Talking With Muggles About Climate Change

[former player]

I used to work in central London.  We had a satellite office in the suburbs, and a proposal was hatched to expand that office so that commutes from that quarter of London could be reduced.  A study was undertaken, and found that if this was done the result would be that a significant proportion of workers would use it as an opportunity to move even further out of London and keep the same length of commute.  The projected savings in commuting would not materialise and the project was scrapped.  "Just get on with it" sadly doesn't accord with the perversity, selfishness and short-sightedness of human nature.

When I say "just get on with it" I don't mean making changes for the sake of change. No, I mean get on with making cities denser and more walkable. Your story is interesting because it demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about: Instead of solving affordability and transit issues that encourage people to commuting long distances, your company was considering changes that would further promoted sprawl. This is not the kind of problem an individual person or company can solve, but rather something that requires collective action, in other words, government intervention.

Yes.

My "company" at the time was the Department for Transport.

[MasterStache]

I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?

What changes have you made in your life?

You may find that your actions speak louder and clearly than your words.

I think I've done a fair amount to be honest.
- Line dry my laundry
- Haven't used incandescent light bulbs anywhere in the house for more than fifteen years
- Keep the house at 15 degrees in the winter, and 28 degrees in the summer.
- We walk or bike whenever possible to avoid using the car - including for most errands (going to the library, going to the bank, getting groceries)
- Installed grid tied solar panels on my house as part of Ontario's microFIT program eight years ago.
- Cycle to work 2-3 times a week year round (our family had a single car because of this for more than 10 years, but after I ended up changing jobs and our son started going to school we ended up needing a second car to make things work)
- Have two days a week where we eat vegan, and at least one more that is meatless
- Haven't used plastic bags from the grocery store for more than 15 years (granted, we could do better as we still occasionally put fruit in those clear bags . . . but then tend to use the clear bags to bring lunch to work/keep clothing waterproof in backpacks while cycling in the rain/snow)
- Have a compost in our back yard which we use in the garden
- Have a rain barrel hooked up to the eaves-trough which we use in lieu of running the hose to water plants in the summer
- Don't buy stuff unless we need it.  Clothing is replaced when it wears out, but not until.  We try to buy used clothing rather than new (so far about 90% of my son's clothes have been used - and he's six now).  Our furniture was all purchased used.  We don't have too many electronic devices, and those we do have get used until they stop working (We're the only people I know who have a fifteen year old television for example).
- Don't go on vacations involving flight/air travel.


This is seen as some sort of radical deprivation by many people I know . . . even though they're pretty minimal and I'm know that there's lots of other stuff we could do.  When are my actions supposed to start speaking loudly?

One of the biggest changes we made was downsizing our house. Less energy, less stuff, less maintenance etc. Although I did install solar panels on the previous house which the new owners are currently enjoying. 

[Kris]

I used to work in central London.  We had a satellite office in the suburbs, and a proposal was hatched to expand that office so that commutes from that quarter of London could be reduced.  A study was undertaken, and found that if this was done the result would be that a significant proportion of workers would use it as an opportunity to move even further out of London and keep the same length of commute.  The projected savings in commuting would not materialise and the project was scrapped.  "Just get on with it" sadly doesn't accord with the perversity, selfishness and short-sightedness of human nature.

When I say "just get on with it" I don't mean making changes for the sake of change. No, I mean get on with making cities denser and more walkable. Your story is interesting because it demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about: Instead of solving affordability and transit issues that encourage people to commuting long distances, your company was considering changes that would further promoted sprawl. This is not the kind of problem an individual person or company can solve, but rather something that requires collective action, in other words, government intervention.

It's fascinating to me that the Left here in the US, the party that more than anyone believes in the ability of the government to solve problems (which I largely agree with!), suddenly throws up its collective hands and says it's an impossible problem when things begin to challenge the sacred: some historic districts/buildings need to make way for high density housing, no room for a backyard garden, buildings may cast a shadow on your property, rich techies and outsiders will move in, and so on.

Let's think about this from another angle. This thread is about how to talk with Muggles about climate change. Why should they believe climate change is real and serious when Blue cities in Blue states refuse to prioritize densification over aesthetic concerns such as "neighborhood character" which itself has long been a dog whistle for keeping certain people out? Why should the Muggles give up things they find aesthetically pleasing like large SUVs and strip malls with lots of parking, when places like the San Francisco Bay Area continue to resist new development which then pushes poorer people to longer and longer commutes in places with no mass transit? Red state people are not dumb, like all people they can spot hypocrisy from a mile away.

Yes.

Since about the 1990s (Clinton era), the Democratic party has turned into the party of corporatist technocrats. There are a ton of reasons for that. But unfortunately, those candidates are the ones who tend to rise to the top.

Maybe the Democrats of that decade learned their environmental lesson from Carter, who asked Americans to wear sweaters in the winter, and got shitcanned in part because people didn't want to hear it.

I sure as hell would love it if we had elected officials who would buckle down and do what was necessary to turn the tide. You're right, actual changes to infrastructure and lifestyle are necessary. Unfortunately, people freak out about that stuff because 'freedumb' and 'soshulism'.

[bacchi]

I sure as hell would love it if we had elected officials who would buckle down and do what was necessary to turn the tide. You're right, actual changes to infrastructure and lifestyle are necessary. Unfortunately, people freak out about that stuff because 'freedumb' and 'soshulism'.

There are some new neighborhoods that were built with walkability in mind. Denver-Stapleton and Austin-Mueller come to mind. They're popular, albeit expensive.

I see the NIMBYism locally. The resistance to more livable units on first and second ring single-family lots is intense.

[Kris]

I sure as hell would love it if we had elected officials who would buckle down and do what was necessary to turn the tide. You're right, actual changes to infrastructure and lifestyle are necessary. Unfortunately, people freak out about that stuff because 'freedumb' and 'soshulism'.

There are some new neighborhoods that were built with walkability in mind. Denver-Stapleton and Austin-Mueller come to mind. They're popular, albeit expensive.

I see the NIMBYism locally. The resistance to more livable units on first and second ring single-family lots is intense.

I see it, as well. Thankfully, it's not much of a problem in my neighborhood, which is actually getting more dense instead of less.

[GuitarStv]

NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?

[PDXTabs]

NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?

I would bet that suburbs + exurbs dwarf rural areas, but I don't have the data to back it up. Remember, some of those rural people actually need to live there to grow food for all the people in the urban areas.

[GuitarStv]

NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?

I would bet that suburbs + exurbs dwarf rural areas, but I don't have the data to back it up. Remember, some of those rural people actually need to live there to grow food for all the people in the urban areas.

There are likely more suburbs, sure.  That wasn't the question though . . . I'm wondering more about environmental damage due to lifestyle.

My dad's a farmer.  He lives out in the boonies . . . but he would be the first one to tell you that his lifestyle is orders of magnitude less efficient than someone living in a dense city.  His septic and well water system is less efficient than a city run one.  His electrical power required the erection of new poles to carry power lines (which he had to pay a fair amount for).  He is unable to go anywhere without driving 30 plus minutes . . . and there's a lot of cost to plow the roads around him all winter long.  The closest town has lots of public buildings that cost more to run/operate because of how rural everyone is - hospital, fire department, police . . . they have half filled buildings that still have to be heated, and burn more gas when doing their jobs.  This requires huge subsidies each year that are taken from cities and spent providing all this extra service to folks who choose to live rural.

My understanding is that the majority of people living out in rural areas also aren't farming.

[PDXTabs]

The closest town has lots of public buildings that cost more to run/operate because of how rural everyone is - hospital, fire department, police . . . they have half filled buildings that still have to be heated, and burn more gas when doing their jobs.  This causes are huge subsidies each year that are taken from cities and spent providing all this extra service to folks who choose to live rural.

This is an interesting point. My family were rural farmers pre-1920. Back then I don't think they had many subsidies. I know they didn't have power, running water, or a car.

[Buffaloski Boris]

The inability to have a civil debate with the other side pretty much guarantees that nothing is going to change.

And you lose the creative efforts of the people that aren't completely convinced of the importance of the problem, or the desirability of the proposed solutions. Let's say that's 30-40-50% of the population.  Can we really afford the luxury of excluding that much potential talent if we think an issue has cataclysmic implications?

