Comments on In Environmental News

Actually, gasoline consumption, according to the Wall Street Journal (yesterday, print edition) has been dropping every time the price goes up, and increasing when the price goes down.

It's a very interesting chart correlation, and seems to kick in above $3 a gallon for the most part.

Thanks for the enviro news.

I agree that the whole world should live like people in Manhattan. Manhattan is the most environmentally responsible places on the planet, and many Jews are vegetarian, which is the new kosher. That saves the Earth too.

The Stranger has always taken a strong stand against the WTO riots and Oregon environmental extremists. I believe in saving the earth too, but don't make me give up my Manhattan lifestyle.

It's the redneck idiots in Eastern Washington who are ruining the planet with their pick up trucks and tractors. We living in vibrant, dense Seattle are an example for the future. Everyone should live like us, or better yet like people in Manhattan.

"Gas breaks record high, even adjusted for inflation" is just a way of saying "record high. There is no equivalent national focus on the meaningless ups and downs of the price of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread or a pound of sausage; the gas price watch is profoundly misleading. It's only because we watch it so closely -- and partly because it is advertised in three-foot-high digits all over the country -- that we have such a reaction to it. Gas costs a tad more than it did in 1981 -- whoo hoo!

In truth, gas isn't that expensive, and the imaginary pain that people claim to have when interviewed on the nightly news doesn't show up in reality. If it did, people would be switching out of their 13-MPG vehicles for something like 25 or 30. If everybody did that, we could stop importing oil from Saudi Arabia altogether. But in truth, nobody gives a shit.

As for your footnote, governments, like private developers, have no idea how to promote or even imagine these smarter development patterns you want. The people who claim to, like the guy Savage linked to yesterday, are always promoting their own fake efforts, like Reston Town Center and Redmond Town Center (the words "town center" or worse, "town centre" are a clear giveaway that fraud is being perpetrated).

@ 2

Yeah, and we should hire magicians to conjure up a food supply and the materials used to build our glorious utopian city!

Only Will in Seattle would think that was an interesting or remarkable correlation.

Organic Apples in every American kitchen are a possibility. Kosher food is demanded in Torah so we as Jews must at least eat vegetarian. It's much easier to eat vegetarian if the goyium are demanding it too.

It's not a utopian vision to demand organic food grown within 50 miles of your whole. It's Tikkum Olam to demand a righteous food supply.

"within 50 miles of your whole".

Issur gives me such a boner.

I read recently that the oil industry has market research data showing that gas would have to be $6/gallon before Americans would even make minor changes to their driving habits and "lifestyle" vehicles, so we've got a ways to go.

And no one's even talking about the massive human over-population that's the root cause of all of our environmental problems anyway. When a species overpopulates its habitat, the results are certain and inevitable.

While the TNT is right that people drive less when gas is more expensive, they reach the wrong conclusion: Instead of arguing that we need new technology to make cars less dirty, they should have made the case that governments should promote smarter development patterns, so that people can live, work, and shop without needing a car to do so.

I think you mean "forcing people to live more densely than they'd like, against their will, because I think that's how they should live". It's not "smarter", it's arrogant, unrealistic, and idiotic.

Anyone who actually gives a shit about the environment should be pushing for cleaner cars - as people are going to keep driving whether the Slog and its fellow travelers think they should or not - instead of pie-in-the-sky dreams that everyone is going to huddle into ultradense housing for no good reason.

Focusing on the cars has the added benefit that any improvements will eventually be reflected on the national and global level, instead of the stunning hubris of Seattle - in the big picture, a small shit city - passing resolutions and policies aimed at fighting climate change, which will accomplish exactly nothing.

Mmm... I think we need to do both. We need to have less dirty cars AND smarter development patterns.

The sad thing is, the technology is already READILY available to make cars less dirty. (See Who Killed The Electric Car.)Electric car technology IS available, and a longer-lasting battery has ALREADY been developed.

The problem? Car companies are shills for the oil industry, and Shell owns the patent on that damn battery.

1. You're never going to be able to force everyone to live as densely as you'd like them to.

2. Cleaner cars are needed regardless of whether or not we're taking cars off the road through "smarter development."

3. So why not shoot for both? There are lots of people who would choose to live more densely than they are now, and there are even more people who will continue to drive cars no matter how much you scold them for doing so.

ECB we need better technology so auto are cleaner and we need smarter policies to help people not have to drive so far, too. We need both.

And cleaner cars are needed if we are to actually export cards to places like china or India rather than just give up in trying to make things like cars.

BTW @9 having policies that promote a certain kind of devleopment -- like sprawly suburbs and exurbs -- does not force anyone to live there. And policies that promote urban patterns where you do not have to drive so much don't force anyone to live there, either. If anything our land use policies have forced sprawl because designs like an urban main street (stores without parking, no crub cuts, etc.) are the designs that are actually prohibited. Even today in many parts of Seattle, folks are literally forced to buy parking spaces with new construction because it is legally prohibited to build aptartments or condos without parking. That adds a huge $40,000 cost to price of the unit. I'd call that forcing people to participate in sprawl.

