow simplistic explanations. And even if "white flight" were the determining factor, it would be another step to claim the goal was "racial homogeneity". People might simply have wanted to move into nicer neighborhoods. (see checkerboard experiment, described in you linked Wikipedia article). White people might have been more likely to be wealthy enough to afford the "flight" (wasn't that what rich people always did throughout the centuries). Even if they were more wealthy because of racism (which would in itself be worthy of debate), it doesn't imply their flight was driven by desire for racial homogeneity. I live in a country where such race relations are not an issue, and people moved to the countryside here, too. It was also subsidized or used to be subsidized, for various reasons. Also simply mass availability of cars might have been a factor. Remember, cars were not available to everybody for most of human history. Cities being inexpensive - a lot of factors play into it, probably. Pollution could have made them unattractive and therefore cheap, in the early days of industrialization. One example. Housing restrictions - OK, but also more people moving there. Better job availability. And so on. Your world view is too simplistic imo.
gnode 7y ago
> what solution is there for heating and cooling? Heat pumps, powered by sustainable electricity. (nuclear; renewables)
Harvey-Specter 7y ago
Really - you can't think of any solutions for heating and cooling houses without burning fossil fuels? Electric baseboard heaters have been a thing forever, just power those with solar or wind or nuclear and we're done. My air conditioner is already electric. Drive an electric car, and buy renewable electricity.
- estebank 7y ago
  The problem I see though is that "drive an electric car" is interpreted all too often as "buy an electric car, and now that you're 'green', do not worry yourself about the fact that you change cars every two years and the footprint of your gas consumption is dwarfed by the footprint of actually making the cars pat self in back".
  - PyroLagus 7y ago
    I don't think electric cars break down after two years. Maybe the battery may give problems after a while, but that should be replaceable.
    - estebank 7y ago
      I'm not implying they break down. I'm saying that people like to drive cars with "new car smell". I'm against unnecessary green-washed conspicuous consumption.
  - jaaron 7y ago
    Changing cars every two years?
  - PopeDotNinja 7y ago
    Here's a video I liked on the carbon costs associated w/ gas & electric cars. Check out video's sources for further reading. https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM -- "Are Electric Cars Worse For The Environment? Myth Busted" -- Engineering Explained
pjc50 7y ago
"Passivhaus" designs significantly reduce this energy need without running into mould problems.
- bubblewrap 7y ago
  Don't they still require insulation? What do they use? It doesn't seem feasible to convert all housing to passive houses in a short time span, either.

eropple 7y ago

> And driving? People could just stay home, I suppose? Walk. Bicycle. Use public transit. In extremity, buy an electric car (but that has issues, too). If your question is "what should people who live, heavily subsidized, in suburbs and exurbs, do?", then the answer teases itself out pretty elegantly.