[Kyle Schuant]

Ah yes, consuming less, it's so easy!  Anyone could do it, and everyone should do it!  (end sarcasm)

The rest of your post, which I snipped because it was bad enough our having to read it the first time, I believe this site's owner calls "complainypants."

I think I've done a fair amount to be honest. [...]

This is seen as some sort of radical deprivation by many people I know . . . even though they're pretty minimal and I'm know that there's lots of other stuff we could do.  When are my actions supposed to start speaking loudly?

I would expect that you would have a more positive reception to your words about climate change etc than would someone who was talking a lot but doing nothing, like most climate scientists.


I think we underestimate the effects of our actions and words both. Change happens slowly, gradually - then suddenly all at once. I believe you're about my age? When we were kids, only a few hippies, isolated rural homesteads and space stations had solar panels - now they're everywhere. Same-sex marriage? Nobody was against it, it just wasn't a concept. A black US President? Only in science fiction. No fault divorce? Decriminalised abortion? Never! Change seems impossible until it happens. Change happens person by person, by increments - and then suddenly all at once.


https://orionmagazine.org/article/revolutions-per-minute/


This applies for good and bad changes both, of course, or changes I would call bad which you would call good, and vice versa. So just go ahead living the life you want to - while being aware that everyone else may want to live that same life, too.

[Shane]

I'm just feeling kinda hopeless. I mean, if 99% of Americans are unwilling to make even very small changes in their lives, what hope is there?

What changes have you made in your life?

You may find that your actions speak louder and clearly than your words.

Recently moved to a walkable neighborhood where it's possible to live mostly without using a car. Still own a car, but it sits parked on the street in front of our house most days. Recently, hired an HVAC guy to redo the system in our house to make it more efficient. Trying to use as little electricity and gas as possible. Buy local, whenever possible. Agreed, actions often speak more clearly than words. Maybe somebody will notice? Not holding my breath, though.

[ministashy]

Ah yes, consuming less, it's so easy!  Anyone could do it, and everyone should do it!  (end sarcasm)

The rest of your post, which I snipped because it was bad enough our having to read it the first time, I believe this site's owner calls "complainypants."

What this tells me is your reading comprehension is pretty sub-par, then.  But hey, if you want to call realism 'complainypants', go right ahead.  And I'll call your attitude 'holier-than-thou'.  Because I'm sure you don't own a home, or ever drive a car, or wear imported clothing, or eat anything you don't grow yourself.  I am completely sure that you live in a cave, typing out screeds about how you're such a better thinker than the unwashed internet masses on a hand-me-down laptop powered by homemade soda-can batteries, all the while challenging the rest of us to prove our green credentials to your satisfaction.

Honestly, you're the kind of environmental advocate I think does more harm than good.  Because all it does is make folks who might want to make a change, instead throw up their hands and say, 'well obviously nothing I do is good enough, so why even try?'

[Leisured]

I refer readers to the Book Club section, and the book: Six Degrees: Living in a hotter world, by Mark Lynas.

[Kyle Schuant]

And I'll call your attitude 'holier-than-thou'.  Because I'm sure you don't own a home, or ever drive a car, or wear imported clothing, or eat anything you don't grow yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Also of interest: burning oil could give us vitamin C, it's still finite and can't be drilled for free, so...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8848g5/government-agency-warns-global-oil-industry-is-on-the-brink-of-a-meltdown
http://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/70_2019.pdf

[Fru-Gal]

Do NOT give up. What you said to your neighborhood group? Planted a seed. A seed of doubt... IS my car the best thing I own? SHOULD I bike more?

1. The genius of MMM is he got hundreds of thousands of people to care about the environment by showing them how ridiculously overpriced car ownership is. Don't be deceived: He is absolutely one of those climate nutters people think are too extreme. Yet a massive community has grown around him because he found a way to make us care by showing how rich we could be.

2. Victim blaming and shaming are tools of the fossil fuel industry. Things ARE changing and they know it. Free transit and car-free cities are happening around the world.

3. As a mother, I am thrilled at how my kids (teens) have eagerly embraced bikes and transit. What THEY don't understand is how adults act. I am always disappointed by comments like those in this thread where people pat themselves on the back for not having kids and comfort themselves with a little easy cynicism. What do you think drives an economy (gets the trash, works the jobs, etc)? Young people. Birth rates will/are dropping. Good. Automation and robots may do more labor in a world with fewer and fewer young humans. However, this is an excuse for apathy. You are all better thinkers than that.

[Fru-Gal]

Also, keep holding OUR feet to the fire with questions like this. We are an influential group.

And never forget: As MMM has put it all along, living without clown cars, optimizing for a less wasteful live, is BETTER and MORE FUN and MORE JOYFUL and will make you SEXIER than those trapped in the rat race alternative.

[RetiredAt63]

NIMBYism is a problem . . . is it as big a problem as people who live in rural areas though?

I would bet that suburbs + exurbs dwarf rural areas, but I don't have the data to back it up. Remember, some of those rural people actually need to live there to grow food for all the people in the urban areas.

There are likely more suburbs, sure.  That wasn't the question though . . . I'm wondering more about environmental damage due to lifestyle.

My dad's a farmer.  He lives out in the boonies . . . but he would be the first one to tell you that his lifestyle is orders of magnitude less efficient than someone living in a dense city.  His septic and well water system is less efficient than a city run one.  His electrical power required the erection of new poles to carry power lines (which he had to pay a fair amount for).  He is unable to go anywhere without driving 30 plus minutes . . . and there's a lot of cost to plow the roads around him all winter long.  The closest town has lots of public buildings that cost more to run/operate because of how rural everyone is - hospital, fire department, police . . . they have half filled buildings that still have to be heated, and burn more gas when doing their jobs.  This requires huge subsidies each year that are taken from cities and spent providing all this extra service to folks who choose to live rural.

My understanding is that the majority of people living out in rural areas also aren't farming.

Until recently I was one of those people living in a rural area and commuting.  But I was the exception.  When I looked at my friends and neighbours, most were not doing the long commute to Ottawa or Montreal.  They lived locally.  Their jobs were in the small towns dotted around the farming area.  Their total driving was probably no more than someone living in a large city with a job commute.  And when they drove, they were not stuck in traffic, because "stuck in traffic" meant catching the light as it turned red, or being stuck at a crossing for the occasional train.  However, small towns do not have public transportation, and so modern shopping planning does encourage car use.  We still had the big parking lots for the grocery store and Canadian Tire and so on.  People might not have to drive far, but they did drive.

One thing about rural living, it does make people more aware of infrastructure.  If you are truly in the country you pay the cost when your well pump needs to be replaced, or it is time to have your septic tank pumped.  If you are a farmer you most likely have a generator for power failures, because the livestock need water and the cows need milking no matter what.

[GuitarStv]

One thing about rural living, it does make people more aware of infrastructure.  If you are truly in the country you pay the cost when your well pump needs to be replaced, or it is time to have your septic tank pumped.  If you are a farmer you most likely have a generator for power failures, because the livestock need water and the cows need milking no matter what.

Awareness?  Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things.  In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance.  These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.

Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location.  Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance.  Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines.  As you mentioned, there's no public transit so anything more than a couple kilometers requires driving in a personal automobile (cycling infrastructure of course being unheard of - and roads typically with high speed limits and little shoulder) . . . and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows).  Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.

I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas.  (Cities of course, being the least.)

[LennStar]

and so modern shopping planning does encourage car use. 

On a complete side note: Just today I had a half-joking conversation (I think it started with insurance, touched the history of mafia and business models) where we ended up on the conclusion:
Socialism is when the services are brought to you - baker and butcher in every small village - and capitalism is when you go to the services.

And here we are back on car ownership and "you need a car". It's the economy, idiot! Or better: The infrastructure your economy uses.
A car is a device to externalize costs of individual mobility. A shopping center is a device to externalize the costs of delivery (btw. here postal services are thinking about stopping "at the door" delivery or charging a huge additional amount for the last mile).

But whatever the reasons, that is infrastructure. And infrastructure can be changed. Make biking a lot easier and safer, and (pin-point) car driving a bit harder, and people will move to biking. That is how the Netherlands or Kopenhagen changed from car-centric to other means of transportation. Even without any "climate change fundamentalist" telling them to do!

