Food and climate change

[Alphaville]

As for transports, getting around a lot by car is not a fatality. About 30 years ago, here, there was a good network of public busses going around the countryside towns. (It still is the case in many « third world » countries.) It got defunded. On top of that, one doesn’t *need* to go out regularly (to bars, dentists, doctors, barber shops, pharmacies, and wherever else urban folks apparently enjoy spending a lot of time). Countryside living doesn’t have to be energy intensive.

i don’t know where you live, but my experience living in a ranch in rural america is that folks are out and about all day, over long distances, in large pickup trucks.

they also go to bars, dentists, barber shops, pharmacies, supermarkets, megastores (which are also teenage hangouts), the movies, etc. plus: the home depot, the car part store, the tractor supply, the feed store, the post office, etc.

village living is one thing, but rural america today is not organized around towns, but around exurban sprawl—walmarts and home depots and pepboys and dairy queens off the side of the highway where you must drive to them.

and also at least since the postwar, a lot of teenage life has been happening in cars, from cruising around in circles to drag races to accidental pregnancies. it’s already been brainwashed and stamped onto people as “progress” that walking is for losers.

last, remember that agriculture alone does not support this lifestyle, so many people commute to jobs.

eg see this farmer here:

Earning both wheat and cattle income from the same land is what keep things afloat, Fury said.

“If it weren’t for the cattle, if we were just strictly raising wheat and had the government programs, we would slowly

go broke.”

He generally has about 60 head of beef cattle, a holdover from the days when the four kids were at home and liked looking after the calves. But the farm’s moneymaker, year in and year out, is the dairy heifers, which are bought from local dairy farms at 300 pounds and then sold back to the dairies 18 months later as seven-month bred heifers.

While the cattle provide the bulk of his farm income, it’s the non-farm income that really pays the bills.

In the work yard on Fury’s farm, alongside the corrals, the machinery and the feed storage sheds, are piles of old highway guard rails, which Fury recycles and sells for the construction of cattle pens.

The guard rail business, which has its own website at www.usedrails.com, provides about 50 percent of the family’s net income. Cathy’s job as an educator in a nearby town also makes a vital contribution to the family finances.

so, we no longer have “country life” in the sense of a small town, walk to the general store, kids on bicycles. rural children now playnvideogames all day and get trucked to mcdonalds. this is what i’ve seen with my own eyes.

[Hristo Botev]

@Jacob: And down the next rabbit hole I go . . . .

[classical_Liberal]

...

[chenda]

OTOH I can’t imagine that all of humanity can be happy living in Asian-style megalopolis and visiting some Disneyworldized nature once in a year, which is, if we are to believe futurists and other media commentators, what is coming and what we should aspire to. Makes me shudder.

Agreed though I expect though aspirational third world citizens coming from the countryside to the cities may well be dreaming of such a future Africa and Asia are where the real action is in terms of urban design, with cities so vast they dwarf anything in Europe or the Americas.

[Alphaville]

Crops grown in suburban gardens will also benefit from other factors such as the additional heat and shelter of city areas, better watering, and more pollinators as there are urban beehives and ponds as well as lower pesticide use. Vertical gardening and a green roof are further possibilities. The main problems are tiny gardens and the lack of direct sunlight in overcrowded suburbs - I don't think people who live in the US or even most of Europe can always appreciate just how small the housing plots are in the UK.

i don’t know how your suburbs work because in england you still have villages, but the american suburb is made up of this stuff:



it’s an asian-style megalopolis, but for cars (yes, that is the “town” part)

houses in the subdivisions are like this



and these:



are secondary groth forest with little biodiversity, no predators, etc.

notice the street pattern: you’re not supposed to leave the house on foot.



edward scissorhands lived there once

the lawns are, of course, thouroghly sprayed, fertilized, and mowed short.

