Maelochs

Interesting isn't it ... people want low taxes ... but a lot of services. But ... this is now edging from philosophy into politics, the Forbidden Land.

Fact is trucks tear up the road much worse than cars ... but trucks also need to make profits, and trucks deliver just about everything we buy and use ... so one way or another we have to pay.

I won't call it "leftist" because that term has been warped and corrupted and has become as much a meaningless epithet as "liberal," 'conservative," or anything else ... but the fact seems to be, nobody wants to pay for what they get.

We have more than three-quarters of the people in the world ... and we complain more than three-quarters of the people in the world as well.

Bicycles.

cooker

What is it with this bugbear about people being forced to live in cities? The world is voting with its collective feet and urbanizing (although not always to optimal density) and people who don’t want to, don’t have to. And you don’t have to move to a polluted Chinese industrial region either. I promise. So the world is going to Hell, but far be it from you to encourage people to make sacrifices that might help. Does that make sense? I don't actually think sacrifices as great as you think are so necessary - just different choices. Huge numbers of people bid up the prices of small apartments in New York, London, even Toronto, apparently desiring that lifestyle. You should encourage them, and hope for more and more of that dense urban development to be built, to bring down the cost and lure in more of them, even if it's not for you, as you will benefit from them not spreading out around you. Cities are continually rebuilt. Freeways require a huge amount of maintenance and it would make a lot of economic sense to tear some of them down. We took down a section of one in Toronto. Cities all over the world including China are implementing environmental plans with various strategies like taking steps to limit car usage in the core, or encouraging downtown densification, or expanding mass transit. It was the first link and I will post more. It was not an opinion piece, it was a professor discussing his own work in his University's newsmagazine. I will post more when I can. Meanwhile, instead of just criticizing my source(s), do you have some peer-reviewed publications that refute them?

Mobile 155

Mobile 155

Maelochs

I am really tired after today's ride and a little sore from a crash so .... y'all are lucky.

Mr. Cooker ... the idea that people are flocking to cities? Again, prove it. I see a geenral circulation. Some people Have to go to dense popoulation areas to find work. Some enjoy city life. others seem to be in the city only as long as they have to and leave when they can.

The people Forced to go to cities because of the weak economy ... Most of them would much rather have gotten jobs where they lived and liked living but saw no opportunities, in my experience. I have lived and worked with a lot of those people. i don't have polls to prove my point.

Regarding that paper ...you keep ignoring my actual objections. That is fine. I am really tired of bickering over stuff that doesn't matter.

I tried to do a minimal footprint while living in the city. I went without heat or A/C .... after one winter I bought a $10 space heater at a drug store. I ate a very Spartan diet, I only walked or rode my bike except when injury forced me to take the bus. I washed my clothes in the shower except once a month when I got them really clean at a Laundromat.

Nothing changed and nobody followed my example.

I am not saying Mobile and I think the same but i really understand his position I think (and I am sure I am wrong but i am pretty sure I understand it at least a little.)

Things are going down, and the pace of the fall is increasing. yes ... people Could make the changes, and simply and really without a huge amount of sacrifice, to really limit the damage we do in this nation ... But They Do Not.

Yes, it should be easy to tear up instead fo repairing freeways. See that happening a lot? Yeah, because it doesn't.

I do what good I can where I can, but I have no idea if any of it matters, or maybe even makes things worse.

Tell me, sir or madam: Do You Understand the Fundamental Nature of Reality? Do you know where ti all came from, why we are here, what we are supposed to do, and where we are going?

What is the Meaning of Life?

I used to be pretty hung up in environmental activism, but i did it because ti was the best way I could see at that time to serve the Greatest Good. I have since come to believe that there are more direct ways to perform that service ... but helping people do less harm is generally a good thing ... I think. I on't even know that for sure.

Have you pondered the Nature of Reality, of Existence much? What do you really know?