And this can even save a lot of money!!
Like the bridge, where the proposal was to get rid of the bike lane and save 10% of costs. My proposal would be to double the bike lanes and get rid of the car lanes instead, that saving 80% on that very expensive piece of infrastructure!!!

[ketchup]

One thing about rural living, it does make people more aware of infrastructure.  If you are truly in the country you pay the cost when your well pump needs to be replaced, or it is time to have your septic tank pumped.  If you are a farmer you most likely have a generator for power failures, because the livestock need water and the cows need milking no matter what.

Awareness?  Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things.  In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance.  These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.

Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location.  Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance.  Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines.  As you mentioned, there's no public transit so anything more than a couple kilometers requires driving in a personal automobile (cycling infrastructure of course being unheard of - and roads typically with high speed limits and little shoulder) . . . and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows).  Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.

I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas.  (Cities of course, being the least.)

As someone that used to live in the suburbs and now lives on 200 acres: YUP! 

We have literally a mile of power lines to our house, for only our house.  Our house is heated with propane, which requires a big damn truck to drive out and refill for us.  We're stubborn fucks and mow with a cheapie 20" "normal" lawnmower, but we only mow directly around the house/parking area and some paths.  We drive literally everywhere, furthest I can sensibly walk is out to the mailbox (and that takes 20 minutes).  We still have sensible vehicles (Hyundai Accent and a Volvo station wagon) but we drive them way more since I now have a clown commute and we need to drive to get anywhere.  Our shitty 6mbps DSL is only an option at all because of old phone lines that had to be subsidized to even exist way off the road here.

We absolutely are more subsidized (and more environmentally damaging) in pretty much every possible way than we were in the suburbs.  Rural IL people like to talk shit about Chicago (Cook County is the only reason IL is solidly blue) but that's basically where the entire state's tax revenue comes from to build the inefficient rural roads I use every day.

[FINate]

I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas.  (Cities of course, being the least.)

I think you're right about this, but mostly on a per capita basis. A lot more people live in cities (and suburbs) than rural, so their absolute impact is larger than the relatively small number living in the sticks. But people have to live somewhere so dense cities have the lowest overall impact.

But the nuance between total vs. per capita is part of the (willful?) confusion I see around urban planning in my area. The best and most efficient use of a parcel of land in the city is high density housing. Yet current residents (mostly homeowners) don't want to see an apartment block outside their window, don't want their $1M investment impaired, fear the unwashed masses of lower income renters that may move in next door. So, the green washing begins in earnest. We're going to "help" the planet by "preserving" the lot as a park or an urban garden or whatever. The poor people are excluded, the neighborhood has a new open space that further increases property values, and everyone pats themselves on the back for having done their part to save the planet. What's worse, if someone buys a 10,000 lot (or combines multiple lots) to build a single monstrous McMansion, no one bats an eye.

It's all a terrible farce as all but the extremely wealthy are pushed to longer and longer super commutes just to make ends meet. And as former urban dwellers are pushed to commute from rural areas, they drive up housing prices, forcing existing rural folks to commute to the city so they can afford the higher cost of living. This is happening around the Salinas area which has become a bedroom community for the Silicon Valley, 60 miles each way!!!

We need rural areas doing rural things: agriculture, logging, mining, and so on. These are needed to build, maintain, and support cities. I should add that I think there are ways to improve on these activities to mitigate their impact, but that's a separate thread.  I don't have a problem with rural people living in rural areas doing rural types of work. What I take issue with are rural people who are trying to live a city existence and/or just wanting a lot of cheap land to maximize consumption and have lots of space for stuff they don't need. When I grew up rural, people generally lived and worked locally, ate almost all meals at home, and vacation was a week at the local lake. I don't have numbers on this, but increasingly it seems like the rural life has changed dramatically to be way more consumptive. IMO, a big part of this is fulled by cities refusing to build dense, walkable neighborhoods.

[FINate]

This just came out today, highly recommend reading it to get a sense for the silliness that's going on in California and many US cities: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html

It's hard to believe NIMBYs anywhere, however liberal or progressive, can (and do) continue to claim to care about climate change.

[Syonyk]

An important distinction to make: Do you care about climate change and, therefore, GHG emissions?  Or do you claim to care about climate change, and are just using it as an excuse to beat people who think differently from you over the head, or for a a "group gripe session" about how Awful Those People Are?

And I'll even offer a helpful metric for easily determining if someone who claims to care about it actually cares: Do they actually know what their emissions are?  I'll even be nicer - just energy related emissions!  Your power company should have carbon intensity numbers available (the vast majority do), and the emissions per gallon of gasoline/gasohol/diesel/kerosene/etc are easily found.  Are those numbers decreasing year over year?

This forum tending "fairly wealthy" (I don't know exact numbers, but I'm pretty sure that this one is one of the higher average/median net worth forums on the interblags), you'd also expect someone who actually cares to have spent at least some money both optimizing their emissions and, ideally, helping out in their community somehow to further reduce emissions.  Though actual impact... eh.  Harder to quantify... do mostly unused EV chargers matter? :/  They certainly reduce objection to EV ownership.

But here's my main complaint: The vast majority of those who claim to care about climate change utterly suck at salesmanship.  Like, "couldn't sell a bottle of water to a man on a desert island who had a pocket full of gold coins" bad.

If you're trying to sell an idea, it's quite useful to understand how the target of your pitch thinks about things, and to form your pitch in a way that they actually care about.  If someone (for whatever reasons!) doesn't think that human caused carbon emissions are that big a deal, one is reasonably unlikely to alter their behavior by arguing about that - so pick something different.

I could try to sell someone on the idea of an EV/PHEV on carbon emissions, on total cost of ownership, on local energy utilization (if you're on a heavily solar/hydro/wind grid), on the driving experience, on the geeky aspects... probably another few if I thought hard enough, but that's the core of it.  Or some combination of them.  Seriously, just letting people drive them gets the wheels turning in their head.  Smooth, seamless acceleration up to the desired speed, and cheaper to own?  You don't have to even touch carbon at that point!

Same goes for home energy efficiency, solar, etc.  Though if I wanted to sell $4/W solar, I'd have to... well, lie like a solar salesman, really.  I prefer used car salesmen.  But you can do closer to $1.50/W if you're willing to put in some work and are a homeowner, and I think it's possible to do closer to $1/W, if you're careful about it.

And then you've got the problem of hypocrisy, which is blindingly evident to literally everyone else, just not the person engaging in.  If you're going to drive an SUV (hell, any sort of ICE car) to a "climate protest," well... don't be too upset when nobody takes you that seriously.  If you're going to fly on a private jet halfway across the world to some summit on climate, again... you might have image issues.  Though at least some of the criticism will come from people who don't share your point of view, period, so it might not matter.  Choose wisely.  Say what you will about Thunberg, she does understand this point quite well, and far better than some other famous climate activists.

But, in literally the first reply to the thread, you have this: "I am very worried about climate change, and I can’t get myself to change my lifestyle."  So... if you wonder why "muggles" don't pay too much attention, even people who claim to care about it aren't willing to make changes!  Why should someone who doesn't think human GHG emissions are a problem care?

And on CA's housing issues, well.  "Caring" about climate change/homelessness/etc doesn't mean it's the first priority.  "My property values" tend an awful lot higher on the list of concerns.

[Syonyk]

Onto rural areas... and I'm picking on GuitarStv here, mostly because it covers most of what I wanted to cover, but it's certainly not the only opinion of this nature that's come through.  I've just had some arguments with him in another thread related to vehicles and if the manufacturers know their head from a hole in the ground, so it drew my attention/ire.

Awareness?  Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things.  In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance.  These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.

That depends on where you live.  There's a huge range of "rural," from "acreages in something that looks like a subdivision" all the way to "Literally the middle of nowhere."  I'll agree that denser areas have better service cost recovery, but if you're far enough rural, it's pretty simple - you don't get "services."  If the driveway is plowed, and the road is accessible, well... you've probably handled it yourself.  Or your neighbors have.  So claiming that there's "less awareness of the true costs" is a load of crap when people are doing the work themselves.

Depending on the rural area, fire protection is a subscription service, so... the land owners may very well be aware of the costs of that.  Police response times are often "Well, hopefully it's nothing important," so... again, you're putting words in people's mouths that those people may very well disagree with.

But those services are also far less frequent, and often are halfway volunteer (at least for fire), so... you're going to have to cite some sources, instead of just blindly asserting.

Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location.

If you're far enough out that you don't have grid service, you're likely (at this point) to have solar/batteries, with a backup generator.  I'm pretty familiar with this setup from my office, and I run... oh, 5-10 gallons a year through my generator.  The rest of the year, it's just the embodied energy of the power generation/storage system.  I'm using lead acid, so fairly low energy storage embodied energy, and the panels ought to last an awful long time.

A backup generator is certainly quite inefficient compared to a centralized power plant (small generators are on the 10% efficiency range, plus or minus a bit depending on load), but they're not run that many hours, and consist of common metals.

As for well/septic, again, I'm not sure what you're comparing to, but if you're pumping out of a well, it's likely fairly close to the house, and the energy requirements are basically "the vertical lift."  Then gravity drain to a septic field, and maybe a pump out every 5-10 years, depending on how dirty you are (seriously - being paranoid about germs will ruin a septic system, let the kids eat dirt).  Compare this to the infrastructure required for centralized water infrastructure and the unpopular leakage rates (which range from "eeeh..." to "Wow, I'd rather not have known that..." in most systems)... you're making claims that you really need to back with more data than blind assertion.  Again, a septic system is literally a tank and some PVC, and a well pump is pretty simple metal, and maybe (if you've got a fancy variable speed pump) a bit of semiconductor and PCB.  A basic pressure switch and pump isn't that complex.  Literally a spring loaded relay and a bunch of common metal at the bottom of a pipe.

Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance.

If you're OK on a postage stamp, you usually don't live in a rural area.  There's a bit of confirmation bias going on here - yes, people who want more property tend to live in rural areas.  They tend to not do well in densely packed areas either.

But as far as a riding mower or tractor... so?  How many gallons a gas a year do you think they're going through on those?

I go through maybe 15-20 gallons of gas a year as "property fuel" - so tractor, mower, trimmers, etc.  And that's probably high - I just don't always properly distinguish between "generator fuel" for my office and "property fuel" for the other equipment.  It's in the same category.  My tractor is 80 years old, for what it's worth.  Most property tractors tend older, though I certainly have a bit of lust for a newer Kubota or Yanmar or something... eventually.  Maybe.

But in terms of emissions, well... they're just not that bad.  They might be high on NOx or such, but out in rural lands, it doesn't really matter.  My property fuel budget is something like 1000 miles of Prius driving, or less on just about anything else.  If you have more property, likely a lot of it is wild (or you're actually farming).  It's rare to have more than a few acres of "cleared area" on a rural property unless, again, it's farming.

Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines.

That depends on where it comes from, doesn't it?  If it's halfway local firewood, transported a few dozen miles from a local orchard or something, it's not that bad.  Heat pumps are a thing, and ground source heat pumps are also a thing, though admittedly I don't know anyone with one (air source works fine out here, pellet stoves are also popular).  If you're in a wooded area, a gallon or two of gas through a chainsaw may cover your heating needs.  And nobody complains about solar thermal collectors in a rural area.  I guarantee most neighborhoods would have a problem with an air solar thermal collector in a built up area.  Also purple houses, for some reason.

How much of that natural gas you're going on about leaks during production, and just how powerful of a GHG is the leaked methane?  It's certainly shorter lived, but quite a bit of recent data indicates that natural gas production/pipelines are both pretty leaky processes.

As you mentioned, there's no public transit so anything more than a couple kilometers requires driving in a personal automobile (cycling infrastructure of course being unheard of - and roads typically with high speed limits and little shoulder)

Won't argue there.  I don't really ebike into town because of that issue.  However, I'm only in town rarely, so...

and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows).

Sure, but you've also got the space to store that, along with a more efficient commuter vehicle.  If you care.  Some people don't, some do.  Push gas prices up, and a lot more people will.  Or buy an EV as a "trip into town" vehicle.

"Small car to do most stuff and a truck to do the rest" works really well in rural areas.  It doesn't mean the truck drives that many miles a year.

Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.

Perhaps.  There are also a lot of people in rural areas who don't commute, because they work remotely, are retired, work locally, etc.

I'd be very interested to see some numbers on this, but strongly suspect that the suburbs are a less environmentally damaging place to live than rural areas.  (Cities of course, being the least.)

Giant houses to heat/cool, typically higher incomes to spend on energy and vehicles, and a strong desire to both keep that income stream going and to pay other people to drive out and do stuff they can't do themselves because they're worthless at physical tasks?

I'd love to see those numbers as well.

Also, if I don't respond that quickly, I'm probably working on something other than the internet.  Sorry!

[Shane]

This just came out today, highly recommend reading it to get a sense for the silliness that's going on in California and many US cities: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/economy/housing-crisis-conor-dougherty-golden-gates.html

It's hard to believe NIMBYs anywhere, however liberal or progressive, can (and do) continue to claim to care about climate change.

Good article. Thanks for posting. That more housing might be a possible solution to a shortage of housing seems pretty obvious, but NIMBYs seem to fight against it, tooth and nail, just about every time.

[Kyle Schuant]

Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.

https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918

Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned. As said in the linked article, once you hit 3% leakage, you're no better off burning methane for electricity than coal. And a 2.3% leakage rate means the savings are not as great as commonly supposed.

Thus, reducing consumption of fossil fuels is a more powerful way of reducing emissions than swapping from one to another. In many cases this applies to renewables, too.

And again: fossil fuels are finite. So even if burning them were harmless, we'd be running short some day. Our children and grandchildren may need these some day, let's not set fire to their inheritance.

We are going to have to consume less. And you must take personal action if you want to convince people of the need for personal action. Otherwise you're a slaveholder petitioning the government for an emancipation proclamation.


It won't help to call the people you're trying to convince "muggles", either.

[Kris]

I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.

[Syonyk]

Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.

https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918

Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned. As said in the linked article, once you hit 3% leakage, you're no better off burning methane for electricity than coal. And a 2.3% leakage rate means the savings are not as great as commonly supposed.

Thanks.  I'd not seen the recent data on that.

Thus, reducing consumption of fossil fuels is a more powerful way of reducing emissions than swapping from one to another. In many cases this applies to renewables, too.

Yeah, well, there's an unpopular opinion if I've ever seen one.  Dare suggest that people could use less energy and you're branded all sorts of nasty names in a hurry.

We are going to have to consume less. And you must take personal action if you want to convince people of the need for personal action. Otherwise you're a slaveholder petitioning the government for an emancipation proclamation.

I like that one, may have to borrow it.  Thanks!

It won't help to call the people you're trying to convince "muggles", either.

It's friendlier than what the left has been calling those they disagree with for the past few years...

[bacchi]

I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.

It's almost as amusing as life-long Democrats who voted for Hillary but, gosh-darn it, Pelosi ripping up speech papers just convinced them to vote for Trump.

[Kyle Schuant]

I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.

Sure. But do you think it'll help?

Outside a land of poorly-educated people whose democracy and rule of law are corrupted by regulatory capture, hysterical media, gerrymandering and disenfranchisement of a large chunk of the population like the United States, most people are agreed there is a problem, they're just not agreed on what the solution should be.

If you are polite and live a life of example of the change you'd like to see, they may be inspired to change. If you're rude and don't make any changes in your life at all, they definitely won't change. I'll take possible success over certain failure any day of the week.

Dare suggest that people could use less energy and you're branded all sorts of nasty names in a hurry.

Energy is like money: it may be spent well, or spent badly. It's obvious that some get more bang for their buck than others. There are people who are spending $100,000 who are miserable, and others spending $20,000 who are happy. Likewise, there are people spending 20kWh a day who are uncomfortable at home, and people spending 2kWh a day and living in comfort.

[former player]

However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.

[LennStar]

Natural gas leakage in the US is running at about 2.3%.

https://theconversation.com/the-us-natural-gas-industry-is-leaking-way-more-methane-than-previously-thought-heres-why-that-matters-98918

Methane is 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. This means that the 2.3% leaking actually has more greenhouse impact than the 97.7% being burned.

No, since the CO2 is "working" in the athmosphere for a way longer time.

[Kyle Schuant]

However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response -

It doesn't matter. It's a gradual process. I'm old enough to remember people smoking in cinemas. Now smokers are banished to the cold and rain outside in the winter, a pack of smokes is AUD35 or more, and people give smokers dirty looks. And the rate has greatly dropped from its peak.