happytoexplain 7y ago
Why the dismissive attitude about where people live?
- fowkswe 7y ago
  If you are consciously making decisions to not live a carbon heavy life, you'd naturally choose to not live in a ex/suburb.
  - mfatica 7y ago
    So we should all pile into cities? Do you realize how ridiculous that is? We can't concentrate everyone in a walkable / bikeable area, it's just not feasible.
    - eropple 7y ago
      Everyone? No. There are legitimate economic activities in non-urban places; there's unavoidable resource extraction, there are agricultural activities, that sort of thing. Most people? Sure. It requires re-thinking how we (Americans particularly) structure our cities, and will not be an overnight process, but what is preventing us from doing this generally? Aside from the idea that such re-thinking is impossible, anyway.
      - mfatica 7y ago
        > but what is preventing us from doing this generally The fact that people don't actually want to do that? People are free to live their lives the way they want. There's no reason to pile most people into cities just "because cars"
        eropple 7y ago
        Are they free to consume more and more limited resources in doing so without fairly compensating the body politic for that consumption? Or, put more bluntly: why must I and my children pay for them?
        mfatica 7y ago
        If they have proper right to those resources then they certainly can consume them however they want.
        eropple 7y ago
        Beyond the basic rights afforded by civil society one has remarkably few rights without corresponding responsibilities. Consumption comes with a lot of them. How are you proposing to fairly and equitably address those while leaving a better world for our children?
        mfatica 7y ago
        Not sure what methodology you follow, but freedom means freedom. If I don't care to leave a better world than that's my right. It doesn't make me a good person but freedom is freedom.
        eropple 7y ago
        So, to be clear, you don't subscribe to any social contract? None? You don't think there's any responsibility for one's externalities? None? Because uh. That's literally sociopathic.
gowld 7y ago
Saying people should avoid living in pleasant environments so conserve resources is nearly identical to saying people should avoid traveling to pleasant environments to convert resources. What point are you trying to make?
- eropple 7y ago
  I could travel a lot and not get into the carbon footprint of your average 10K+-a-year commuter. So people who think those are desirable places to live should actually pay for what they consume, instead of freeloading--both economically and ecologically--off of those who do.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    From what I see, you could do about 18K short-haul or 30K airline passenger miles to match the CO2e emissions of a 10K commuter (assuming you yourself have a carbon-free commute). 30K is you and 2 guests round-trip San Francisco to Paris or you and one guest one round-trip L.A. to Sydney. I agree you could do a lot of hiking or road trips and fit within that footprint.
bubblewrap 7y ago
Building housing produces a lot of CO2, too. So if you suggest all people living in the countryside should move into cities, you are also taking about a huge economic undertaking that would also produce huge amounts of CO2. Presumably some people are also needed in the countryside, to do the farming, and support the farmers. Subsidizing suburbs is of course stupid. But simply rolling everything back is not really feasible. Even in the past when people moved to the suburbs, presumably they did so because living in the city would have been prohibitively expensive.
- eropple 7y ago
  That presumption doesn't hold. It's pretty well understood, sociologically, that the creators of suburbs moved to the suburbs in no small part to attain racial homogeneity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight Cities used to be inexpensive. Not cheap, but not crushing. (We made them less so by letting up on the development of housing.)
  - bubblewrap 7y ago
    Not even the link you provide supports your argument. Maybe at some times or for some time it was a motivating factor, but it is really stretching the narrative a lot to claim it is the determining factor. Is that seriously your world view? I think then you are too eager to swallow simplistic explanations. And even if "white flight" were the determining factor, it would be another step to claim the goal was "racial homogeneity". People might simply have wanted to move into nicer neighborhoods. (see checkerboard experiment, described in you linked Wikipedia article). White people might have been more likely to be wealthy enough to afford the "flight" (wasn't that what rich people always did throughout the centuries). Even if they were more wealthy because of racism (which would in itself be worthy of debate), it doesn't imply their flight was driven by desire for racial homogeneity. I live in a country where such race relations are not an issue, and people moved to the countryside here, too. It was also subsidized or used to be subsidized, for various reasons. Also simply mass availability of cars might have been a factor. Remember, cars were not available to everybody for most of human history. Cities being inexpensive - a lot of factors play into it, probably. Pollution could have made them unattractive and therefore cheap, in the early days of industrialization. One example. Housing restrictions - OK, but also more people moving there. Better job availability. And so on. Your world view is too simplistic imo.

gnode 7y ago

> what solution is there for heating and cooling? Heat pumps, powered by sustainable electricity. (nuclear; renewables)

Harvey-Specter 7y ago

Really - you can't think of any solutions for heating and cooling houses without burning fossil fuels? Electric baseboard heaters have been a thing forever, just power those with solar or wind or nuclear and we're done. My air conditioner is already electric. Drive an electric car, and buy renewable electricity.

estebank 7y ago
The problem I see though is that "drive an electric car" is interpreted all too often as "buy an electric car, and now that you're 'green', do not worry yourself about the fact that you change cars every two years and the footprint of your gas consumption is dwarfed by the footprint of actually making the cars pat self in back".
- PyroLagus 7y ago
  I don't think electric cars break down after two years. Maybe the battery may give problems after a while, but that should be replaceable.
  - estebank 7y ago
    I'm not implying they break down. I'm saying that people like to drive cars with "new car smell". I'm against unnecessary green-washed conspicuous consumption.
- jaaron 7y ago
  Changing cars every two years?
- PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  Here's a video I liked on the carbon costs associated w/ gas & electric cars. Check out video's sources for further reading. https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM -- "Are Electric Cars Worse For The Environment? Myth Busted" -- Engineering Explained

pjc50 7y ago

"Passivhaus" designs significantly reduce this energy need without running into mould problems.

bubblewrap 7y ago
Don't they still require insulation? What do they use? It doesn't seem feasible to convert all housing to passive houses in a short time span, either.