Do i even exist? I guess you are pretty sure you do .... But you are familiar of course with the idea that we are all part of a single organism and simply do not realize it ... and in fact, that sense of disconnection is what makes it so easy for us to hurt each other and the planet we depend upon for survival.

Could be. Could be something else.

if you Know, I mean For Sure ... KNOW ... please tell me.

Otherwise we are all arguing Only opinion, ultimately, and possibly only with ourselves.

I can tell you this, I won't put a person down fr trying to do good, even if he or she is pretty much certain it ultimately makes no difference. Maybe mobile's "philosophy" seems incoherent or contradictory to you ... or even to me ... not saying either way ... but he seems not to be hurting anyone and in today's world that is a pretty major accomplishment.

Let me know what you think ... if you want to, if you can ... if you even exist ... or if you can fool me into thinking you do.

Whatever.

ITALVEGA_6955

My $.02 - I think this is a great question and my simple answer first is that I think you are right about it being more about self reliance (I would add health improvement/maintenance as well) and less about pollution but I also strongly believe public transit is consistent with a pollution minimal lifestyle. I try think of minimizing transportation pollution in terms of longer time horizon objectives for a society and this is one rare instance where logic is equally useful as science. Thinking in terms of the society is important, unless I live alone in the mountains, I need to consider transportation policy and its effect on an entire population rather than just its affect on me or my affect on it, this will make more sense below.

First Point (simple one): Not everyone can ride a bike, this could be due to physical or health limitations, weather, need to transport larger cargo, lack of safe routes, time available, etc. Keeping that in mind, the question is, do we want people in cars or on public transportation when they cannot bike? I believe the latter (public transport) is preferred from an environmental impact standpoint which would mean being an advocate for public transport in general.

Second Point: Following the logic above, I want to encourage public transportation usage. Public transportation is a bit of a chicken vs egg problem, what comes first, the riders and demand OR the buses and routes? If there is no ridership there will be very few buses, however, with few bus routes or poorly planned ones no one will use the system and people will buy cars or use ridesharing services. For that reason, I would prefer to have empty buses running and have demand follow or grow into the supply than falsely hope that people will give up there cars to take a bus that doesn't have a good route for them. Would empty buses increase pollution in the short term, perhaps, but I truly believe people would start using them if they are convenient and that would reduce pollution longer term. Build it and they will come. For this reason, I think we all should strive to use public transport (when convenient and not cycling of course) to demonstrate demand and support it by voting for policy that funds it as well.

Third Point: Public transportation is becoming cleaner with each passing month/year. The newest diesel buses out there now are far, far cleaner than their predecessors and a lot of fleets have moved to CNG which is even cleaner, add to that, many fleets are experimenting with electric and hydrogen cell buses which are magnitudes cleaner. That is just buses, subways, trains, rail systems, hyper loop (theoretical), all have the ability to dramatically reduce pollution and can be made amazingly clean with modern technology. The point here is that we can continue focusing on making public transportation cleaner and technology is advancing so quickly we could largely solve the small problem of public transportation pollution through technology alone.

Fourth Point: A strong public transportation system is safer for pedestrians and especially cyclist as public transportation generally means fewer cars. I live in a major city that has been overtaken by uber and lyft cars because the public transportation routes were lacking and these rideshare drivers are able to make a higher fare in the city creating a situation where drivers inexperienced with the cities roads flock in at prime hours to earn a bit more. I have no issue with ridesharing, I use it occasionally, but this combined with the fact that the population is growing anyways, has dramatically increased traffic and the number of unfamiliar drivers which has certainly made riding in the city more nerve-racking - if your cities do not have adequate public transportation this could happen to you. Bus drivers are well trained, and familiar with the routes they drive, and subway, train and rail systems are extremely safe for pedestrians and cyclist.

Finally, there is obviously a question of rural vs urban populations and how the approach differs in these areas. Again with new technology a less full bus operating in rural areas could still be cleaner than even the very few number of cars it takes off the road. I think there is even a compelling case for investing in public transportation in rural areas but it needs to be planned very well, which smaller municipalities often struggle with.

