4 ms·

And if Americans simplify their lives and stop using so much energy.

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Indeed, noone talk about this. An average french person emits 3 or 4 times less CO2. Does an average american live 4 times better than an average frenchman? French people live longer on average, have less obsesity and other health issues. Insulated homes or apartments, smaller cars and less meat in diet could cut CO2 footprint 2x. But also we must not fool ourselves, majority of energy emissions are industrial - as a consumer I have no control over 70% of emissions
- cypress66 4y ago
  > Does an average american live 4 times better than an average frenchman? I don't know about that "4 times better" (how do you measure that, diminishing returns, etc). But your average house in the US is for sure more comfortable than your average house in France.
  - enraged_camel 4y ago
    >> But your average house in the US is for sure more comfortable than your average house in France. "For sure more comfortable"? Like you said though, by what measure? I'm visiting my sister in London right now. She lives in a 750 sqft two bedroom apartment. Sure, it's smaller than my 1700 ft house back in the US, but she seems fairly comfortable.
    - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
      Yes I know plenty of people who rather live in the big city with all its amenities and interesting people than in a giant house in suburbia. There is a reason why housing prices are so high for the Amsterdam's and New York's of this world.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Google says <5% of homes in France have air conditioning.
      - fbdab103 4y ago
        It does not typically get that warm in France. Quickly finding an annual weather calendar for Paris, the seasonal high is 78 F (26 C), one month of the year.
        Dylan16807 4y ago
        That's just the average, and it's hard to stop it from being warmer inside. A quarter of days are at least 5 degrees hotter and that's well into too hot. If it was properly unimportant then the majority of stores and offices wouldn't have it.
- lazide 4y ago
  So you are saying that the geography and socioeconomics of an established (over 10's of thousands of years) country in an already well developed and urbanized continent with high population density is different than one that is sparsely populated and only recently started to be developed by any modern definition? Weird. Maybe in another thousand years, it'll seem more similar.
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    This is a bizarre response: even in larger US cities, Americans produce more emissions (and waste) per capita than their European counterparts. Density plays a large role, but consumer behaviors play a larger one. And American consumes prefer diets with more meat, cars that burn fuel less efficiently, and products that are designed to be disposed more frequently. Edit: we also prefer larger houses, built more cheaply.
    - lazide 4y ago
      And why do those consumers prefer that diet? Could it be because of a history of large amounts of open plains with cheap, accessible water and grass, and easy transportation of that meat (rails)? It's quite nutritious too (in a combination with other foods). In Europe, farmland is at an extreme premium in most places given the higher population density and often unfriendly climate and geography. Even more obvious a comparison is India, where veganism is obligatory for a large part of the population because the population density vs farmland would otherwise cause large portions of the population to starve. Could they be using those cars because there is generally more space in US cities (with a few exceptions that have been around longer, like NYC, Boston, Baltimore, etc.) so there is less need to restrict them in size, AND most of the United States has incredibly low population density, AND a lot of nice places to visit, so folks are more likely to go sizable distances - for friends, family, vacations, etc? And since the US has been developing rapidly, as compared to already developed, infrastructure is constantly struggling to keep up, so there is a lot of value in a general purpose vehicle that doesn't require existing infrastructure as much. And why are there more cheaply built houses? Because unlike in Europe, there aren't any old houses where most of the economic and population growth is occurring. Unlike Europe, most of the US has still never had European style development, and it shows. There hasn't been time. And due to large shifts in the US economy as it figures out how to adapt, grow, and change (with no existing historical industrial/residential base to contend with either), it has to build it now. And if you constantly have to keep building new housing in places because of growth, and you don't know where people will actually want to stay (because no history), why spend more than you have to do so? You might end up abandoning it in 10 years because someone found somewhere better. The whole 'a hundred years is a long time in America, and 100 miles is a long way in Europe' (or 100km - you pick). I've spent a lot of time in Europe and the US. The socio-economics and historical time to develop are wildly different, and those socio-economics and time are a large part of why you see what you see. In Europe, there are very few places that someone doesn't already have a stake in the ground - and they will use that to force you to pay them to get out of your way, or comply with some expensive standard too. In the US, that is starting to occur, but hasn't happened yet except in the Urban areas. Most of the US is still completely, totally empty. It isn't because American's are somehow more gluttonous or evil. They're using the tools they have to fit the problems they have given the constraints they have. Same as everyone else. The continental (contiguous) United States has a population density of 36 people per sq km. Western Europe has a population density of 181 per sq km. or 5 times the US. India, for instance, is 464 per sq km, or 12 times the US. North America was colonized by European Migrants and started European style development only 3-500 years ago. Most major (and minor) cities in Europe formed thousands of years ago, and anything less than a 100 years old is often 'new'.
- epistasis 4y ago
  Cars, it's all transportation and land use really. Food choices are a rounding error compared to the terrible transportation options available for Americans. If you want to live in a walkable neighborhood in the US, good luck. Want to live in a desert where you have to drive 15 minutes to accomplish the most basic errand or buy a pound of usage? Here you, go have your choice of place to live cheaply.

