Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Green cities

I don't often talk about the books I read on here. Primarily it's because I haven't the patience to talk about them in detail. But for this one I'll make an exception (and a link!).
Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability, by David Owen is a book about how to live in a more "sustainable" way.* It is fascinating and I urge everyone to read it, if for no other reason it makes you rethink what really is and is not environmental. A few highlights:

• High-density is a key to living in an eco-friendly way, such as pretty much all European cities, or New York and San Fransisco, where there are not divided residential and business zones in the way they are in the rest of the US and Canada. Given that much of our country is designed to not walk around it, we waste just by doing our daily chores. Even yesterday, I worked at home (an environmental plus) but when I wanted to run to the bank I drove, even though I've biked it plenty of times. Today I biked into work, but it still feels odd since I have a car.


• People who are hard-core about only eating food which is locally grown are misguided. The basic idea is that if something is grown fifty miles from here and not in say, New Zealand, it has to be better for the environment. This is ignoring the fact that quite likely it is more efficient to grow things in certain areas, and if one carefully takes into account all of the factors involved (for example including how much energy is used by the grower), many times locally grown food is less beneficial than more. For a simple example, a giant truck which carts thousands of strawberries from California means that per berry, the carbon footprint is lower, especially if I just drive the 0.9 miles to the grocery store to buy them. If I choose, I can drive 10 miles to a local farmer who sells strawberries, thus making a much larger dent. Of course, those latter berries are fresher and taste better, but it doesn't mean it is more environmentally friendly.


• The key to trying to become more sustainable is not legislation or regulation. It's difficulty and hardship. When cost goes up (like the gas prices a couple of years ago), usage goes down. People will adapt to the situation, and really only will do things when we have to, not when we're suggested to. In that sense, we'll only see true innovation and changes when it's absolutely essential. This is something that is proven over and over again (like as soon as the gas prices fell again, drivers stopped carpooling and returned to their old driving habits).

What's interesting is that while this is a book that drives home the ecological benefits of dense urban cities (with which I wholeheartedly agree), the author does not live in Manhattan (anymore), but in a suburb in Connecticut. He ends the book justifying this, and bringing home the following point. We made this country into an inefficient sprawl, and we must deal with it now. And people in general respond to rewards and "punishments," and ultimately (I think) they react more strongly to the latter. This book overall reminds me that a) there are no quick fixes, and b) one really has to be wary about the benefits of spectacular "environmental" movements, as often they do more harm than good to the environement, even (and sometimes especially) when they are promoted by environmentalists.
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* Which is not realistic: There's really no such thing as "sustainability." Nothing we do is sustainable, as practically everything we do requires oil which is going to disappear. Everyone (myself included) usually thinks that this means that we'll have to find another source of energy and that's it. But almost everything we use is made of plastic, which comes (mostly) from oil.

by Topher at 10:31 AM |