Caveat, I know I have painted a pretty rosy picture here in favor of public transportation and I've tried to focus on just philosophy, the bigger issue of course is the economics of it all which would be a separate post.

Mobile 155

cooker

Population growth is a problem because people consume, and nobody consumes more than us. The link I posted earlier says that people consume less in denser urban settings and have fewer children - what's not to like? As for the claim that 2/3 of the world are producing 90 X the pollution - that is nonsense. Most of the third world are consuming a fraction of what we consume, as you saw with your own eyes when you were overseas, but since we've arranged for China to manufacture it for us, that is where the much of the pollution generated by our consumption is found. In the hypothetical case that the western world went to living in caves, pollution in China would plummet.

Mobile 155

You saw the graph on the ten worst cities in China compared to the ten worst cities in the US correct? You saw the top city in the US was just over 1 percent of what the top city in China was Correct? Do you really believe we are the only consumers China has? A rhetoric question to be sure. Is that another case of we could do better if only things were different? Have you bothered looking at how China and Russia are doing trade wise? How about the second most populated country or maybe this week it is the first? India isn't out manufacturing base is it? They are having more children aren't they? https://www.accuweather.com/en/weath...evels/70003392 notice they said we will never reach those levels? It is not a local issue and it is not a hope it will get better if a hand full of people pretend they are not dependent on cars in the US. And it can go on and on because the solutions proposed are saying we who already have a lower pollution rate in our worst cities, we who have already reached a point where we just produce enough children to maintain our 325.7 million, with immigration, are the problem and so we are the solution? India has a growing population of 1,342,512,706 do you realize how many more people they are suggesting should have the chance to live like we do before restricting population or industry? They could lose the US market and not skip a beat.

It sounds good to say if our 325.7 million can make the whole world sustainable but in the cold light of reality there is a whole new world of consumers out there that will gladly step right into our place the second we stop I believe. I am sure it sounds comforting to say, if we could just convince the US or Canada, or Mexico, or England or Germany to cut back it would be ok but the numbers simply don't add up. 7.5 billion people heading for 10 Billion are the numbers we need to look at and consumption is not going to stay flat in those countries that are looking to be number one in population and industrial growth by 2024. https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/...ing-number-one

To me it is just another example of if we could or if we did not of what we are doing on even will do. There comes a point where you can not shove any more sugar into a ten pound sack. as long as we only have one sack and we keep producing sugar something has got to give even if a small portion of people stop making sugar.

Rollfast

Wow. I can't see the MUP from here.

InOmaha

Your polution reduction by not owning a car isn't as big as you think. Each year the EIA puts out a simplified energy chart outlining the total energy consumption and the input energy.



Here's a link to the latest.

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data...tal_energy.pdf

A typical person's "transportation" allotment is around 28% of the energy they consume. However, I believe that includes all transportation, including the transport of the goods you purchase. So your personal transportation goes down but your "groceries" transportation to the store stays the same.

To cut down on your energy use you'll need a mutifaceted approach to each category to reduce as much as possible. Someone driving a gas hog SUV 2 miles to work, but lives in a small residence in a temperate climate may actually use less energy and have a smaller carbon footprint then a bicyle commuter who lives in a big house in a cold or hot climate. They use less energy commuting but may use much more heating and cooling their house. You really can't judge a person based on a single category without more information. The person you see driving his rarely used Hummer may have a smaller carbon footprint then someone that rides their bike to the coffee store and orders cappuccino several times a day.

jon c. 

