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We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). I can't see the

We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). I can't see the US ever being willing to make these sacrifices though. If you compare the $/sqft for housing in the US vs. Europe the difference is shocking (even in big cities like Seattle vs. London), same for gasoline prices, etc. The US has become accustomed to unparalleled comfort and luxury, with central air conditioning and multiple cars practically the norm. If anything, I imagine they'll try to enforce strict emissions controls on developing nations to have the pretence of doing something.

kiba 5y ago
We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). Is this really a sacrifice? I can't see the US ever being willing to make these sacrifices though. If you compare the $/sqft for housing in the US vs. Europe the difference is shocking (even in big cities like Seattle vs. London), same for gasoline prices, etc. I would be more concerned with urban design and zoning than square footage. Bigger house means more maintenance, and bigger lot means more mowing. I for one, hate mowing. The US has become accustomed to unparalleled comfort and luxury, with central air conditioning and multiple cars practically the norm. If anything, I imagine they'll try to enforce strict emissions controls on developing nations to have the pretence of doing something. A car is not a luxury. It is an unfortunate and out of control necessity that helps increases the cost of living and make societies less egalitarian, because it is a requirement to use car to do anything of note.
- after_care 5y ago
  I live in a suburb of a medium sized city. It’s not particularly dense, probably slightly lower density than the median American lives in. My generation Z neighbors (I have two) are very happy to live without a car. They live within three miles of their jobs and use electric scooters for commuting. They have their food and consumer goods shipped to their house. They say that they don’t need to drive anywhere, and the occasion that they want to go somewhere Uber is available. Meanwhile they are saving hundreds to thousands of dollars a month by not having two cars. I personally (a millennial) have put less than five thousand miles on my car in the last 5 years. People say cars are a requirement for American life, but I find that’s becoming less true for more and more Americans.
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    What is the real estate square foot cost where you live? Maybe more media-visible Americans are living in such areas now, but supply is extremely tight. A lot of these neighborhoods tend to be older, being poor in previous decades, and now those poor people are getting pushed out to the suburbs where cars are a great required expense.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    Where are you living? Sounds like you and your neighbors are shut ins who just stream twitch all night. That’s fine but I wouldn’t consider that the norm for gen z or even millennials. (Even if it is popular) If you go out a few times a week, not having a car in most American cities is quite difficult/burdensome/expensive. Uber alone would be $100 round trip if I wanted to go into the city from where I live. Public transit? Isn’t available past 11pm.
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  > Is this really a sacrifice? For many people, yes. > Bigger house means more maintenance, and bigger lot means more mowing. I for one, hate mowing. No one is forcing you to buy a big home with a maintenance burden. Out of respect, don't force other people into buying smaller ones.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    That's really sidestepping the issue, isn't it? It's not just about respect and freedom. It's about the externalities created by many people living in large homes.
    - captainredbeard 5y ago
      Maybe
    - kiba 5y ago
      Not really possible to make much choices, when zoning laws made many things illegal, such as mandating minimum lot size and banning higher density development and so forth.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        Sure, the world of infinite choice is a fantasy anyway. But even if it weren't, I don't think the argument would be very strong.
    - bradlys 5y ago
      The externalities don’t come from living in large homes. They come from the use of non-renewable resources. Focus on that dude. Stop trying to make everyone live in an SRO. You can easily give everyone a McMansion and live in some sub 1.5C utopia as long as we focus on where we get our energy and resources from. Stop focusing on consumption quantity because it just sounds like envy.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
Glench 5y ago
> We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). This statement is tinged with the idea of sacrifice and loss that is unfortunately one of the hallmarks of the environmental movement. How about this? We can have an emissions-free future that is much more awesome than now with the same size cars and homes. Rewiring America explains how (hint: electrify everything): https://www.rewiringamerica.org/ https://www.rewiringamerica.org/ Of course, it's also a good idea to reduce our overall consumption, but if you tell people they're going to have to live "worse" lives for the sake of the climate — well I don't think that's true or helpful.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  It would be great if you were right. But even assuming it's the case, people will have to adjust to the electrical appliances. People in this very community say that they simply cannot learn to cook on an electric stove, or rent a car for the infrequent occasions when they want to travel hundreds of miles, and therefore fossil fuel usage must be continued unabated. Even this level of very small sacrifice is unimaginable. Never mind the kind of more radical change the person you're replying to is talking about.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Aren't stoves unique among gas appliances in that people prefer them over their electric counterparts for reasons other than cost to operate? Couldn't we reduce residential natural gas use by like 90% just by replacing all of the gas water heaters, clothes dryers, and furnaces with electric equivalents? (Note: I personally like induction stoves the best. I'm not arguing that gas stoves are a good thing, just that we can get 90% of the benefit for only like 10% of the whining by leaving them alone for now.)