The "people like sprawl" argument does not seem to be factual. If you look at the folks who win elections in Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond and so on, I can't recall many who have recently won based on a platform of "I'll fight for sprawl!!" or "let's widen 405 by four lanes!" or "I'll fight to make sure there are big-box stores built everywhere -- with vast asphalt parking lots to boot!"

Seriously, we have the GMA and every cycle the right wing bemonas it and then the voters pick legislators who favor it.

@8 - I don't see how overpopulation is the underlying issue here. Most of the nations that pollute the most have equilibrium or below-replacement fertility rates, while the nations growing the fastest tend to be poor and have less greenhouse gas per capita.

The real problem seems to be consumption. A nation that grows richer will reproduce more slowly, but it will consume, and thus pollute, much more.

ECG - So will you reconsider spending billions to aid in sprawlng over the entire region and insist that transit be built inside the urban centers first?

@13
is that fact you have researched or just your guess or supposition?

Does China pollute less than Germany?
Per capita?
Per $ GNP?
What is their trajectory, isn't it to very soon pollute way more than Germany?

"the nations growing the fastest tend to be poor and have less greenhouse gas per capita" -- true for now perhaps but China and India plan on having about a billion autos each soon -- and not hybrids either.

@ tsm,

See, that's the thing. Previously third world countries like China and India are modernizing rapidly and they're obvs not doing it in an eco-responsible way. It's only a matter of time before there are serious shortages of natural resources, food and potable water, in addition to over-consumption and massive pollution. How many humans can the earth support? We're gonna find out the hard way.

Birth control is the ultimate environmental protection, people!

@5 - Fnarf, don't know what your damage is, it was a news article with graphs at the front of one of the print edition WSJ sections - so a lot of other people think it's an interesting correlation too, not just me.

Actually, China is planning on having hybrids and India is planning on having 60+ mpg cars ... which you'd know if you follow auto industry news.

My "damage" is this, Will: people consume less of ANYTHING when the price goes up, and consume more when the price goes down. It's beyond fathomable how a person who claims to have ever even seen an issue of the WSJ could be confused on this point, but you go there on a regular basis.

@15 -

China's population is not headed for growth (its fertility rate is below 2). India's is, but its rate of growth is shrinking as it gets wealthier - but this won't improve its carbon footprint at all if everyone is consuming so much more to compensate. These nations are a big problem because of how wealthy they're getting.

Compare that list above to the greenhouse gases per capita rates by nation. The nations polluting the most tend to be wealthier nations with low fertility; the heavy breeders are at the other end of the spectrum. The biggest problems are at the top of the second list, and in the nations that appear headed for the top of that list (like China), even if they aren't growing in population.

And yes, there are some exceptions there - namely a few Arab nations that pollute and breed. There's still a trend there overall.

@14
we spent billions on highways now you object to billions on rail to get to Redmond and the outer suburbs?

Vancouver has a 20 mile line out to Burnaby and suburbs. They should be a model for us here.

The Economist has been saying for about 3 years now that for even a 10% reduction in fuel consumption, gas prices would have to top $5/gal.

And Fnarf @3, I know you've heard of New Urbanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_urbanism)
so what are you saying here?

2. Two US agencies announce plan to “flush” the Grand Canyon with a simulated springtime flood, which they say is needed “to scour accumulated sand off the Colorado River bottom, then gradually restore sandy beaches and side pools for endangered species and campers,” the LA Times reports.

The agencies misspelled, "to help refill sinking Lake Mead."

Uh, no one's "forcing" people to live in sprawling suburbs either... but government policies do ENCOURAGE sprawl, and they could also ENCOURAGE density. I love how all you sprawl fans pretend the free market just creates sprawl out of thin air, while ignoring all the extra-market forces that make it pencil out. Neither sprawl nor density are "natural"--both are created by policy.

(And #9: "Huddle into ultradense housing"? Clearly you've never been, say, to South Seattle, or Capitol Hill, or anywhere outside the suburbs. You have an awfully sad and twisted idea of what living in a city is like.)

@14
we spent billions on highways now you object to billions on rail to get to Redmond and the outer suburbs?

Vancouver has a 20 mile line out to Burnaby and suburbs. They should be a model for us here.

@18 - yada yada yada - the prob is that until it got above $3, it looked like gasoline consumption for both business and recreational use was inelastic, did not react to price increases.

The theory is that, due to wage stagnation in real terms, and reduced wealth from home valuations, people are now reacting to gasoline pricing in a classic supply/demand way.