Change happens slowly, bit by bit - and then suddenly all at once.

[Fru-Gal]

Also don't discount simple lack of knowledge. I didn't even KNOW that flying was not good for multiple reasons including where in the atmosphere the CO is released until I read Joshua Spodek here on MMM forum.

Hell, I didn't know fancy educated white people could live without cars, or drive an old one, without being perceived as losers until I read MMM.

Change happens slowly, bit by bit - and then suddenly all at once.

AMEN

[Fru-Gal]

IMHO, cigarette smoking cessation behavior change efforts are very relevant to this topic, as are the evolution of civil rights. I don't know about smoking, but in the case of civil rights in the US, and earlier, the ending of slavery, the actions of regular citizens who were morally outraged by the system made all the difference.

Government follows, it does not lead.

Behavior change as a science depends, from my limited understanding, on a foundation of research to discover an effective fulcrum where the lever of change can be placed.

Increasingly, it looks like cars are that point.

The auto industry crushed the safety bicycle boom of the 1880s. But we can go back to a better time for transportation. This is why I'm not a huge fan of electric or autonomous cars. Cars will not save us. Their time has passed.

[GuitarStv]

Onto rural areas... and I'm picking on GuitarStv here, mostly because it covers most of what I wanted to cover, but it's certainly not the only opinion of this nature that's come through.  I've just had some arguments with him in another thread related to vehicles and if the manufacturers know their head from a hole in the ground, so it drew my attention/ire.

Awareness?  Maybe, but certainly there's less awareness of the true cost of these things.  In rural areas you don't pay the true costs of hydro, phone connection, mail delivery, police/fire protection, ambulatory and hospital care, or road maintenance.  These are all subsidized by the money paid by those living in cities.

That depends on where you live.  There's a huge range of "rural," from "acreages in something that looks like a subdivision" all the way to "Literally the middle of nowhere."  I'll agree that denser areas have better service cost recovery, but if you're far enough rural, it's pretty simple - you don't get "services."  If the driveway is plowed, and the road is accessible, well... you've probably handled it yourself.  Or your neighbors have.  So claiming that there's "less awareness of the true costs" is a load of crap when people are doing the work themselves.

Depending on the rural area, fire protection is a subscription service, so... the land owners may very well be aware of the costs of that.  Police response times are often "Well, hopefully it's nothing important," so... again, you're putting words in people's mouths that those people may very well disagree with.

But those services are also far less frequent, and often are halfway volunteer (at least for fire), so... you're going to have to cite some sources, instead of just blindly asserting.

Y'know, I agree with you completely here.  Rural folks are so independent that it's insulting to keep shoveling money from cities to rural areas.  We need to stop insulting the fiercely independent rural folks - so should remove the many subsidies completely.

Sure, many folks living out in the boonies have a generator or their own septic system - but that's waste and expenditure necessary only because of location.

If you're far enough out that you don't have grid service, you're likely (at this point) to have solar/batteries, with a backup generator.  I'm pretty familiar with this setup from my office, and I run... oh, 5-10 gallons a year through my generator.  The rest of the year, it's just the embodied energy of the power generation/storage system.  I'm using lead acid, so fairly low energy storage embodied energy, and the panels ought to last an awful long time.

A backup generator is certainly quite inefficient compared to a centralized power plant (small generators are on the 10% efficiency range, plus or minus a bit depending on load), but they're not run that many hours, and consist of common metals.

I was specifically talking about people in rural farming communities . . . most of whom own generators not because they're off grid, but because power outages are a common occurrence when big storms roll through and knock down power lines.

Yeah, if someone like you is completely living off the grid by generating their own power . . . awesome!  But what you're talking about is a pretty small percentage of the people in the US.  There are currently 60 million rural folks living in the US.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_areas_in_the_United_States)  180,000 people in the US off grid.  (https://www.infoplease.com/math-science/earth-environment/living-off-the-grid)  Even if you assume that every single off grid person is rural (obviously, this is an overestimation), that's less than 0.3%.  That is pretty far from normal.

As for well/septic, again, I'm not sure what you're comparing to, but if you're pumping out of a well, it's likely fairly close to the house, and the energy requirements are basically "the vertical lift."  Then gravity drain to a septic field, and maybe a pump out every 5-10 years, depending on how dirty you are (seriously - being paranoid about germs will ruin a septic system, let the kids eat dirt).  Compare this to the infrastructure required for centralized water infrastructure and the unpopular leakage rates (which range from "eeeh..." to "Wow, I'd rather not have known that..." in most systems)... you're making claims that you really need to back with more data than blind assertion.  Again, a septic system is literally a tank and some PVC, and a well pump is pretty simple metal, and maybe (if you've got a fancy variable speed pump) a bit of semiconductor and PCB.  A basic pressure switch and pump isn't that complex.  Literally a spring loaded relay and a bunch of common metal at the bottom of a pipe.

Fair enough.

Most folks I know who live in rural areas own significantly more property . . . and then need to maintain that property, which usually means the purchase of a riding lawn mower or tractor for grounds maintenance.

If you're OK on a postage stamp, you usually don't live in a rural area.  There's a bit of confirmation bias going on here - yes, people who want more property tend to live in rural areas.  They tend to not do well in densely packed areas either.

Agreed.  The people who are typically drawn to rural areas tend towards wastefulness by their very choice of property.

Houses need to be heated, and it is more costly to transport heating material (oil/gas/firewood) to individual houses in the middle of nowhere than through gas pipelines.

That depends on where it comes from, doesn't it?  If it's halfway local firewood, transported a few dozen miles from a local orchard or something, it's not that bad.  Heat pumps are a thing, and ground source heat pumps are also a thing, though admittedly I don't know anyone with one (air source works fine out here, pellet stoves are also popular).  If you're in a wooded area, a gallon or two of gas through a chainsaw may cover your heating needs.  And nobody complains about solar thermal collectors in a rural area.  I guarantee most neighborhoods would have a problem with an air solar thermal collector in a built up area.  Also purple houses, for some reason.

How much of that natural gas you're going on about leaks during production, and just how powerful of a GHG is the leaked methane?  It's certainly shorter lived, but quite a bit of recent data indicates that natural gas production/pipelines are both pretty leaky processes.

Firewood is certainly cheap.  But we were talking about environmental impact and climate change.  Burning firewood releases more CO2 to the environment than burning oil, gas, or even coal.  (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/01/pollutionwatch-wood-burning-is-not-climate-friendly, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/woody-biomass-power-and-heat-impacts-global-climate)

Natural gas pipelines aren't great, and they do leak occasionally.  According to the EPA, they leak 1.4%.  (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-natural-gas-leaks/)

and then there's a tendency to buy larger automobiles (the 'need' for a lifted four wheel drive truck because it occasionally snows).

Sure, but you've also got the space to store that, along with a more efficient commuter vehicle.  If you care.  Some people don't, some do.  Push gas prices up, and a lot more people will.  Or buy an EV as a "trip into town" vehicle.

"Small car to do most stuff and a truck to do the rest" works really well in rural areas.  It doesn't mean the truck drives that many miles a year.

We already established that people tend to be drawn to rural areas because they are less efficient with space . . . not sure that mentioning this extra space lets them own a fleet of cars is helping you out here.  Your argument here appears to be that owning two vehicles is more environmentally friendly than owning one, or none?  I disagree.  Fewer vehicles is better.

Travel time might be the same for commuters, but most folks who live/work in rural areas travel much further - because they're not stuck in traffic they are a lot more likely to end up doing a 50 km trip each way rather than 15 which again increases waste and fuel consumption.

Perhaps.  There are also a lot of people in rural areas who don't commute, because they work remotely, are retired, work locally, etc.

Well, yeah.  Folks who work remotely, are retired, and work walking distance from their home in the city are more environmentally friendly too.  If we compare like for like though, I don't believe that rural living comes out as being better for the environment.

I'd argue as well that there will be more people able to get where they need to go in a city without a car because of cycling and transit infrastructure, as well as proximity to things regularly needed (grocery stores, pharmacies, work, etc).



There are absolutely people who need to live in rural areas and who serve a vital function to our society.  My intent is not to attack folks who live in rural areas (I spent most of my childhood living in the boonies, and my dad is a farmer living in a rural area today)  . . . but to question some of the often repeated falsehoods and bad assumptions about rural life.