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Well, maybe, but maybe not. Seems like they've been seized on as a wedge issue for natural gas, and if people "must" have them then we "must" maintain a whole natural gas infrastructure for them and can't limit its use for new construction. According to this article, a fair amount of effort goes into astroturfing the cause: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the-fossil-fuel-industry-convinced-americans-to-love-gas-stoves/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the-foss...
onion2k 5y ago
I don't think you can reasonably compare "European" house sizes using London as an example. The UK is small and ancient. We literally don't have the land necessary for building big houses in cities. There wasn't much land to start with, and changing the use of land that's had buildings on it for 1000 years is incredibly hard. The same is true, with less of a supply limitation, for most cities across Europe. Houses were built many hundreds of years ago, and replacing one with a bigger one requires knocking down the whole neighborhood. By comparison the US is brand new and has abundant land. Add to that the fact that many houses in the US are timber-framed things that are easy to change and extend, and you have a recipe for big homes.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  The issue in America is that a lot of zoning has minimum lot sizes that are fairly large. If the minimum parcel size is 460 sq m and the parcel can legally only have one house on it, the house might as well be built to take advantage. Where they are legal (very small percentage of land area), America's tight housing markets see smaller townhomes and apartments sprout like weeds.
- Symbiote 5y ago
  > The UK is small and ancient. We literally don't have the land necessary for building big houses in cities. British cities like London would have plenty more space if they built up, even slightly. Comparable European cities have 4-8 story apartment buildings in the inner city; London quickly becomes single houses. > There wasn't much land to start with, and changing the use of land that's had buildings on it for 1000 years is incredibly hard. Most of London is much, much younger than that. London expanded in the late 19th century, as railways and metro lines were built.
jeffbee 5y ago
American houses are absolute shite. Americans think they have nice houses because Americans are the least-informed people history has ever known.
- captainredbeard 5y ago
  > American houses are absolute shite The general level of craftsmanship is lackluster, agreed. > Americans are the least-informed people history has ever known Both this and your prior statement are reflections regarding the diversity of the United States: we have a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff. You can find either in abundance and pretend it's the only option, or you can look at it and see a nuanced perspective.
- bluedevil2k 5y ago
  What an ignorant and ironically completely uninformed statement of your own. Keep you biases, stereotypes, and outright bigotry off this site please. Travel to a favela, travel throughout Africa, even look at the building quality of houses in Japan…there’s no comparison.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Yes, that standard American rebuttal. We have better houses than in a favela. We have better health care than Eritrea. Our transportation is better than Kazakhstan … oh shoot, wait, they have more high speed rail than the USA. Scratch that. I’ve lived in Japan and their housing is far superior. It is newer in general, well-built, quiet, warm, efficient, comfortable, functional, and cheap. American housing stock is none of those things, at twice the price.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      > I’ve lived in Japan and their housing is far superior. It is newer in general, well-built, quiet, warm, efficient, comfortable, functional, and cheap. American housing stock is none of those things, at twice the price. Don't houses in Japan only last 20-30 years? Isn't the only reason they're newer in general that they have to be rebuilt so often? Houses in America last way longer than twice that, so only paying twice as much seems like a bargain in comparison.
teeray 5y ago
> The US has become accustomed to unparalleled comfort and luxury, with central air conditioning… Heat pumps are probably the most efficient way we have to both cool AND heat a house. This is especially true when combined with solar panels and smart thermostats.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  Yeah, but like most advances in efficiency, it's not used to take less, it's used to take more. Heat pumps could be used in combination with good insulation and good practices to keep houses more comfortable. A few degrees warmer in the winter, a few degrees cooler in the summer. But that's not what happens. Americans use air conditioning to keep their houses cold. People who aren't used to it end up wearing jumpers inside in the summer. No doubt in the winter the heat pump would be used to keep the house warm enough to be naked at all times. Add to that bad insulation and no amount of heat pump efficiency is going to stop the wasted energy.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Stuff like telling people that stopping global warming means they need to be uncomfortably hot all summer and uncomfortably cold all winter is why so many people don't care about stopping it. Our goal for this should be to get heat pumps and renewable electricity rolled out everywhere, and then let people keep their houses at whatever temperatures they want without contributing to global warming.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      If you think summer is uncomfortable now give it time.
    - globular-toast 5y ago
      But that's not possible. We are nowhere near being able to sustain that. Nowhere near. Reducing our consumption is possible right now.