Indeed, noone talk about this. An average french person emits 3 or 4 times less CO2. Does an average american live 4 times better than an average frenchman? French people live longer on average, have less obsesity and other health issues. Insulated homes or apartments, smaller cars and less meat in diet could cut CO2 footprint 2x. But also we must not fool ourselves, majority of energy emissions are industrial - as a consumer I have no control over 70% of emissions

cypress66 4y ago
> Does an average american live 4 times better than an average frenchman? I don't know about that "4 times better" (how do you measure that, diminishing returns, etc). But your average house in the US is for sure more comfortable than your average house in France.
- enraged_camel 4y ago
  >> But your average house in the US is for sure more comfortable than your average house in France. "For sure more comfortable"? Like you said though, by what measure? I'm visiting my sister in London right now. She lives in a 750 sqft two bedroom apartment. Sure, it's smaller than my 1700 ft house back in the US, but she seems fairly comfortable.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    Yes I know plenty of people who rather live in the big city with all its amenities and interesting people than in a giant house in suburbia. There is a reason why housing prices are so high for the Amsterdam's and New York's of this world.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Google says <5% of homes in France have air conditioning.
    - fbdab103 4y ago
      It does not typically get that warm in France. Quickly finding an annual weather calendar for Paris, the seasonal high is 78 F (26 C), one month of the year.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        That's just the average, and it's hard to stop it from being warmer inside. A quarter of days are at least 5 degrees hotter and that's well into too hot. If it was properly unimportant then the majority of stores and offices wouldn't have it.
lazide 4y ago
So you are saying that the geography and socioeconomics of an established (over 10's of thousands of years) country in an already well developed and urbanized continent with high population density is different than one that is sparsely populated and only recently started to be developed by any modern definition? Weird. Maybe in another thousand years, it'll seem more similar.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  This is a bizarre response: even in larger US cities, Americans produce more emissions (and waste) per capita than their European counterparts. Density plays a large role, but consumer behaviors play a larger one. And American consumes prefer diets with more meat, cars that burn fuel less efficiently, and products that are designed to be disposed more frequently. Edit: we also prefer larger houses, built more cheaply.
  - lazide 4y ago
    And why do those consumers prefer that diet? Could it be because of a history of large amounts of open plains with cheap, accessible water and grass, and easy transportation of that meat (rails)? It's quite nutritious too (in a combination with other foods). In Europe, farmland is at an extreme premium in most places given the higher population density and often unfriendly climate and geography. Even more obvious a comparison is India, where veganism is obligatory for a large part of the population because the population density vs farmland would otherwise cause large portions of the population to starve. Could they be using those cars because there is generally more space in US cities (with a few exceptions that have been around longer, like NYC, Boston, Baltimore, etc.) so there is less need to restrict them in size, AND most of the United States has incredibly low population density, AND a lot of nice places to visit, so folks are more likely to go sizable distances - for friends, family, vacations, etc? And since the US has been developing rapidly, as compared to already developed, infrastructure is constantly struggling to keep up, so there is a lot of value in a general purpose vehicle that doesn't require existing infrastructure as much. And why are there more cheaply built houses? Because unlike in Europe, there aren't any old houses where most of the economic and population growth is occurring. Unlike Europe, most of the US has still never had European style development, and it shows. There hasn't been time. And due to large shifts in the US economy as it figures out how to adapt, grow, and change (with no existing historical industrial/residential base to contend with either), it has to build it now. And if you constantly have to keep building new housing in places because of growth, and you don't know where people will actually want to stay (because no history), why spend more than you have to do so? You might end up abandoning it in 10 years because someone found somewhere better. The whole 'a hundred years is a long time in America, and 100 miles is a long way in Europe' (or 100km - you pick). I've spent a lot of time in Europe and the US. The socio-economics and historical time to develop are wildly different, and those socio-economics and time are a large part of why you see what you see. In Europe, there are very few places that someone doesn't already have a stake in the ground - and they will use that to force you to pay them to get out of your way, or comply with some expensive standard too. In the US, that is starting to occur, but hasn't happened yet except in the Urban areas. Most of the US is still completely, totally empty. It isn't because American's are somehow more gluttonous or evil. They're using the tools they have to fit the problems they have given the constraints they have. Same as everyone else. The continental (contiguous) United States has a population density of 36 people per sq km. Western Europe has a population density of 181 per sq km. or 5 times the US. India, for instance, is 464 per sq km, or 12 times the US. North America was colonized by European Migrants and started European style development only 3-500 years ago. Most major (and minor) cities in Europe formed thousands of years ago, and anything less than a 100 years old is often 'new'.
epistasis 4y ago
Cars, it's all transportation and land use really. Food choices are a rounding error compared to the terrible transportation options available for Americans. If you want to live in a walkable neighborhood in the US, good luck. Want to live in a desert where you have to drive 15 minutes to accomplish the most basic errand or buy a pound of usage? Here you, go have your choice of place to live cheaply.