Comments on: Spill, Baby, Spill

By: Gregg Zukowski

Gregg Zukowski — Mon, 30 May 2011 02:52:15 +0000

I wonder if the good professor owns and oprtates a gas guzzler himself.

Revolutionrickshaws.com

P.S. It’s the supply chain that’s driving us literally to destruction – not mr & mrs suburbanite per se.

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 11:38:56 +0000

I agree with you guys. I live in Europe, but of course these tragic hazards affect us all!

By: Maria

Maria — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:11:56 +0000

This whole issue is extremely unforunate for the environmental life and for the global market in many incomparable methods. This problem should have been retricted but these hazards occur. These companies should be held accountable for this new catastrophe.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:47:13 +0000

Well written essay, asking the tough questions. Not enough people ponder the relationship between the fuel they use and the consequences for the world we live in.

I agree with Eric and others that it will be tough for the US to urbanize quickly. Too many people have grown up believing they need their own acre of backyard. The solution is to put a real price on commuting via private automobile from a distant suburb — a carbon tax, tolls on all taxpayer-owned freeways, congestion pricing, parking taxes, etc.

Stop subsidizing the auto-centric way of life, and then let people decide where to spend their money. Why should people who have chosen to live responsibly in a townhouse in a transit-and-walkable community subsidize those who refuse?

Over time if the cost of commuting in a private automobile from a distant suburb is $40/day, fewer people will do it.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:34:13 +0000

Very good points that I think most of us would agree with. Density is great, but not everyone wants to live in a City. Additionally, this country is (partially) the result of the wide open spaces and the movement of people to those spaces.

We are not Europe; we did not develop the same way as other places. Suburbs are in place because people want to live in them.

What this country needs to do is create a “Manhattan Project” for energy. I truly think that if this Country invested money in a public/private partnership, we could solve our issues with energy, and as a result, terrorism.

By: Alice Brumbach

Alice Brumbach — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:31:03 +0000

I agree with your point that densification in cities is a better way to deal with population growth than is sprawling in suburbs. However, the U.S. is not only cities and suburbs; a huge portion of the land is rural and some of that land is still being used to grow food. Even if “growing up instead of growing out” can solve a number of problems, there will still have to be either a greatly enhanced rail network and/or renewable liquid fuels for transporting people and goods. For some the choice of small and urban over big and remote has been made for them because of sheer economics. In the near future, I hope that your friend, with the McMansion will become an anomaly; I am currently (possibly incorrectly) under the assumption that because of the tightening up of the housing market, the growth of suburbia has significantly slowed.
I think equally as important as encouraging people who work in cites to live in cities, is the challenge of maintaining working landscapes in a sustainable manner, which includes the homes and vehicles of the people who are working the rural land.

By: Vishaan Chakrabarti

Vishaan Chakrabarti — Wed, 12 May 2010 23:25:04 +0000

Thank you both for your comments. Jeff, you make many good points that should be addressed. Regarding natural gas, I agree it is less than ideal as a fossil fuel and as such is a bridge solution until better technologies arrive, but (1) we don’t and won’t fight natural gas wars (we have huge domestic supplies); (2) it is far safer for people and the environment to extract than coal or oil; (3) it has far cleaner emissions. The much more significant point of the piece is that we have to cut consumption, and cities are our best path to doing that at a scale that matters. Urban waste is being brilliantly handled in Copenhagen and Curitiba, and is far better dealt with than suburban waste. Congestion can be handled through pricing as London has. We can dramatically cut back our energy use through densification by making cities more affordable, desirable and sustainable, all while eliminating the subsidies that have artificially sustained the suburbs since WWII such as highway funding, mortgage deductions and a lack of significant gas taxes. I firmly believe that this would help to clean up our environment, but also our fiscal house. Thanks, Vishaan

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:04:34 +0000

Careful–I think it’s fallacious to equate oil with the times square incident, or the demise of the west. No other country has a “magic energy box”. We’re all in the same boat here.

Furthermore, you cite natural gas as an alternative and ideal, as seen in new delhi buses–but you know natural gas comes from the ground, too, right? It has to be drilled, and it’s still a fossil fuel. and the locations with natural gas might not be more secure, geo-politically.

While I’m on the same side as you politically, the problem seems much more nuanced than you lead on–what are the alternatives? Nuclear/electric? We have a *huge* installed base of fossil fuel burning devices–should we replace all of them, creating more waste and requiring more resources to create batteries, solar panels, etc.? Will lithium (for batteries) be the next oil? And is that any better? I can guarantee you that the oil companies will somehow be involved in the next energy source, too.

City living will help with energy, sure, but it creates other new problems. Waste management, for instance. Or congestion–electric cars or not.