kiba 5y ago

We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). Is this really a sacrifice? I can't see the US ever being willing to make these sacrifices though. If you compare the $/sqft for housing in the US vs. Europe the difference is shocking (even in big cities like Seattle vs. London), same for gasoline prices, etc. I would be more concerned with urban design and zoning than square footage. Bigger house means more maintenance, and bigger lot means more mowing. I for one, hate mowing. The US has become accustomed to unparalleled comfort and luxury, with central air conditioning and multiple cars practically the norm. If anything, I imagine they'll try to enforce strict emissions controls on developing nations to have the pretence of doing something. A car is not a luxury. It is an unfortunate and out of control necessity that helps increases the cost of living and make societies less egalitarian, because it is a requirement to use car to do anything of note.

after_care 5y ago
I live in a suburb of a medium sized city. It’s not particularly dense, probably slightly lower density than the median American lives in. My generation Z neighbors (I have two) are very happy to live without a car. They live within three miles of their jobs and use electric scooters for commuting. They have their food and consumer goods shipped to their house. They say that they don’t need to drive anywhere, and the occasion that they want to go somewhere Uber is available. Meanwhile they are saving hundreds to thousands of dollars a month by not having two cars. I personally (a millennial) have put less than five thousand miles on my car in the last 5 years. People say cars are a requirement for American life, but I find that’s becoming less true for more and more Americans.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  What is the real estate square foot cost where you live? Maybe more media-visible Americans are living in such areas now, but supply is extremely tight. A lot of these neighborhoods tend to be older, being poor in previous decades, and now those poor people are getting pushed out to the suburbs where cars are a great required expense.
- bradlys 5y ago
  Where are you living? Sounds like you and your neighbors are shut ins who just stream twitch all night. That’s fine but I wouldn’t consider that the norm for gen z or even millennials. (Even if it is popular) If you go out a few times a week, not having a car in most American cities is quite difficult/burdensome/expensive. Uber alone would be $100 round trip if I wanted to go into the city from where I live. Public transit? Isn’t available past 11pm.
captainredbeard 5y ago
> Is this really a sacrifice? For many people, yes. > Bigger house means more maintenance, and bigger lot means more mowing. I for one, hate mowing. No one is forcing you to buy a big home with a maintenance burden. Out of respect, don't force other people into buying smaller ones.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  That's really sidestepping the issue, isn't it? It's not just about respect and freedom. It's about the externalities created by many people living in large homes.
  - captainredbeard 5y ago
    Maybe
  - kiba 5y ago
    Not really possible to make much choices, when zoning laws made many things illegal, such as mandating minimum lot size and banning higher density development and so forth.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Sure, the world of infinite choice is a fantasy anyway. But even if it weren't, I don't think the argument would be very strong.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    The externalities don’t come from living in large homes. They come from the use of non-renewable resources. Focus on that dude. Stop trying to make everyone live in an SRO. You can easily give everyone a McMansion and live in some sub 1.5C utopia as long as we focus on where we get our energy and resources from. Stop focusing on consumption quantity because it just sounds like envy.
    - emodendroket 5y ago

Glench 5y ago

> We all know that to combat climate change sacrifices will need to be made like fewer cars and smaller houses (for compact, accessible cities). This statement is tinged with the idea of sacrifice and loss that is unfortunately one of the hallmarks of the environmental movement. How about this? We can have an emissions-free future that is much more awesome than now with the same size cars and homes. Rewiring America explains how (hint: electrify everything): https://www.rewiringamerica.org/ https://www.rewiringamerica.org/ Of course, it's also a good idea to reduce our overall consumption, but if you tell people they're going to have to live "worse" lives for the sake of the climate — well I don't think that's true or helpful.

emodendroket 5y ago
It would be great if you were right. But even assuming it's the case, people will have to adjust to the electrical appliances. People in this very community say that they simply cannot learn to cook on an electric stove, or rent a car for the infrequent occasions when they want to travel hundreds of miles, and therefore fossil fuel usage must be continued unabated. Even this level of very small sacrifice is unimaginable. Never mind the kind of more radical change the person you're replying to is talking about.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Aren't stoves unique among gas appliances in that people prefer them over their electric counterparts for reasons other than cost to operate? Couldn't we reduce residential natural gas use by like 90% just by replacing all of the gas water heaters, clothes dryers, and furnaces with electric equivalents? (Note: I personally like induction stoves the best. I'm not arguing that gas stoves are a good thing, just that we can get 90% of the benefit for only like 10% of the whining by leaving them alone for now.)
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Well, maybe, but maybe not. Seems like they've been seized on as a wedge issue for natural gas, and if people "must" have them then we "must" maintain a whole natural gas infrastructure for them and can't limit its use for new construction. According to this article, a fair amount of effort goes into astroturfing the cause: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the-fossil-fuel-industry-convinced-americans-to-love-gas-stoves/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the-foss...

