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We live in a (maybe THE) golden age of cheap energy. We're pretty wasteful as a society (especially in America) and it's hard to see causality in your day to da

We live in a (maybe THE) golden age of cheap energy. We're pretty wasteful as a society (especially in America) and it's hard to see causality in your day to day life. People, including me, rely on things like cars for every day things. Grocery store 2 miles away? Well of course I'm taking my car. So that means the car has to be built (emissions), thankfully we are remote so we're sharing one standard range Model 3, we have to use electricity to power the car (fossil fuels), and I'm moving 2000 - 3000 pounds of material 4 miles round trip when if I had the ability to I could ride a bike or just walk those 2 miles and maybe save the car for the day that it rains. So let's say I want some broccoli. Broccoli is grown in California which is far away from Ohio Broccoli has to be shipped by some giant truck to a warehouse Warehouse ships the broccoli to my local grocery store I go and ask Tesla to build me an electric car (something something pretending I'm making a difference) I get the car, and now every time I want broccoli I start it up and drive 4 miles round trip to get broccoli Eventually I get tired of the car and I'll get a new one and that's more emissions, resources used, etc. This is an insane use of energy. And not to mention all of the times that people will go through this chain multiple times/day/week. "Oh forgot the butter, let me drive to the grocery store". And then we spend all of this money building and expanding highways and roads. It's like, what if we just built medium density mixed-use neighborhoods, and I could ride my bike (or walk) down the road to a farmer's market style store? How much money would we save by all American families only needing one car, and not having to build and expand highways until we paved the whole planet? Electric cars for example are just reaffirmations of the way we live right now. Bandaids. It's like you're doing the wrong thing and trying to find ways to improve doing the wrong thing instead of doing the right thing. It drives me crazy. But in your day to day life very few people chain these things together (or some variation of them, this isn't meant to be exact). It's just "gas prices are XYZ, I need my car to do things, why are gas prices high?". and this is just one (albeit, frankly I think the greatest) environmental challenge in America alone (I guess the anglosphere in general to some extent). Anyway, enough rambling from my soapbox.

travisporter 5y ago
Yeah, totally feel your pain. I like my car but hate being dependent on it. Definitely looking into walkability/walk score next time I move. Incidentally I have been looking for a google maps style "walkability" color coded map.
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
All fair, but the USA is so large it basically HAS to be a car based society. Have room, so we use it. I think smaller mixed use neighborhoods would be great, but there’s literally no way to get there because it seems people don’t want to live on top of each other in biking distance unless they have to. No scenario are you not shipping broccoli all over the world. Redesigning society seems to only prevent the last mile wastes. Interesting point that EVs reinforce this.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Thanks - the only thing I'd say is that as I'm currently living in the 'burbs (close to my spouse's work so she didn't have a commute when we were in-office) I don't feel like I'm more on top of people than I did living in a mixed-use neighborhood that I could bike over to the coffee shop, wine store, or grocery store. In Columbus we have this place called German Village [1]. I'd like to see all of America built more like this (not exactly necessarily, but more like it). [1]https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g50226-d110220-Reviews-German_Village-Columbus_Ohio.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g50226-d110220...
- tbihl 5y ago
  >USA is so large it basically HAS to be a car based society. No it does not. Infrastructure that accommodates cars is extremely expensive. We subsidize car lifestyles to an extreme degree, at great financial and environmental cost. If you assure that rural locations will have near-equal (or superior) access to broadband and medical facilities, use funds from the entire state to subsidize expensive roads and bus drivers for those rural and suburban places, focus all services on highways rather than in productive places, shielding consumers from all those costs, it should not surprise anyone that people will normally respond to financial incentives rather than choosing more pleasant and sustainable lifestyles. >Interesting point that EVs reinforce this. Absolutely. EVs as a solution are green-washing, and self driving cars as a solution are pretending that there is no component of transportation problems that revolves around physical space.
Aachen 5y ago
> what if we just built medium density mixed-use neighborhoods, and I could ride my bike (or walk) down the road to a farmer's market style store? I think you might like Europe
- ericmay 5y ago
  Every time I visit! Though not without its own flaws. We live where we live because of family. Otherwise I'd really love to live/retire in Scotland. Also it kind of sucks but seems like it's hard to immigrate to places like this.

travisporter 5y ago

Yeah, totally feel your pain. I like my car but hate being dependent on it. Definitely looking into walkability/walk score next time I move. Incidentally I have been looking for a google maps style "walkability" color coded map.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago

All fair, but the USA is so large it basically HAS to be a car based society. Have room, so we use it. I think smaller mixed use neighborhoods would be great, but there’s literally no way to get there because it seems people don’t want to live on top of each other in biking distance unless they have to. No scenario are you not shipping broccoli all over the world. Redesigning society seems to only prevent the last mile wastes. Interesting point that EVs reinforce this.

ericmay 5y ago
Thanks - the only thing I'd say is that as I'm currently living in the 'burbs (close to my spouse's work so she didn't have a commute when we were in-office) I don't feel like I'm more on top of people than I did living in a mixed-use neighborhood that I could bike over to the coffee shop, wine store, or grocery store. In Columbus we have this place called German Village [1]. I'd like to see all of America built more like this (not exactly necessarily, but more like it). [1]https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g50226-d110220-Reviews-German_Village-Columbus_Ohio.html https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g50226-d110220...
tbihl 5y ago
>USA is so large it basically HAS to be a car based society. No it does not. Infrastructure that accommodates cars is extremely expensive. We subsidize car lifestyles to an extreme degree, at great financial and environmental cost. If you assure that rural locations will have near-equal (or superior) access to broadband and medical facilities, use funds from the entire state to subsidize expensive roads and bus drivers for those rural and suburban places, focus all services on highways rather than in productive places, shielding consumers from all those costs, it should not surprise anyone that people will normally respond to financial incentives rather than choosing more pleasant and sustainable lifestyles. >Interesting point that EVs reinforce this. Absolutely. EVs as a solution are green-washing, and self driving cars as a solution are pretending that there is no component of transportation problems that revolves around physical space.

Aachen 5y ago

> what if we just built medium density mixed-use neighborhoods, and I could ride my bike (or walk) down the road to a farmer's market style store? I think you might like Europe

ericmay 5y ago
Every time I visit! Though not without its own flaws. We live where we live because of family. Otherwise I'd really love to live/retire in Scotland. Also it kind of sucks but seems like it's hard to immigrate to places like this.