But who is subsidizing car users? Taxpayers. The vast majority of whom drive or ride in cars. Road users don't directly pay for the cost of roads, but they are ultimately paying the taxes the fund the roads. Charging for social infrastructure on a direct use basis would be very inefficient.

cooker

Gas taxes already exist and are based on the notion that some of the costs of maintaining roads should be recovered from drivers, much like municipal services are funded through property taxes and employment insurance through employment taxes. Some drivers complain that they pay too large a share and that other users like pedestrians and cyclists are getting a "free ride" but in fact, cyclists, pedestrians and non-road users actually pay an amount out of proportion to what they receive in value from the road networks, and it is the drivers who are subsidized.

wphamilton

About the difficulty of deciding just how much impact your biking has on pollution, rather than trying to analyze all of the sources I look at it from a top-down view. Estimated CO2 emissions per capita in the USA, about 20 tons per year. From a website where I log commutes, it estimates that I've saved 11.5 tons CO2 over the past 8 years. So that comes out to my cycling saving 7.2% of my share of the per person emissions per year, from fuel not used.

Maelochs

But did you not eat more to fuel your body? And did that food not come by vehicles burning fossil fuel?

The funny thing about all this stuff is what you measure is what you choose to measure, what you estimate is what you choose to estimate, the numbers you take from others are the numbers you choose, and the factors that matter are the factors you decide matter .... though of course all of those estimates and all of those numbers are also based on similar processes performed by different people, so in the end we really don't know what, if anything, is actually being measured.

And even then, isn't all a form of self-gratification? I can wear a hair shirt all day long ... it won't stop everyone around me from wasting energy. it might or it might not make a difference ... and it might actually make people more wasteful---maybe the example I used to set made people think, "Wow, that lifestyle is too harsh and unrewarding, i will just stick with my energy-inefficient but satisfying life."

And if someone invents clean energy and some completely reusable, stronger-than -everything, lighter-than-anything, use-it-for-everything construction material .... then all of the stress we have gone through will be for nought.

On the other hand, if technology doesn't save us, 90 percent of the human race could be dead in 90 years and all our stress would have been for nought.

So really ... aren't the choices we make really mostly designed to make ourselves more comfortable with ourselves? When we choose to be "greener" or only buy "fair-trade" or "Non-GMO" products ... isn't it mostly a sort of potentially empty, potentially helpful, equally potentially harmful gesture designed to suit some particular quirk of our particular world-view at that moment----which world-view might change in a week or a year or a decade, as it has throughout our lives, so that stuff we once found intolerable becomes acceptable, becomes normal, becomes right ... and maybe even wrong again.

i recall long ago a friend did a day's fast for some Feed-the-World day .... donate canned good, sure, i guess ... but no one is shipping canned good s to Africa, where people are actually starving, i pointed out ... and as for skipping a meal or tow .... all that meant was that some food would be thrown out uneaten if fewer meals were purchased at the campus cafeteria or local supermarket. Net gain, zero, and possibly an increase in food wasted .... it was all symbolic, and why not do something real?

But what Would make a difference?

i recall hearing about some guys who invented a small, human-powered oil-bean press, which would have dramatically improved the lot and lives of people in deprived regions .. but would have drastically changed the local economies, where wealthier people with motor-powered higher-volume oil presses had stayed wealthy for years by pressing opil from beans and seeds for everyone in all the surrounding villages ... of course they had to buy diesel, and spare parts from the company which made the presses ... so a lto of people were getting a cut.

This new press was foot powered, and was only good for the needs of single families ... but was so simply it would last lifetimes, and meet all a family's needs for generations. No more paying some wealthy guy to run his diesel-powered press .... just harvest your crop and press the oil you need for cooking each day, takes a couple minutes.

Want to make a Serious change? That kind of stuff is key. of course, those guys never got to mass-produce or sell their product. Too many toes would get stepped on ... and nobody Really cares about helping the underprivileged ... else we'd have done it already.

People who actually learn say, agricultural or medicine, and go to underprivileged areas and give of their lives ... they might be making a difference. Maybe not. but whether or not I ride my bike? Yeah ... I am not going to pat my back too hard about how much I am doing to save the world by not driving.

Maelochs

But did you not eat more to fuel your body And did that food not come by vehicles burning fossil fuel?