Which you'd know if you knew anything, Fnarf. And I get the WSJ delivered every day, and used to read the Economist until they hired right-wing know-nothing hacks.

@24

I love how all you sprawl fans pretend the free market just creates sprawl out of thin air, while ignoring all the extra-market forces that make it pencil out. Neither sprawl nor density are "natural"--both are created by policy.

Right on ECB! We could talk about how government-backed loans (FHA, VA, etc, etc, etc) pretty much demanded sprawl since the end of WWII, along with the interstate highway system and the car companies buying up and dismantling the streetcar systems. Or how current zoning regs bought off the shelf by municipalities have basically done away with the pedestrian-friendly Main Street USA. The type of building on Capitol Hill (small lots, street parking, storefronts with no parking lots, etc) is illegal in most of the US. That is not the free-market talking there.

@22: I've heard of it for twenty years, NaFun, but it is extremely apparent now that it is, and always was, a fraud.

Its proponents excel at making the kind of nostalgic watercolor drawings that make people go "ooh!", but when it comes to actually making things on the ground, the results are embarrassing. In a few cases they have had success in pre-existing urban neighborhoods, but those probably only needed the impetus of gentrification -- a naturally occurring process -- to achieve the same thing. Elsewhere, their developments, when they can get them built (which is not often), they look pretty but have the same amount of "car dependency" as any other commercial development.

The ultimate trickle-down of "new urbanism" is the wave of faux-Craftsman townhouses around town. Which ultimately is for the best; people don't know how to DESIGN usable civic spaces, but they do appear sometimes when you cram people in and leave them to their own devices.

Attempts to build old-fashioned walkable neighborhoods infused with community spirit etc. etc. just end up being creepy, or else totally ineffectual window-dressed car spaces. See Laguna West, Northwest Landing, Seaside, and so forth.

New Urbanism is a total failure, because it's top-down social engineering. It doesn't take into account how people actually live -- not what they SAY they want to do, but what they actually do. One of the things that they actually do is take employment in distant places that require a car to get to. The structure of the modern American landscape makes transit impossible for all but a few people. And you can't change it just by wishing it so.

All of those things you mention, NaFun, were and are enormously popular, and did more to expand wealth in this country than pretty much anything else.

Look, I'm not saying that anti-sprawl policies are bad; quite the opposite. I support smart anti-sprawl, pro-density measures. But anyone who doesn't grasp what the history of urban development in this country actually looks like is going to come up with the wrong answers.

Will, you are beneath contempt, but you might be interested to know that the Economist is currently less right-wing than at any point in its history.

@ Fnarf, I agree that old-fashioned walkable neighborhoods are creepy. But I thought what NaFun was getting at was more what the govt did to the city of LA, which used to have pretty good mass transit (street cars.)

Well, they ripped those street cars up, and now we're stuck trying to get approvals for mass transit all over again. Most people in LA want mass transit. The city of LA is a lot less sprawling than most people think, especially in the triangle encompased by the 10, 405, and 101.

I think before we start thinking about the suburbs, let's start talking about cities that can benefit from mass transit. Cities which already have a reasonable density but have very little to offer other than buses.

"Instead of arguing that we need new technology to make cars less dirty, they should have made the case that governments should promote smarter development patterns, so that people can live, work, and shop without needing a car to do so."

>> Why does this have to always be an "instead" arguement? Both of these things make sense? Shouldn't we expect both? Why can't these ideas coexist?

@29 - I'll believe it when their news reporters that show up on talk shows display any sign of not being right-wing know-nothing twits. And if you want to talk history ... that's a loooooooong time.

Until we get beyond bus level transit, and build tall enough residential rental buildings that are mixed affordability - not the ultra-rich to upper-middle condos - it's all a moot point.

@29

You can have those home-ownership loans without using them to encourage Levittowns. And you're right, the New Urbanism projects haven't worked, primarily because they've been rather small, plunked down in the midst of sprawl culture. If you still work in the office park a couple towns down the 'pike, living in a New Urbanism project like Seaside isn't gonna do a lot to reduce your miles driven. I don't see that as a condemnation of the ideas involved, though (ideas like focusing on neighborhoods, mixed use, mixed income, pedestrian-friendly, etc). Declaring New Urbanism dead because Seaside didn't work is like a foie-gras goose saying its exercise plan and therefore jogging is stupid.

@30, you mistake me. I wasn't saying "old-fashioned walkable neighborhoods are creepy". I was saying that recently-created New Urbanist simulacra of walkable neighborhoods are creepy. Because there's nobody walking there; they're like movie sets. All the people are inside, doing what people like to do: watching TV, carrying stuff inside from their cars.

The streetcars in LA were ripped up because they were unpopular. Yes, yes, I know all about the "conspiracy", and I also know about the whopping fine they paid -- $1. Because they were irrelevant.