[FINate]

I do find it a bit amusing when it is suggested that people who will ignore/discount/mock the best climate science models in favor of Barb on the internet are on the verge of being ready to listen to reason, but for coming across some big meany calling them “muggles” or the like.

It's almost as amusing as life-long Democrats who voted for Hillary but, gosh-darn it, Pelosi ripping up speech papers just convinced them to vote for Trump.

Or like homeowners who really care about the poor and disenfranchised and are vocal in their support for affordable housing...just not this particular project which happens to be in their neighborhood, or that project over there that would require removal of a heritage tree, or that other project that would change the view.  Oddly, these folks also care a great deal about making sure we have enough water and infrastructure to support new housing, but dammit if every infrastructure proposal has some kind of fatal flaw! What a shame!

[Syonyk]

Y'know, I agree with you completely here.  Rural folks are so independent that it's insulting to keep shoveling money from cities to rural areas.  We need to stop insulting the fiercely independent rural folks - so should remove the many subsidies completely.

I'm fine with that.  Don't complain if there's more gravel roads over time out in rural areas.  Might be nice to keep some power lines up to pipe in solar production, though.  Hard to put up a few acres of solar panels in a city, a lot easier in less built up areas.  I'd expect to see some farms converting fields to solar over time, as it's a pretty decent use of some land, and, at least in the midwest, is almost certainly a better use of land than ethanol production.

I was specifically talking about people in rural farming communities . . . most of whom own generators not because they're off grid, but because power outages are a common occurrence when big storms roll through and knock down power lines.

And the problem is... ?

You're asserting that people owning backup generators is somehow a problem, without offering any data to indicate that it is.  Go find out how many hours a year the generators actually run, and how long they last, because running a generator a few dozen hours a year, intermittently, just isn't that big a problem, as far as I'm concerned.  If power's out for that time period, and people are running the generator intermittently, they almost certainly have lower emissions for that period of time than if they're just running normally on the grid.  Auto switching transfer switches with backup generators that can run the whole house are somewhat rare compared to an open frame generator and manual transfer switch of some sort, at least in my experience.

Plus, inverter technology has gotten an awful lot better, so you can do things like use a Volt or Prius as a backup generator for limited loads, at somewhat better efficiency than an open frame generator.

Yeah, if someone like you is completely living off the grid by generating their own power . . . awesome!

In terms of climate emissions?  No, it's not awesome.  It's rather significantly dirtier than grid power, almost everywhere, because of the embodied energy in the components.  The saving grace, as it were, is that if you're designing for purely off grid use, you tend to design something that requires far, far less energy, and then shift energy use to when you've got energy.  My office system will almost certainly never be lower carbon emissions than grid power, though I value separate energy systems and the ability to experiment quite a bit, so it's worth it for me.  But I also shape my demand to my available energy an awful lot.  On a cold, dark winter morning, my office is cold, often lit by kerosene (combined heat and light!), and I've got one screen on, unless I'm doing design work I can do on paper.  On a sunny spring afternoon, I've got enough surplus generation that I'm "blowing off" close to 800W of compute power, throwing cycles at Folding@Home/BOINC/etc.  But I can't run those loads all day, so I don't.  It's an attempt to optimize for using what the panels produce, but I certainly don't use nearly as much as they can produce.  Grid tie panels typically can.

The optimum solution, climate-wise, is grid tie panels, and I'll argue that east-west panels (which is what's going up for the house system - don't start me on the local red tape) are a better use of land/panel than simply south facing panels, because they generate closer to when demand is high.  A typical grid segment has a morning/evening peak demand, and east-west panels service that far better than south facing (which leads to the "duck curve" currently causing ramp rate concerns in CA).  The overall system cost is a bit higher, but if you've got the space to do it with ground mount and string inverters, it doesn't really impact the system cost that much.  You have higher panel/mounting costs, but you can pair east/west strings into a single inverter because they'll never be fully illuminated at the same time.  And generating power when needed is an awful lot lower energy intensity than storage systems are.  It takes more space, but that's not in short supply in rural areas.

Agreed.  The people who are typically drawn to rural areas tend towards wastefulness by their very choice of property.

Pick an argument, because you seem to keep switching between climate emissions (relevant in this thread), and your personal definition of wastefulness.  You like cities.  Fine.  Cram yourselves in, have a ball.

But if you're just going to shit on everyone who doesn't live in your preferred density, well, you're not going to have an awful lot of impact on climate emissions.

Firewood is certainly cheap.  But we were talking about environmental impact and climate change.  Burning firewood releases more CO2 to the environment than burning oil, gas, or even coal.

Which is CO2 that's been absorbed from the environment, instead of being deeply buried fossil carbon that's been extracted...

Even if the point production is higher, you're really arguing that extracting more fossil carbon is the better option for... reducing emissions?

We already established that people tend to be drawn to rural areas because they are less efficient with space . . . not sure that mentioning this extra space lets them own a fleet of cars is helping you out here.  Your argument here appears to be that owning two vehicles is more environmentally friendly than owning one, or none?  I disagree.  Fewer vehicles is better.

If you need transportation, being able to optimize for the smallest vehicle to do a particular task is better than requiring a vehicle that can sort of do everything, yes.  The "Prius and Truck" combo, with most of the miles on the Prius, is a pretty common option out here.  Rarer than I'd like, but still growing, is "Volt and a Truck."  Properly maintained/sheltered, vehicles last based on miles vs years, so fewer miles on a vehicle means it lasts longer.  If you've got two vehicles splitting the load, they're likely to last roughly twice as long - it's not that two cars will lead to twice as many miles driven.

Which, certainly, is better than the standard suburban option of "owning a fairly large vehicle."  Not owning a car at all is better, but if it's then replaced by a ton of delivery services, well...

I'd argue as well that there will be more people able to get where they need to go in a city without a car because of cycling and transit infrastructure, as well as proximity to things regularly needed (grocery stores, pharmacies, work, etc).

And then the relevant question is, "What's the emission of all those services that are within close range?"  To pick on your complaints about wells and septic, I could go out with a clamp on meter and tell you the exact carbon emissions of my well pump (if I cared - can't say I've actually wondered quite that closely about it).  City water and septic isn't handled by magic - there's an awful lot of pumping infrastructure, distribution, and then the rather large and methane intense treatment plants.  There may very well be some economies of scale there, but it's not magically carbon free.  And the head on my well is less than the head required to push water up a halfway decent apartment building.

but to question some of the often repeated falsehoods and bad assumptions about rural life.

You've done that, but in the context of climate change, you're picking some really weird trees to bark up.

Now if I could just figure out how to scale $1/W solar out here...

[Syonyk]

Or like homeowners who really care about the poor and disenfranchised and are vocal in their support for affordable housing...just not this particular project which happens to be in their neighborhood, or that project over there that would require removal of a heritage tree, or that other project that would change the view.  Oddly, these folks also care a great deal about making sure we have enough water and infrastructure to support new housing, but dammit if every infrastructure proposal has some kind of fatal flaw! What a shame!

It was interesting watching Seattle while I was out in that miserable corner of the country - almost every proposal seemed to be designed to tick all the "I want you to think I deeply care about the poor and disenfranchised people of color" boxes, while, as actually being deployed, trying to screw them over just as much as possible - and, gosh, those consequences were totally unintended, nobody could have foreseen them!  Except everyone who mentioned that concern early and was shouted down because those concerns clearly mean they're a racist bigoted {insert the usual stream of snarl words here}.

You can safely assume that a homeowner cares about their property value first and foremost, and that a city council member cares about emitting the correct noises so people think they care (so they can be re-elected), and... maybe property value, you know, to raise taxes for their pet causes.

The question isn't, "Do you care about homelessness?"  The question is, "Do you care about homelessness more than your property values and the ability to not see people poorer than you in your neighborhood?"  And the answer, almost always, is "No."

Then, back on topic, you see a lot of people who excitedly answer "Yes, of course!" to the question, "Do you care about climate change?"  Yet, if the question is "And therefore are you willing to take this action to reduce your emissions?" - the answer gets a lot more hesitant, and is often a flat out "No."  It's great to care about climate change, as long as it requires someone else to do the work, someone else to make the changes, and not impact your life at all, but... gosh, they just couldn't make that change for some halfway socially accepted list of reasons.  So nothing really changes.