The funny thing about all this stuff is what you measure is what you choose to measure, what you estimate is what you choose to estimate, the numbers you take from others are the numbers you choose, and the factors that matter are the factors you decide matter .... though of course all of those estimates and all of those numbers are also based on similar processes performed by different people, so in the end we really don't know what, if anything, is actually being measured.

And even then, isn't all a form of self-gratification? I can wear a hair shirt all day long ... it won't stop everyone around me from wasting energy. It might or it might not make a difference ... and it might actually make people more wasteful---maybe the example I used to set made people think, "Wow, that lifestyle is too harsh and unrewarding, I will just stick with my energy-inefficient but satisfying life."

And if someone invents clean energy and some completely reusable, stronger-than-everything, lighter-than-anything, use-it-for-everything construction material .... then all of the stress we have gone through will be for nought.

On the other hand, if technology doesn't save us, 90 percent of the human race could be dead in 90 years and all our stress would have been for nought.

So really ... aren't the choices we make really mostly designed to make ourselves more comfortable with ourselves? When we choose to be "greener" or only buy "fair-trade" or "Non-GMO" products ... isn't it mostly a sort of potentially empty, potentially helpful, equally potentially harmful gesture designed to suit some particular quirk of our particular world-view at that moment----which world-view might change in a week or a year or a decade, as it has throughout our lives, so that stuff we once found intolerable becomes acceptable, becomes normal, becomes right ... and maybe even wrong again.

Ii recall long ago a friend did a day's fast for some Feed-the-World day .... donate canned good, sure, I guess ... but no one is shipping canned good s to Africa, where people are actually starving, I pointed out ... and as for skipping a meal or two .... all that meant was that some food would be thrown out uneaten if fewer meals were purchased at the campus cafeteria or local supermarket. Net gain, zero, and possibly an increase in food wasted. It was all symbolic, and why not do something real?

But what Would make a difference?

I recall hearing about some guys who invented a small, human-powered oil-bean press, which would have dramatically improved the lot and lives of people in deprived regions … but would have drastically changed the local economies, where wealthier people with higher-volume oil presses motor-powered had stayed wealthy for years by pressing oil from beans and seeds for everyone in all the surrounding villages ... of course they had to buy diesel, and spare parts from the company which made the presses ... so a lot of people were getting a cut.

This new press was foot-powered, and was only good for the needs of single families ... but was so simply it would last lifetimes, and meet all a family's needs for generations. No more paying some wealthy guy to run his diesel-powered press .... just harvest your crop and press the oil you need for cooking each day, takes a couple minutes.

Want to make a Serious change? That kind of stuff is key. Of course, those guys never got to mass-produce or sell their product. Too many toes would get stepped on ... and nobody Really cares about helping the underprivileged ... else we'd have done it already.

People who actually learn say, agricultural or medicine, and go to underprivileged areas and give of their lives ... they might be making a difference. Maybe not. But whether or not I ride my bike? Yeah ... I am not going to pat my back too hard about how much I am doing to save the world by not driving.

jon c. 

I think that's a claim that would be difficult to substantiate, even if you started from the premise that some cyclists and pedestrians derive no benefit from the motor transportation infrastructure.

Which is not to say that we should endlessly build more roads because all roads are good for everyone, but the basic construction and maintenance of our modern road system is an essential component of our society and everyone depends on it whether they recognize it or not. Reducing use of the roads and decreasing the need to expand the network is an admirable and worthwhile goal. Bicycling, using mass transit, or walking rather than driving is a social good. But the argument that one who does this shouldn't have to "subsidize" roads ignores the communal good they provide and endangers the basic structure of advanced society. There are a host of publicly funded endeavors that are of no direct benefit to me - schools, parks, libraries and museums spring to mind - but I would never suggest I am unfairly subsidizing them. They are integral components of the society in which I live and from which I derive great benefit.