[chenda]

@alphaville - If you go to Google street view and have a look at New Malden in south west London, it'll give you an idea of a typical suburb in a major British city. Have a look at say Amberwood Rise (I used to live there : ) and it'll give you an idea of the typical density - modern developments are typically even higher density.

[Western Red Cedar]

Cities are much more efficient at providing services and, depending on their design, much more sustainable than other living options when considering alternatives for settlements of human populations. If you look closely at demographics at almost any scale, there isn't a great option for providing efficient public facilities or access to services without density. Density becomes even more important when looking at the fiscal sustainability of cities. There are a lot of options to providing density without expanding outward.

One of the issues with climate change and urbanism is that after WWII the US transitioned to an auto-dependent land use pattern with typical densities around 1/2 or 1/3 acre lots. Local governments can only support public transit (buses) over the long-term with net densities at a minimum of 6-7 units per acre. If you want some form of light rail, you need to be much higher (maybe around 30 units per acre). There are a lot of ways you can mix and match housing styles to get at these net densities, but the number of tax payers per acre is very important when you calculate all of the services cities provide (parks, police, fire, schools, roads, sewer, water, transit, libraries, etc.). The streetcar suburbs tend to average 6-8 units per acre, and sometimes denser if there are duplexes or small multifamily buildings interspersed in the community.

In short, to limit personal vehicle trips you need more compact development. This also facilitates more neighborhood services (assuming local codes allow that), so that people can walk to things like a neighborhood grocery store, gym, or cafe. There is a concept in urban planning called the golden circle - if something is within 1/4 mile a person is likely to walk. I'm assuming the golden circle for an ERE adherent is much larger, but we're obviously not normal.

In terms of local food production, many cities are changing their codes to allow for backyard animals. I'd say that almost all cities in the Pacific Northwest over 10,000 allow some form of animal husbandry. They most commonly allow for things like hens (roosters are a problem with neighbors), but may allow for things like geese, or even goats. Tiny houses are a bit more challenging due to the issue of human waste. Local health departments aren't too hip with the idea of human composting. The cities that are likely most resistant to changes are suburban, exurban, or wealthier neighborhoods with HOA regulations or restrictive covenants.

I think it's also a misnomer that you can't have high levels of density without access to nature. This is really a question of urban design. I lived in two large cities in South Korea and there were loads of trails, parks, and natural areas interspersed between 20-30 story buildings. There were also lots of great rooftop gardens. Barcelona recently created an award winning plan to "green" the city, which has benefits for public health and climate change.

I'm also an apartment dweller, but Curtis Stone and Rob Greenfield both offer great options of how you can "rent/lease" land form single-family homeowners and grow loads of food. There are loads of videos on how to grow heaps of food in a small backyard in a variety of climates if you own your home. Greenhouses and vertical farming can really help maximize space.

[Hristo Botev]

@alphaville: This is more the density I'm talking about with a streetcar suburb. Based on the popularity of this kind of living, these are now $500K+ (many above $1mil) homes, as the money is moving back from the auto suburbs you're referring to back to more walkable, in-town streetcar/transit suburbs like this. Most of these plots are on about .2 or .25 acre, with very little in the way of restrictions and lots of possibilities for gardening, backyard chickens, etc. There are also quite a few duplexes/triplexes/quadplexes (and I think one pentaplex?) scattered in here.



ETA: All of these homes are walking distance from the town center and retail, kids' schools, the library, grocery stores, restaurants, office buildings, etc. There's really no reason to have to get in a car if you don't want to. And the town center is surrounded by these sorts of homes on all sides. Once you start building outside the 1-2 mile radius of downtown, then you're too big, and it's time to build the next town center, further down the streetcar line. It's all the fault of that damned automobile.

[Loner]

@Alphaville – Rural Quebec. It was similar here. A lot of young men’s entertainment consists, still today, in driving about with beers in the cupholder while smoking joints, whether it is in pickup trucks, in ATVs, on a MX, or on another wheeled contraption welded together with an old snowmobile engine strapped on it. It is also true that many youngster (and old timers) drive to the city for bars and whatnot. My point is that it doesn’t *have* to be that way. I never did any of that and did all my stuff by bike. But yes, you’re right, as things are now, they are built for cars.