onion2k 5y ago

I don't think you can reasonably compare "European" house sizes using London as an example. The UK is small and ancient. We literally don't have the land necessary for building big houses in cities. There wasn't much land to start with, and changing the use of land that's had buildings on it for 1000 years is incredibly hard. The same is true, with less of a supply limitation, for most cities across Europe. Houses were built many hundreds of years ago, and replacing one with a bigger one requires knocking down the whole neighborhood. By comparison the US is brand new and has abundant land. Add to that the fact that many houses in the US are timber-framed things that are easy to change and extend, and you have a recipe for big homes.

bobthepanda 5y ago
The issue in America is that a lot of zoning has minimum lot sizes that are fairly large. If the minimum parcel size is 460 sq m and the parcel can legally only have one house on it, the house might as well be built to take advantage. Where they are legal (very small percentage of land area), America's tight housing markets see smaller townhomes and apartments sprout like weeds.
Symbiote 5y ago
> The UK is small and ancient. We literally don't have the land necessary for building big houses in cities. British cities like London would have plenty more space if they built up, even slightly. Comparable European cities have 4-8 story apartment buildings in the inner city; London quickly becomes single houses. > There wasn't much land to start with, and changing the use of land that's had buildings on it for 1000 years is incredibly hard. Most of London is much, much younger than that. London expanded in the late 19th century, as railways and metro lines were built.

jeffbee 5y ago

American houses are absolute shite. Americans think they have nice houses because Americans are the least-informed people history has ever known.

captainredbeard 5y ago
> American houses are absolute shite The general level of craftsmanship is lackluster, agreed. > Americans are the least-informed people history has ever known Both this and your prior statement are reflections regarding the diversity of the United States: we have a lot of good stuff and a lot of bad stuff. You can find either in abundance and pretend it's the only option, or you can look at it and see a nuanced perspective.
bluedevil2k 5y ago
What an ignorant and ironically completely uninformed statement of your own. Keep you biases, stereotypes, and outright bigotry off this site please. Travel to a favela, travel throughout Africa, even look at the building quality of houses in Japan…there’s no comparison.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Yes, that standard American rebuttal. We have better houses than in a favela. We have better health care than Eritrea. Our transportation is better than Kazakhstan … oh shoot, wait, they have more high speed rail than the USA. Scratch that. I’ve lived in Japan and their housing is far superior. It is newer in general, well-built, quiet, warm, efficient, comfortable, functional, and cheap. American housing stock is none of those things, at twice the price.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    > I’ve lived in Japan and their housing is far superior. It is newer in general, well-built, quiet, warm, efficient, comfortable, functional, and cheap. American housing stock is none of those things, at twice the price. Don't houses in Japan only last 20-30 years? Isn't the only reason they're newer in general that they have to be rebuilt so often? Houses in America last way longer than twice that, so only paying twice as much seems like a bargain in comparison.

teeray 5y ago

> The US has become accustomed to unparalleled comfort and luxury, with central air conditioning… Heat pumps are probably the most efficient way we have to both cool AND heat a house. This is especially true when combined with solar panels and smart thermostats.

globular-toast 5y ago
Yeah, but like most advances in efficiency, it's not used to take less, it's used to take more. Heat pumps could be used in combination with good insulation and good practices to keep houses more comfortable. A few degrees warmer in the winter, a few degrees cooler in the summer. But that's not what happens. Americans use air conditioning to keep their houses cold. People who aren't used to it end up wearing jumpers inside in the summer. No doubt in the winter the heat pump would be used to keep the house warm enough to be naked at all times. Add to that bad insulation and no amount of heat pump efficiency is going to stop the wasted energy.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Stuff like telling people that stopping global warming means they need to be uncomfortably hot all summer and uncomfortably cold all winter is why so many people don't care about stopping it. Our goal for this should be to get heat pumps and renewable electricity rolled out everywhere, and then let people keep their houses at whatever temperatures they want without contributing to global warming.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    If you think summer is uncomfortable now give it time.
  - globular-toast 5y ago
    But that's not possible. We are nowhere near being able to sustain that. Nowhere near. Reducing our consumption is possible right now.