[Boofinator]

IMHO, cigarette smoking cessation behavior change efforts are very relevant to this topic, as are the evolution of civil rights. I don't know about smoking, but in the case of civil rights in the US, and earlier, the ending of slavery, the actions of regular citizens who were morally outraged by the system made all the difference.

Government follows, it does not lead.

Behavior change as a science depends, from my limited understanding, on a foundation of research to discover an effective fulcrum where the lever of change can be placed.

Increasingly, it looks like cars are that point.

The auto industry crushed the safety bicycle boom of the 1880s. But we can go back to a better time for transportation. This is why I'm not a huge fan of electric or autonomous cars. Cars will not save us. Their time has passed.

Great assessment of the situation. If I might expound on the slavery analogy: Lincoln wasn't elected because he promised to get rid of slavery, he was elected (and just barely!) because he promised to not allow slavery to extend. This was the plurality of public opinion at the time (a much smaller minority in the Upper North clamored for immediate abolition). And of course, it was his election that provided the fulcrum toward full emancipation within several years.

Similarly, the climate situation requires policies that will win a plurality of voters. It's irrelevant how many flights those voters currently fly, what's relevant is the appropriate leadership that will pass laws amenable to the public and applicable to everyone (aside from Mustachians, most people tie their self-worth to keeping up with the Jones's). In other words, the public will accept only flying once or twice per year as long as all of their neighbors are in the same boat.

However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.

This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/

[GuitarStv]

Y'know, I agree with you completely here.  Rural folks are so independent that it's insulting to keep shoveling money from cities to rural areas.  We need to stop insulting the fiercely independent rural folks - so should remove the many subsidies completely.

I'm fine with that.  Don't complain if there's more gravel roads over time out in rural areas

Or more likely . . . no roads at all.

Let's be honest, few small rural communities ever generate enough cash to complete that sort of expensive, large scale project.  :P

Personally, I believe that rural areas need subsidies and hand-outs, otherwise the cost of living there would be prohibitive.  If you want to bite the teat you suckle at, I won't get in your way though.

I was specifically talking about people in rural farming communities . . . most of whom own generators not because they're off grid, but because power outages are a common occurrence when big storms roll through and knock down power lines.

And the problem is... ?

You're asserting that people owning backup generators is somehow a problem, without offering any data to indicate that it is.  Go find out how many hours a year the generators actually run, and how long they last, because running a generator a few dozen hours a year, intermittently, just isn't that big a problem, as far as I'm concerned.  If power's out for that time period, and people are running the generator intermittently, they almost certainly have lower emissions for that period of time than if they're just running normally on the grid.  Auto switching transfer switches with backup generators that can run the whole house are somewhat rare compared to an open frame generator and manual transfer switch of some sort, at least in my experience.

Well we have two scenarios:

- Full cost of electrical grid that feeds to a city of several million

- Full cost of electrical grid that feeds to a city of several thousand, plus the environmental costs associated with building lines further out from house to house, plus the environmental costs associated with buying/running/maintaining a separate generator.

Yes.  I'm asserting that the latter is more environmentally damaging.  Why wouldn't it be?

Agreed.  The people who are typically drawn to rural areas tend towards wastefulness by their very choice of property.

Pick an argument, because you seem to keep switching between climate emissions (relevant in this thread), and your personal definition of wastefulness.  You like cities.  Fine.  Cram yourselves in, have a ball.

But if you're just going to shit on everyone who doesn't live in your preferred density, well, you're not going to have an awful lot of impact on climate emissions.[/quote]

My preferred density is very spread out and rural.  I find it a much more pleasant way to live than city life.  That doesn't mean it's the for the planet though.

Firewood is certainly cheap.  But we were talking about environmental impact and climate change.  Burning firewood releases more CO2 to the environment than burning oil, gas, or even coal.

Which is CO2 that's been absorbed from the environment, instead of being deeply buried fossil carbon that's been extracted...

Deeply buried fossil fuels are also CO2 that's been absorbed from the environment.  Not sure where you're going with this.

Even if the point production is higher, you're really arguing that extracting more fossil carbon is the better option for... reducing emissions?

No, obviously not.  Just pointing out that trading gas for wood burning isn't a green alternative.  The best way to reduce emissions of course is to reduce consumption.  Which is harder to do when you're living in a (more comfortable) rural setting.

We already established that people tend to be drawn to rural areas because they are less efficient with space . . . not sure that mentioning this extra space lets them own a fleet of cars is helping you out here.  Your argument here appears to be that owning two vehicles is more environmentally friendly than owning one, or none?  I disagree.  Fewer vehicles is better.

If you need transportation, being able to optimize for the smallest vehicle to do a particular task is better than requiring a vehicle that can sort of do everything, yes.  The "Prius and Truck" combo, with most of the miles on the Prius, is a pretty common option out here.  Rarer than I'd like, but still growing, is "Volt and a Truck."  Properly maintained/sheltered, vehicles last based on miles vs years, so fewer miles on a vehicle means it lasts longer.  If you've got two vehicles splitting the load, they're likely to last roughly twice as long - it's not that two cars will lead to twice as many miles driven.

Which, certainly, is better than the standard suburban option of "owning a fairly large vehicle."  Not owning a car at all is better, but if it's then replaced by a ton of delivery services, well...

Can you provide the figures you're using to show that the lifetime costs of building/maintaining two separate vehicles are less than a single vehicle (or none)?  I don't really follow your math on how the latter is supposed to lose out to the former.

I'd argue as well that there will be more people able to get where they need to go in a city without a car because of cycling and transit infrastructure, as well as proximity to things regularly needed (grocery stores, pharmacies, work, etc).

And then the relevant question is, "What's the emission of all those services that are within close range?"

Unless we're willing to do some pretty drastic stuff (like enforce birth control or to cull the elderly), the real question is "What's the total emissions per person of higher vs lower density living?"

I have seen little to convince me it comes out in favor of lower.

[former player]

However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.

This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/

Not sure what your point is here?  Any flight for any purpose adds to the total.  Not flying for holidays should be the easiest win, not affecting people's livelihoods and economic status, but even that is something most people aren't (yet) willing to give up.

And giving up flying is only the start of what would be necessary to make human life on this planet sustainable and stop catastrophic change to the global climate.

[RetiredAt63]

Can I just point out here that healthy rural communities need healthy farms, or they die.  Huge agribusiness farms are both bad for the environment and bad for supporting rural communities.

My former small town: a grocery store, an elementary school, a high school, a curling club, a community center that includes a skating rink and a big meeting room, small shops including 2 restaurants and a Home Hardware, 2 gas stations, a body shop, a farm equipment dealer, a volunteer fire department, a post office, 2 banks, 2 legal firms, a medical clinic.  A seniors residence, some rental lowrise apartments, some old houses, some newer houses.  Town water and sewage. No Macdonalds, no Tim Hortons.  About half the population right in town, the rest in the surrounding area.  You will notice this provides local jobs.

I can't speak for other areas, but non- farm people outside of town paid Ontario Hydro rural low density rates, and they were high.  Everyone I knew was very careful about electricity use. We were definitely carrying a good chunk of the added costs of rural power.  And there were farms along all the roads, so even if it had been totally farm, no residential, that infrastructure was needed.  We didn't have cable though, because Bell didn't want to string cable, we had satellite TV and internet from towers. And we paid more for it than urban dwellers.

Burning wood is short term or fast carbon cycle.  This carbon would mostly have reentered the carbon cycle soon anyway, by forest fires or by decomposition.   Burning fossil fuel is burning long term or slow carbon cycle.  Normally it would not be reentering the carbon cycle, except slowly, mostly through weathering of limestone (calcium carbonate).

For a "fun" read, read Peter Brannen's The Ends of the World.

[Kyle Schuant]

Then, back on topic, you see a lot of people who excitedly answer "Yes, of course!" to the question, "Do you care about climate change?"  Yet, if the question is "And therefore are you willing to take this action to reduce your emissions?" - the answer gets a lot more hesitant, and is often a flat out "No."

This is why I look for the overlap. That is, things which are a good idea to do out of concern about climate change, and are a good idea for other reasons, too. For example, my general guideline for travel is: under 5km walk, 5-15km cycle, 15+km public transport. Each has benefits financial, social, psychological, and physical.