McBTC

California's taxes are the highest in the nation -- higher even than Hawaii -- and, if they couldn't steal the highway funds they'd be pulling the gold teeth out of your head.

wphamilton

I've thought about that before, and have decided finally that I just don't count that. Currently, I'm going to run or do other exercise if I don't bike so those calories are likely to be the same, and secondly estimating from years past I don't think that I actually eat more now. Also, my diet is definitely different - for one thing I sometimes have some high-caloric junk specifically for fuel. That may be weird, but it's for sure another variable that confounds the thesis. Thirdly, a non-cycling alternative is to gain weight and require more calories to support that weight. Too many confounding variables, and I've got a strong suspicion that it comes out in the wash, so I can only answer your question with "maybe not". I think, probably not.

But, to give the question the respect it deserves, a loaf of bread supposedly represents about 2 pounds of CO2 mainly from the fertilizer. Not really much from the transport. My data could be off somewhat, but the calories would account for 5 or 6 commutes, so the CO2 from bread comes to about 5% of what the logging site claims I saved. Not enough to lose sleep over. And still, not the whole story on either side of the equation. It's why I prefer the "top-down" view because you're never going to figure it out precisely, but I am pretty confident that in general burning less fuel, for whatever you do, is going to translate into less CO2. When we try to find numbers and objections to show otherwise, I think we're just fooling ourselves.

Mobile 155

I think you have grasped some truth here. If more people extended themselves to touch the lives of people living from day to day. I have been fortunate to have gone to just such under developed countries and worked and lived with people that had next to nothing and so they burned charcoal to cook and dung, oil or wood to keep warm. Not carbon friendly some might say? Well at least they are car free as if that is comforting. There has to be more to life than just existing and living a minimum life. Though I give the people in Africa credit, they do the best they can. At least I believe that. Still it is not what I believe that matters it is the quality of life people seek. We living here may wax eloquently about the virtues of living with less and returning to a basic existence. But I am pretty sure the people I lived with would trade their minimalist life for that of the average American living an Urban, Suburban or Rural life. Most of them I talked to would rather have their own car rather than walk or ride a bike as they have all of their life to this point. However all of this in my Philosophical take on the subject.

Maelochs

not only are almost all the goods we ever consume delivered over roads, so are fire and police and ambulance services, electrical and phone and cable/internet repair services .... an most people to work and most kids to school.

yeah ...i benefit from roads if I never leave my home.

it reminds me of the small businessmen who brag about how they built it ... yeah, and no one is denying the hard work and sacrifice ... but if it weren't for the entire nation having your back, providing a legal structure where you cannot be fleeced or outright robbed, where you can expect contracts to be honored, where a check is as good as cash, where there are established channels for reach customers ....

Go to Somalia and start a small business ,... try that and see what a business whiz you are. better bring armed guards ......

Every person who lives in Any stable, civilized country benefits from All the systems which keep that country stable.

cooker

I'm going to start referring to this as "the ambulance fallacy", to save time in future debates. It's the argument that if you think we drive too much or spend too much on roads, it must mean you want to ban ambulances, so everybody will die from treatable emergencies; or if you are having a heart attack and accept an ambulance ride, you must not be serious about wanting to be carfree or carlight, or wanting to see the world suffer less consequences from unrestrained private car use.

Maelochs

You are good at making up stuff .... imagine if that was actually what I was driving at? oh, no ... too much to make up.

Tandempower is always up for a fight, go try to needle him.

I-Like-To-Bike

No "we" can just save that argument for sanctimonious posters who claim to be car free or so-called car light AND pontificate how people like himself are subsidizing everybody else.

Might also save a similar argument for (currently) child-less people without school age dependents who whine about paying for schools and education, subsidizing those wastrels who do have them.

And those school administrators and teachers' lobbies! They always want to have schools bigger than a one room elementary school when any deluded smart guy who claims to be "school-free" or "school-lite" is sure that any expenditure beyond reading writing, and arithmetic is wasteful and shouldn't be subsidized by those who claim little or no need for extravagant and wasteful services.

cooker

I'm sure I could come up with a catchy name for your fallacious argument too, but it's not really on topic for LCF.