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Cities -can- be more environmentally friendly than the equivalent population living in a more rural setting -IF- you're comparing roughly equivalent standards o
by icegreentea 13y ago
Cities -can- be more environmentally friendly than the equivalent population living in a more rural setting -IF- you're comparing roughly equivalent standards of living.
And there lies the rub. A) It is entirely possible that China will screw up something in their planning resulting in poorer environmental outcomes. B) This demographic shift will almost certainly come matched with an economic uplifting, and regardless of efficiencies of scale and density (which is what a city gives you), the increase in standard of living (and therefore energy and other related 'products') can result in increased environmental damage.
It really comes down to a question of execution.
- raldi 13y agoFor starters, what are these people currently burning to keep warm and cook their food? And how will that change if they become middle-class city-dwellers?
- austinz 13y agoIt depends. Coal, charcoal, wood. The house where my father grew up vented smoke/exhaust from the fires in the kitchen under a hard clay bed built into the house to keep the family warm in the winter. You can see the effect of years of exposure to soot on the faces of people who live in rural China (and, I daresay, anyone who lives in similar circumstances). These people are not living particularly environmentally clean lives right now (although, to be fair, they probably do consume far fewer manufactured goods than their city-dwelling brethren). Something of interest is the prevalence of solar water heaters, both in urban and rural areas. They are surprisingly common, much better than heating water using fire or electricity, and affordable even to those outside the cities.