Walking is free except for a new pair of shoes each year. It lets you bump into neighbours and get to know them. It clears your mind to be in the open air. It builds your cardiovascular fitness and keeps your weight sensible.

Cycling can be relatively cheap (you can buy a $5k carbon fibre bike, or a $500 commuting bike), and offers slightly less social benefit than walking (you don't talk as much cycling), it can be a bit stressful in a high-traffic area, but has greater fitness and health benefits.

Public transport has a cost, but it's generally cheaper than cars (taking the whole cost into account, not just the fuel), if you go at the same time each day you'll see the same people and get to know them, you can relax and read a book etc rather than having to concentrate on traffic, and generally you'll have to walk a bit to get to the stop or station, often stand rather than sit, and you miss out on the stress of traffic and danger of accidents.

It just so happens that all three also reduce your contribution to carbon emissions. But even if they didn't they'd be good things to do for those other reasons.

From years working in gyms, I find people respond better to receiving benefits than missing out on detriments. "Be stronger so you can play with your grandchildren" works better than "be stronger so you don't end up on a walking frame with someone else having to wipe your bum for you." Either way what they need to do is the same - lift weights - but the framing changes how they feel about it.

And that's why: yes, it does matter if you call people "muggles." Environmentalists already suffer from their own hypocrisy, and from a perception that they're acting as superiors lecturing the ignorant masses from on high. Much of the discussion initiated by those advocating change has focused on the negative, and this has been amplified by hysterical media. It hasn't worked very well, emissions are higher than ever, we need a different approach.

If the last 100 times we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere it led to a rise in average temperature, we can expect the next time we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere for that to raise the temperature, too. And if the last 100 times an environmentalist took a flight to a climate change conference to wag a moralising finger at everyone else it failed to persuade anyone to change, we can expect the next time it'll do the same. [/size]Environmentalists cry, "Why won't you accept the proven science of climate change?" [/size]We can as well say to environmentalists, "Why can't you accept the proven science of cultural change?"
[/size]
[/size]We must live the change we want to see, and present its benefits.

[Plina]

Then, back on topic, you see a lot of people who excitedly answer "Yes, of course!" to the question, "Do you care about climate change?"  Yet, if the question is "And therefore are you willing to take this action to reduce your emissions?" - the answer gets a lot more hesitant, and is often a flat out "No."

From years working in gyms, I find people respond better to receiving benefits than missing out on detriments. "Be stronger so you can play with your grandchildren" works better than "be stronger so you don't end up on a walking frame with someone else having to wipe your bum for you." Either way what they need to do is the same - lift weights - but the framing changes how they feel about it.

And that's why: yes, it does matter if you call people "muggles." Environmentalists already suffer from their own hypocrisy, and from a perception that they're acting as superiors lecturing the ignorant masses from on high. Much of the discussion initiated by those advocating change has focused on the negative, and this has been amplified by hysterical media. It hasn't worked very well, emissions are higher than ever, we need a different approach.

If the last 100 times we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere it led to a rise in average temperature, we can expect the next time we put a gigatonne of carbon into the atmosphere for that to raise the temperature, too. And if the last 100 times an environmentalist took a flight to a climate change conference to wag a moralising finger at everyone else it failed to persuade anyone to change, we can expect the next time it'll do the same. [/size]Environmentalists cry, "Why won't you accept the proven science of climate change?" [/size]We can as well say to environmentalists, "Why can't you accept the proven science of cultural change?"
[/size]
[/size]We must live the change we want to see, and present its benefits.

I have been reading a lot about behaviorial change and environmental psychology. One of the interesting conclusion is like you point it out that environmentalist want people to change everything from one day to another and that is not how people are normally changing their behaviour. Another interesting point is that climate change has turned to an environmental issue instead of an societal problem. So the environmentalist approach is actually stoppning people from taking action. If we instead talked about what kind of society we want to live in then used a save the world approach it would be a lot more succesful. What you are saying with the save the world approach is that there are some bad guys that want to destroy the world and that they are that guy.

I would probably be categorized by most into the environmentalist field but at my workplace I am probably seen as a bad gal because I choose to fly several times a year. I am not prepared to spend 50 hours instead of 20 hours by taking the train to my parents. Interesting enough it has worked as pretty off putting for me. I am not joining the environmental organisations that I have been considering. Some of my colleagues are active in environmental organisations or polictical parties.

Here it has become politically correct to take the train everywhere and especially for your trip to southern europe. But I read that the push to have home vacations has been good for the sales of expensive boats that have a lot bigger environmental impact then the flight to southern europe in the summer. What the psychology litterature says is that guilt is not a way to push for societal change but group pressure is one way to achieve change.

[Fru-Gal]

We can as well say to environmentalists, "Why can't you accept the proven science of cultural change?"

Brilliant! I wholeheartedly agree that guilt tends to not work. Fear works somewhat. But joy works a lot!

Also humans copy each other. So don't underestimate the effect your living well while walking, biking, sailing, taking the train may have on others.

In my circle I'm known as that crazy one who bikes a lot (I know it's still not enough). Most won't do what I do. But they sure ask me a lot of questions! And they sure do complain about all the costs of driving. And they wonder how I managed to raise kids who love to walk, bike and hike and can fearlessly navigate anywhere urban or wild.

[Fru-Gal]

Was thinking about this on my morning run. One thing I'm trying to do is force multiply. Last year I joined our local bike coalition and went to one meeting. I want to do more with them. They have achieved so much in our area.

One ironic thing is where I live poor people bike more than rich, at least for commute/basic getting around. And poor kids are really into bikes. Rich people here live in hilly areas. One thing that has been mentioned is that electric bikes will help the rich people ride more since it will take the sting out of the hills.

No matter what, there's evidence we're entering another bicycle boom!

[Plina]

Was thinking about this on my morning run. One thing I'm trying to do is force multiply. Last year I joined our local bike coalition and went to one meeting. I want to do more with them. They have achieved so much in our area.

One ironic thing is where I live poor people bike more than rich, at least for commute/basic getting around. And poor kids are really into bikes. Rich people here live in hilly areas. One thing that has been mentioned is that electric bikes will help the rich people ride more since it will take the sting out of the hills.

No matter what, there's evidence we're entering another bicycle boom!

I am looking into joining an outdoorsorganisation as I would like to hike more and contribute somehow.

Here it is rather the middle class that bikes with expensive bikes. Ebikes are really popular in my current city as it is hilly. When companies are looking for offices they are asking about bike storages and showers.

[Boofinator]

However politely you suggest that people might like to stop flying to go on holiday the response from 70% or more of the population (even the educated and aware population on this forum: see the "no flight in 2019/2020 threads") will be a mixture of incomprehension, incredulity and anger that their freedom and happiness might be impeded in that way.

This misses the forest for the trees. Occasional flights aren't destroying the planet, it's the billion flights per year that are doing it. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/

Not sure what your point is here?  Any flight for any purpose adds to the total.  Not flying for holidays should be the easiest win, not affecting people's livelihoods and economic status, but even that is something most people aren't (yet) willing to give up.

And giving up flying is only the start of what would be necessary to make human life on this planet sustainable and stop catastrophic change to the global climate.

You referenced the no flights thread. I'm saying the worst way to win the case with "muggles" is to suggest not flying at all because pollution is bad. Let's say this pressure results in a 5% reduction of people willing to fly (I'm being optimistic here); I'd be willing to bet that 90% of these people won't be of the true believer mentality, and they will quickly get jealous of everybody else who travels, because flights are still cheap and the average person has no desire to behave in the equivalent manner of a self-flagellating cultist.*

Rather, we need to simply push for a reduction of flights through appropriate taxation. Everybody would still be allowed to fly, but they may have to pay two or three or four times as much as they do now to do so. This will have a much better effect across the board than the insistence that anyone who flies is morally culpable for the destruction of the planet.

*May I use depleted fisheries as an analogy? Do you think it works to tell fishermen that catching fish in a depleted fishery is a moral hazard, therefore they need to stop fishing there, period? This is absurd, when they surely understand that by quitting fishing, it will do nothing for the problem at hand while hurting him or her economically. In the real world, the solution that works is for the government to step in and place a limit on the catch, and in turn the fishermen generally accept the level playing field and make a decision as to whether or not it is still economically viable to continue to fish that fishery.