It is ironic that people are rebuilding transit lines along the routes that were torn up fifty or eighty years ago. But that's human nature. The freedom and vibrancy of American car culture cannot be denied, nor can we pretend that it didn't happen. Are there consequences? Yes of course. Are there things we can do? Yes, of course. Is it as simple and obvious as some people would like to pretend? No.

Most people don't want to live on Capitol Hill; most people don't want to live in cities at all. This has been obvious for a hundred years. The policies that have been mentioned here, which promote sprawl, were and are enormously popular. It would be foolhardy for a politician to advocate against them without recognizing that.

For the record, I have been advocating five or six dollar gas for many years now, and I think the urban growth boundaries should be drastically tightened. But I'm also realistic.

(And #9: "Huddle into ultradense housing"? Clearly you've never been, say, to South Seattle, or Capitol Hill, or anywhere outside the suburbs. You have an awfully sad and twisted idea of what living in a city is like.)

Actually I owned and lived in a condo on Cap Hill for several years, I live in Seattle now, and I don't like living in the suburbs. Keep up the good work!

(And #9: "Huddle into ultradense housing"? Clearly you've never been, say, to South Seattle, or Capitol Hill, or anywhere outside the suburbs. You have an awfully sad and twisted idea of what living in a city is like.)

And oops, I forgot to mention, I also lived in Midtown Atlanta and Manhattan. So besides those two places, and Cap Hill, I have no idea what it's like outside the suburbs.

@ tsm,

Hey those #s are good news; thanx!

I've already got the marketing plan ready, though.

How about:

"Slap on a Rubber and Save the World!"

or

"Fucking Our Way to a Fantastic Future!"

or

"Captain Planet Says: For Chrissakes, No More Babies!"
(Wait, was that last one real and like, from the 80s?)

Bet you can't wait to see the storyboards.

New Urbanism isn't dead because Seaside sucks. New Urbanism is dead because it HAS ALWAYS SUCKED. It just doesn't work. You can't build places like that from nothing; no one ever has. It goes against human nature.

You are pointing at the source of the problem: jobs. People DO work at the office park a few towns down the pike. This is not a recent trend. That's how economic development goes, and if you've got the jobs, you've got the housing development right behind it. And it's all happening without the planners, the enviros, the New Urbanists, the Slog commenters even noticing, because they're focused on trivialities like whether the apartment buildings going up in Ballard are attractive or not. As if they can tell. In the meantime, the greater Seattle area HAS BECOME LA.

@Fnarf, sorry sorry, I wasn't saying actually old walkable communities were creepy either. I meant what you meant that those simulated old-fashioned communities are creepy like the one Disney made....

Going back to your point, isn't it the job of government though to try and shape public opinion? I understand that 50 years ago LA officials might not have understood what perpetuating car culture would do to LA. But given what we know now, shouldn't we be doing everything we can to foster mass transit especially in areas that are already dense?

Also Fnarf, do you really think most people don't want to live on Capitol Hill? Because the other thing that's happening in LA is that every drop of it is gentrifying, and more and more people are moving to the city and the poorer people are getting pushed to the suburbs. It's the reverse of the 50s white flight and it's actually a real problem because the suburbs have almost no infrastructure for public transit and most of the poorer people cannot afford cars. Thus they can't get to jobs and stay poor blah blah vicious cycle.

Oh, and, and, Seattle is not LA. I mean I do not live in Seattle. Never have. Have visited twice? in the seven years I've been in LA. But I've taken public transit more in Seattle than I have ever in LA. Ever.

I dunno about the outlying areas of Seattle, but at least in the central areas I was in Seattle, I could take public transit and not have to wait an hour for the next bus.

In LA, even in the most central areas, public transit is horrendous. My bf who was carless, used to call me regularly being all, "The bus was supposed to come 45 minutes ago, and it hasn't. When's the next bus nearest to me?"

And then I'd look it up and he would have to walk to another bus stop and wait another 45 minutes.

Going back to your point, isn't it the job of government though to try and shape public opinion?

No point in asking any more questions, all the Slog is gone, glued to their televisions for the Obamagasm.

Fnarf are you a supporter of ST2? Because it seems to support the idea of these created little villages of density that I agree won't work. That why I think we should concentrate on building transit in the densest areas and tighten up the UGB.

I would spend less on highways and mock commuter rail (e.g. light rail to Fife) and more money on in-city transit. I would upzone all over the city changing the townhouse zoning to real apartment zoning.

Love the idea of switching to electric cars and using public money to produce green wind, solar and ??? power

To be honest, I don't care what happens with ST in the suburbs. I don't think it matters one way or the other. As long as it gets more lines in the dense core, it's good. Those little islands in the sticks that people are worried about, well, I'm not -- I don't think that ST will have a significant impact, since most of the people who live in them don't want to go where the other end of the train is.