@Chenda Yeah, the scale/sizes are something else. I grew up in a town of 1500. Montreal is 2M. I can hardly imagine.

[Western Red Cedar]

so, anyway, we rail against globalization and environmental depredation and human exploitation and meaningless work while we vote for it with our dollars, and then we relativize the immorality of the choice.

i’m not saying this to point fingers at others—i myself do this *all the time*. so, if anything, i’m pointing at my own guilt.

e.g.i get most of my flours from big bad walmart (king arthur bread $3.58 with free shipping). king arthur is employee-owned, walmart pays their workers little. my purchase joins both. i love a good absurdity.

I've been struggling with this for years. It's an area of cognitive dissonance for me, but I've generally made piece with decisions about nutrition by limiting red meat and focusing on Pollan's three rules - eat food, not too much, mostly plants. I think this is about health, but it complements the flexitarian approach and is generally climate-friendly. It led me to stress much less about debates between the relative merits or certain food types.

I realize my diet isn't perfectly optimized for climate change, but I'm doing a pretty good job on that front and have now focused more on air travel (which I don't do more than once every couple of years), car travel, and not buying new things. I still eat beef intermittently, and don't really stress about it. I feel a lot worse about buying factory farmed meat than anything else. I think if I was buying beef from a local farmer I would probably do so with a clear conscience.

I'm also not very optimistic about our ability to adapt to the long-term impacts of climate change, so I suppose I've kind of gone through the stages of grief.

One interesting thing about the Walmart dynamic is that their decision a while ago to carry organic options dramatically changed the market for organic farmers.

[Hristo Botev]

Regarding this entire cities/rural, streetcar suburbs/auto suburbs/exurbs discussion and CC, what I'm trying to constantly remind myself of is, as it applies to me, personally: none of it really matters. I'm not an emperor that can tell people where and how to live. If I were 20 years old it'd be good information to have as I decide where to live. But even then, probably the most CC friendly decision I could make is to just to choose to live where I'm from, surrounded by a community I know, in an environment I'm familiar with. That's to say, I shouldn't try to "purchase" eco-friendliness by opting to buy/rent a home in this setting vs that one; rather, I should figure out how to live in the most sustainable way I can where I'm at now.

[chenda]

One of the issues with climate change and urbanism is that after WWII the US transitioned to an auto-dependent land use pattern with typical densities around 1/2 or 1/3 acre lots.

I recall an American architect noting how as suburban sprawl killed off many a downtown area and street life in the 1960s and 70s, there was a rapid increase in theme parks and the like. Consciously or not, people missed the social aspect of a lively city and were willing to pay good money to replicate the experience. At least that was his take on it.

Though I think urban planning is a relatively easy problem to solve. If we cut car subsidies, or if we see a cultural shift away from cars, then market forces and intelligent local planning will create better towns. As I mentioned on another thread, I'm hopeful Covid will speed up this process. Working from home and online delivery of bulk shopping takes away two major reasons to own a car.

@hristo botev - yes being the eccentric chap who walks and bikes everywhere where no one else does might have more benefit than moving somewhere were it's normal. Set a good example

[Alphaville]

Adams Morgan Eastern Market

hahaha! oh, i feel so homesick again... i’ve lived in thosnplaces plus others in between and beyond.

yes that was a great city to live in. my friends now have moved to places like takoma park or pg county and other near suburbs that predate car development. e.g. mount rainier, md, was a streetcar suburb (i didn’t know this)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rainier,_Maryland

anyway, nostalgia is murder, hahaha. but yeah my idea of good city living comes from shopping at eastern market, hanging out on adams morgan day, seeing some band at the black cat, cycling to the east wing of the national gallery to catch a movie, looking for obscure bibliographies at library of congress, going for a run in rock creek park, pedaling out to great falls... wow so many memories.

