4 ms·

That is not anywhere close to the truth.

marssaxman 3y ago
I suppose you are technically correct in that there are national parks and other wilderness areas we could choose to destroy, but that provides a pretty obvious answer to the previous question.
- baggy_trough 3y ago
  New towns could be placed on, for example, farmland. There isn't any reason that a town has to use completely empty and undeveloped land. There is also an abundance of habitable land with nobody living there or using it, as a road trip around North America will attest.
  - marssaxman 3y ago
    My experience road-tripping around North America has shown me exactly the opposite: there are people living everywhere it is feasible to live, and then some. Anywhere there is water, there are people drinking it; anywhere there is flattish ground with any amount of water that can be piped in, there are people farming it; anywhere there are trees, people are logging them; anywhere there is grass, cows are grazing it. If land has no people, there is always some good reason nobody wants to live there. My experience is biased toward the west side of the continent; perhaps things are different elsewhere.
    - baggy_trough 3y ago
      I guess we just see different things. I see extended areas of low and no intensity usage. So much so that I would say that the amount of space in the United States that is available for expansion, if needed, is close to unlimited. Naturally it might not make economic sense to develop there at this time, but that could change with regulatory/legal changes or by virtue of improved technology or increased population.
    - Turing_Machine 3y ago
      > My experience road-tripping around North America has shown me exactly the opposite: there are people living everywhere it is feasible to live, and then some The population density of the United States is 33.6/km^2. The population density of Canada is 4.2/km^2. The population density of the United Kingdom is 270.7/km^2. The population density of Germany is 232/km^2 There's no shortage of space in North America, your road-tripping experience to the contrary.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      What you are seeing is land ownership, not necessarily land use. And that land use is extremely inefficient, you could fit all of the population of the United States in Texas alone, give or take at the population density of NL. And NL still has plenty of farmland.
- happytoexplain 3y ago
  Trees are cleared constantly, everywhere, to build homes. Whether each case should be treated as part of an unsustainable "destruction of wilderness" is based on a universe of variables, subjective and otherwise, but no matter what the conversation looks like, the implication that it is "obviously" always unacceptable is unrealistic.

I suppose you are technically correct in that there are national parks and other wilderness areas we could choose to destroy, but that provides a pretty obvious answer to the previous question.

baggy_trough 3y ago
New towns could be placed on, for example, farmland. There isn't any reason that a town has to use completely empty and undeveloped land. There is also an abundance of habitable land with nobody living there or using it, as a road trip around North America will attest.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  My experience road-tripping around North America has shown me exactly the opposite: there are people living everywhere it is feasible to live, and then some. Anywhere there is water, there are people drinking it; anywhere there is flattish ground with any amount of water that can be piped in, there are people farming it; anywhere there are trees, people are logging them; anywhere there is grass, cows are grazing it. If land has no people, there is always some good reason nobody wants to live there. My experience is biased toward the west side of the continent; perhaps things are different elsewhere.
  - baggy_trough 3y ago
    I guess we just see different things. I see extended areas of low and no intensity usage. So much so that I would say that the amount of space in the United States that is available for expansion, if needed, is close to unlimited. Naturally it might not make economic sense to develop there at this time, but that could change with regulatory/legal changes or by virtue of improved technology or increased population.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    > My experience road-tripping around North America has shown me exactly the opposite: there are people living everywhere it is feasible to live, and then some The population density of the United States is 33.6/km^2. The population density of Canada is 4.2/km^2. The population density of the United Kingdom is 270.7/km^2. The population density of Germany is 232/km^2 There's no shortage of space in North America, your road-tripping experience to the contrary.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    What you are seeing is land ownership, not necessarily land use. And that land use is extremely inefficient, you could fit all of the population of the United States in Texas alone, give or take at the population density of NL. And NL still has plenty of farmland.
happytoexplain 3y ago
Trees are cleared constantly, everywhere, to build homes. Whether each case should be treated as part of an unsustainable "destruction of wilderness" is based on a universe of variables, subjective and otherwise, but no matter what the conversation looks like, the implication that it is "obviously" always unacceptable is unrealistic.