3 ms·

Horse poo covering streets is not particularly friendly to the environment.

throw0101b 3y ago
> Horse poo covering streets is not particularly friendly to the environment. Most people did not own horses, especially not in cities. They were generally limited to farmers, businesses (to draw carts/carriages), and the rich (Gilded Age). For most of history most humans walked to their destination on a day-to-day basis. This changed slightly with the invention of rail roads and later bicycles. The automobile didn't go mainstream until roughly the 1920s: * https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ Look at any pre-WW2 development and you'll see neighbourhoods built for human scale: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb Design things 'properly' and neither cars, nor horse-drawn carriages, are needed by people for most of their daily tasks. This is evidence by the fact that humans lived like that for centuries just fine.
- geodel 3y ago
  Huh, humans live for centuries in caves also just fine. I don't know why cities, streets and bicycles are needed.
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > Huh, humans live for centuries in caves also just fine. Less draft-y, better control temperature, and indoor plumbing with modern building science. > I don't know why cities, streets and bicycles are needed. Cities have less environmental impact, streets offer easier movement, and bicycles are probably the most efficient way of a human being moving. I'm not sure how designing communities where private automobiles are a necessity improved upon communities where they are optional nice-to-haves.
yetihehe 3y ago
But they are slow and don't use petroleum products. Fast and petroleum based is used as an argument against car ownership.
tnel77 3y ago
Not that I want to ban cars, but I’d have to imagine that horse feces is better for the environment than motor oil and other fluids that leak from a car.
- tamaharbor 3y ago
  Do horses fart as much as cows?
- yetihehe 3y ago
  Depends on the amount of each. One liter of oil is less friendly than one dung, but average car leaks much less oil than a horse produces dung. Several tons of dung in one place is not that good, look at big animal farm runoff. Cars were hailed as solution for horse dung problem.
- bluGill 3y ago
  That is far to complex to make any statement on. Feces (including horse) spread disease. Motor oil leaking is mostly leaking on places where nothing grows anyway because all the traffic compacts the earth and so plants cannot grow (Deer in woods make trails where plants cannot grow, this isn't about cars at all) . As such I give the win to the leaking fluids for the local environment. Cars generally are burning fossil fuels and putting more CO2 into the air. A horse is burning plants and so are net zero CO2 (assuming you don't use fuels to make the hay!) So for the earth horses are better. Both cars and horses can kill people if they hit them. Car drives generally pay some attention, and horses generally will not run over people. However there are failures where both can kill. I don't know how to find statistic to tell which is worse in practice though. A horse is a rich man's toy. Generally in the horse days humans walked, even the rich would walk most of the time - you can walk just as far and fast as a horse in a day. The horse was used to pull carts or carry heavy loads (though most people fail to realize just how much a human can carry and give the horse too much credit here). While a car is the common person's way to get around even when they could walk. Thus for human's the horse is a win because you exercise (though I'd really want to add a bicycle to this analysis)
  - tnel77 3y ago

> Horse poo covering streets is not particularly friendly to the environment. Most people did not own horses, especially not in cities. They were generally limited to farmers, businesses (to draw carts/carriages), and the rich (Gilded Age). For most of history most humans walked to their destination on a day-to-day basis. This changed slightly with the invention of rail roads and later bicycles. The automobile didn't go mainstream until roughly the 1920s: * https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262516129/fighting-traffic/ Look at any pre-WW2 development and you'll see neighbourhoods built for human scale: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb Design things 'properly' and neither cars, nor horse-drawn carriages, are needed by people for most of their daily tasks. This is evidence by the fact that humans lived like that for centuries just fine.

geodel 3y ago
Huh, humans live for centuries in caves also just fine. I don't know why cities, streets and bicycles are needed.
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > Huh, humans live for centuries in caves also just fine. Less draft-y, better control temperature, and indoor plumbing with modern building science. > I don't know why cities, streets and bicycles are needed. Cities have less environmental impact, streets offer easier movement, and bicycles are probably the most efficient way of a human being moving. I'm not sure how designing communities where private automobiles are a necessity improved upon communities where they are optional nice-to-haves.

yetihehe 3y ago

But they are slow and don't use petroleum products. Fast and petroleum based is used as an argument against car ownership.

tnel77 3y ago

Not that I want to ban cars, but I’d have to imagine that horse feces is better for the environment than motor oil and other fluids that leak from a car.

tamaharbor 3y ago
Do horses fart as much as cows?
yetihehe 3y ago
Depends on the amount of each. One liter of oil is less friendly than one dung, but average car leaks much less oil than a horse produces dung. Several tons of dung in one place is not that good, look at big animal farm runoff. Cars were hailed as solution for horse dung problem.
bluGill 3y ago
That is far to complex to make any statement on. Feces (including horse) spread disease. Motor oil leaking is mostly leaking on places where nothing grows anyway because all the traffic compacts the earth and so plants cannot grow (Deer in woods make trails where plants cannot grow, this isn't about cars at all) . As such I give the win to the leaking fluids for the local environment. Cars generally are burning fossil fuels and putting more CO2 into the air. A horse is burning plants and so are net zero CO2 (assuming you don't use fuels to make the hay!) So for the earth horses are better. Both cars and horses can kill people if they hit them. Car drives generally pay some attention, and horses generally will not run over people. However there are failures where both can kill. I don't know how to find statistic to tell which is worse in practice though. A horse is a rich man's toy. Generally in the horse days humans walked, even the rich would walk most of the time - you can walk just as far and fast as a horse in a day. The horse was used to pull carts or carry heavy loads (though most people fail to realize just how much a human can carry and give the horse too much credit here). While a car is the common person's way to get around even when they could walk. Thus for human's the horse is a win because you exercise (though I'd really want to add a bicycle to this analysis)
- tnel77 3y ago