I haven't seen references to ruminantes like cattle, bison, sheep grazing on lands that are otherwise unarable. [...] However, if management properly, wouldn't this type of meat be a great way to use otherwise unusable land area to meet human caloric needs? IOW, some percentage of calories can come from sustainable, ethical ranching without being a net negative?

yeah this is a tricky one and a reason i was actually consuming these very responsibly ranched meats.

but it gets complicated by the fact that... we don’t actually need them. we can feed everyone with calories and protein produced right now.

another thing i’ve observed is that due to the difficulty of butchering, processing, storing.., people will,sell their cattle at auction then buy meat at walmart

so those people don’t raise that cattle for survival—they raise them for cash. and some nice cuts of grass fed beef will sell for $20-40/lb (i bought only ground beef)

[Alphaville]

@alphaville - If you go to Google street view and have a look at New Malden in south west London, it'll give you an idea of a typical suburb in a major British city. Have a look at say Amberwood Rise (I used to live there : ) and it'll give you an idea of the typical density - modern developments are typically even higher density.

i looked! and wow. looks made for cars. if younwanted to get some ice cream... how far did you have to go?

I think it's also a misnomer that you can't have high levels of density without access to nature. This is really a question of urban design. I lived in two large cities in South Korea and there were loads of trails, parks, and natural areas interspersed between 20-30 story buildings. There were also lots of great rooftop gardens. Barcelona recently created an award winning plan to "green" the city, which has benefits for public health and climate change.

I'm also an apartment dweller, but Curtis Stone and Rob Greenfield both offer great options of how you can "rent/lease" land form single-family homeowners and grow loads of food. There are loads of videos on how to grow heaps of food in a small backyard in a variety of climates if you own your home. Greenhouses and vertical farming can really help maximize space.

yeah my experience with city living has been of large green areas. i suffered a shock arriving to norther virginia where there were trees but... used as fences! you were not supposed to be in them

and if you were walkingmsomewhere thebpolice would stop and ask if you needed help

mexico city for all the pollution and bad reputation has at its core the chapultepec forest which makes central park look puny. it’s a massive city attraction.

and here’s a picture of bogotá, cycling capital of latin america and cradle of champions

[tonyedgecombe]

No doubt. But Kingsnorth got his acre in rural Ireland, no?

Ireland isn’t part of the UK.

[Hristo Botev]

Ireland isn’t part of the UK.

As my kids would say: Burn!

[chenda]

Ireland isn’t part of the UK.

Well the north east corner of it is

[Alphaville]

@alphaville: This is more the density I'm talking about with a streetcar suburb. [...] It's all the fault of that damned automobile.

yeah that looks reminiscent of many “residential neighborhoods” in many cities of the world. sure you have your peace and quiet but it’s not segregating people out by making it impossible to live there without a car. which then traps you in a car. and of course they don’t build sidewalks on purpose.

I've been struggling with this for years. It's an area of cognitive dissonance for me, but I've generally made piece with decisions about nutrition by limiting red meat and focusing on Pollan's three rules - eat food, not too much, mostly plants. I think this is about health, but it complements the flexitarian approach and is generally climate-friendly. It led me to stress much less about debates between the relative merits or certain food types.

[...]

One interesting thing about the Walmart dynamic is that their decision a while ago to carry organic options dramatically changed the market for organic farmers.

yeah, the reason is you can’t solve it, so you can’t solve it. there are too many factors for there to be one perfect solution. compromise is unavoidable, and that’s a pretty good heuristic, but it can’t address every problem.

only everyone, as a whole, can solve every problem.

Regarding this entire cities/rural, streetcar suburbs/auto suburbs/exurbs discussion and CC, what I'm trying to constantly remind myself of is, as it applies to me, personally: none of it really matters. I'm not an emperor that can tell people where and how to live.

yessss. but it does matter—it matters at the personal level. choices aggregate, and people copy trends. more affluent people consuming less is a good example for others. besides, your personal rewards are yours to enjoy.

That's to say, I shouldn't try to "purchase" eco-friendliness by opting to buy/rent a home in this setting vs that one; rather, I should figure out how to live in the most sustainable way I can where I'm at now.

right. i moved to an eco friendly city apartment and ditched my old truck when we relocated to a city for work, but it was the work that brought us here, so we followed the “live near work and groceries” notion that @jacob put forward. only problem is rent was lots higher than $250 per person . 2 out of 3 is not bad though: housing cost = housing + transportation.

similarly also consider re: your truck behemoth from the other thread, that the embedded energy of the vehicle might be greater than its fuel use. so selling it to buy a new prius might be worse not better. best thing you can do probably is to drive it as little as possible, but drive it into the ground. 300k miles at 3k miles per year is 100 years

-

(also forthe home consider that passive solar is more efficient & greener than solar electric. e.g. a nice shade tree!)

[Hristo Botev]

right. i moved to an eco friendly city apartment and ditched my old truck when we relocated to a city for work, but it was the work that brought us here, so we followed the “live near work and groceries” notion that @jacob put forward. only problem is rent was lots higher than $250 per person . 2 out of 3 is not bad though: housing cost = housing + transportation.

Here's where I'm starting to go (and this is NOT directed at you, to be clear; it's directed at ME): I think from a society perspective there's something wrong about a society that encourages people to relocate to a new city/town "for work" (or, for that matter, for advanced degrees); it's a job/career-centric mindset as opposed to a mindset that is more centered on family/place/community. Maybe that's something COVID might have a lasting impact on, if people really do start moving less for work because jobs are less location-specific. But, even pre-covid, I can say DW and I have moved around A LOT for education/experiences/jobs over the past 20+ years, and for what? As much "success" as we've had in our respective careers, we're both burnt out at middle age, and we'd likely be living just as well/comfortably (or likely better) had we never left our hometown, aided by the fact that we've got a community there (we have one where we're at now, as well, but we had to work real hard to create it), AND, we "know and understand" the land and its history. And all those years in all those different places we spent building up little disparate communities were years we weren't focusing on maintaining and strengthening older community links and family ties.

I know it's all very Wendell Berry of me to say--except he says it much, much better than I do--but there's a more "spiritual" aspect here that's important when you're talking about your connection to "the land"; and, for one, it's hard to know "the land" when you've got different land under your feet every few years, the way DW and I did for the first 15years or so of our adult lives.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I suspect transience has a big environmental impact that we don't really factor in as much as we should.

[white belt]

I actually grew up in one of those streetcar suburbs, without realizing it had such a name. I will admit that my family did have 2 cars but there was a lot of stuff within biking/walking distance.

right. i moved to an eco friendly city apartment and ditched my old truck when we relocated to a city for work, but it was the work that brought us here, so we followed the “live near work and groceries” notion that @jacob put forward. only problem is rent was lots higher than $250 per person . 2 out of 3 is not bad though: housing cost = housing + transportation.

I think this is really getting to the heart of the matter for me and a lot of folks in this thread. I forget which older thread it was or if it was the book where Jacob pointed out that living in a small place + car free + close to work/groceries in a dense urban area is just a model, but it is not the only model for ERE. At one time I thought it was the ideal model, but now as I shift to a more self-sustainable homesteadish lifestyle, I wonder if it still is the case for me. I think the urban/suburb/rural debate is just another manifestation of ERE folks weighing which model fits into their web of goals.

Right now, I’m still tied to a location because of work. But if I don’t need to physically work anywhere, then what should I live near? I know many of my teleworking friends are now going through that same self-exploration process due to COVID-19.

Edit: I guess what I’m trying to point out is that perhaps there is a reason Rob Greenfield, who dedicates his life to minimizing his footprint and influencing others, hasn’t attempted any of his experiments in a high-rise “eco-friendly” apartment?