Tag Archives: environmentalism

Should environmentalism promote pristine wilderness or more urban parks?

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Debates over the legacy of John Muir pose an interesting question for environmentalists: to support pristine wilderness or more urban parks?

Christensen and others see Muir’s beliefs as antiquated in the face of 21st century environmental challenges that the bushy-bearded Scot could not have imagined: population growth, urban sprawl, demographic shifts, climate change.

The debate boils down to Muir’s primary ethic: The wilderness is a temple to be left undisturbed, so man occasionally can experience nature in its purity. That precept helped shape a century of conservation, ensuring that there would be unspoiled wilderness for succeeding generations…

To Christensen and others, however, Muir’s notion that immersing people in “universities of the wilderness” — such as Yosemite — sends the message that only awe-inspiring parks are worth saving, at the expense of smaller urban spaces…

Critics also see a correlation between the emotional, biblical language of Muir’s writings and the demographic makeup of national park visitors and the ranks of the largest environmental organizations — mainly aging, white Americans.

The Sierra Club, which Muir founded, and the Audubon Society are struggling to connect with California’s diverse population, particularly Latinos, who polls show are among the most devoted environmentalists in the state. A strong and diverse membership in California, where Latinos are expected to become a majority by 2050, is important to influencing political decisions and raising funds to support missions of conservation and environmental education.

Interesting issue. A few thoughts:

1. One could argue that there really aren’t many natural places completely undisturbed by human activity. Even the supposed “pristine wilderness” of the New World discovered by Europeans was really land that had been cultivated and altered by people for a long time.

2. The majority of people in the United States and in many countries now live in urbanized areas where they may have little time or resources for “pristine nature.” But, urban nature is a very human-altered form: for example, the design of Central Park in New York City is very intentional with its rock formations, water features, and set of paths and pedestrian areas (let alone space for vehicles and large buildings).

Americans drive more this summer for the first time since 2008

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American driving was up this summer:

For the first six months of 2014, vehicle miles traveled, the FHA measuring stick, were the highest since 2008, before the outbreak of the financial crisis.

Low-interest financing has helped spur new car sales to the highest levels in more than a decade, encouraging more drivers to hit the roads, according to AAA spokesman Robert Sinclair.

“Most new cars get good fuel economy and gas prices are falling. Combine that with an economy that’s slowly coming back and we see lots of road trips. Our travel projections for Labor Day showed a willingness of travelers to use credit cards to finance a trip, which could be a general trend,” Sinclair said.”…

“Before the 2007 peak, travel behavior in the United States tracked closely with economic growth,” the agency noted in a report. “Since 2007, trends in U.S. [driving] have not followed the trends in economic indicators such as income and employment as closely.”

This is double-edged news. On one hand, this could be evidence that more Americans have money to drive, buy cars, and spend money on travel. On the other hand, more driving leads to more traffic and increased environmental impacts of driving (though miles per gallon are up). And, some might see this as a sign that Americans do really want to drive more but the conditions have to be right.

Building the world’s next 15.5 million miles of roads accounting for environmental concerns

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Here is a quick look at the massive road-building in the world’s future:

According to a 2013 study by the International Energy Agency (pdf), humans are going to pave 15.5 million miles of road by 2050. Ninety percent of this is expected to take place in developing countries.

The researchers approached the problem initially by making two base maps. The first rated the world’s environmental value pixel by pixel taking into consideration things like biodiversity and proximity to protected areas. Using similar estimations they made another map that showed economic value of future roads based on the agricultural value of the lands they connected. (The maps to the left show each value in isolation.) Then, the researchers analyzed the overlap between the two layers.

The result is a color-coded map of ecological and economic value. Greener pixels indicate more environmental value, while red means there’s money in the banana stand. Darker pixels represent potential areas of conflict, where both values are high.

road-world

Of course, the assumption that environmental concerns should be taken into account when building roads is an interesting one. A good argument can be made that quickly building roads and ignoring environmental concerns will eventually lead to other increased problems down the road, including possibly declining productivity and growth. However, the short-term demand for economic growth in first-world or third-world countries is often a powerful motivating force. Roads are so basic to trade and movement of people that inevitably some roads will be constructed with less than ideal consequences for the environment.

Looking for $30 million to finish thorium cleanup in West Chicago

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The decades-long fight over thorium cleanup in West Chicago may be nearing an end – if the federal government provides the needed final $30 million:

After officials spent decades and roughly $1.2 billion cleaning area sites polluted with radioactive thorium waste from the former factory, the environmental response trust overseeing the work is in jeopardy of running out of money because it hasn’t received federal funding since fiscal 2008…

So while bulldozers were moving soil Tuesday on the roughly 60-acre property, part of the site remains contaminated. Officials estimate it will cost $30 million to clean it.

The hope is to get the money from the Department of Energy’s Title X program, which provided reimbursements to West Chicago for previous work…

All that remains is to remediate one residential property and part of the old factory site. The cleanup of the residential property will be completed this year, officials said.

This has been a long saga from the functioning facility that built items in the mid 1900s but then made contaminated dirt available to property owners throughout the city, officially discovering the radioactivity in the 1970s, to extensive cleanup of properties and lots of dirt shipped to Utah. While one could celebrate the persistence of local residents and leaders, it is also a cautionary tale about how many resources it takes to rectify such pollution. It isn’t just about the money but also about the time (several decades involving recognizing the problem, securing funding, and then the time for actual cleanup) and reputation (imagine considering West Chicago as a potential community to move to knowing that there is radioactivity in the community). It is this long view that is often missing in public discussions of the environment – and pollution seems like it has clear consequences, particularlly compared to other topics like the rancor about global warming – though it is admittedly difficult to foresee some of these dangers at the time.

American driving habits peaked in 2004-2005, before the recession

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Check out a number of charts about American driving habits and they tend to agree: the amount of driving and gas consumption plateaued or declined starting in 2004-2005.

So, technically speaking, the two-car garage is no longer average. Realistically speaking, plenty of suburban households have a pair of Explorers or Civics sitting in their driveways. And thanks to population growth, the total number of vehicles on the road has started rising again.  (So no need to shed tears for Detroit, yet.) But, in the end, individual families aren’t buying quite so many vehicles as a few years ago…

Americans are also spending far less time in the cars they do own. The average U.S. driver traveled 12,492 miles in 2011, down about 1,200 miles, or 9 percent, from our mid-aughts peak…

Lower mileage, along with more fuel-efficient vehicles, has in turn slashed our fuel consumption. Collectively, we haven’t pumped this little gas since the 1990s…

All of these changes have something intriguing in common: They started well before the financial crisis and recession. The number of cars per household peaked in 2005. Miles-per-driver peaked in 2004, as so did gas use. Which is to say, as Sivak does, that it would be silly to pin these changes entirely on the downturn.

Of course, there are still plenty of cars on the roads and lots of driving, particularly due to population growth. But, in terms of individual habits, driving has decreased as has gas consumption. Three quick questions:

1. Is this a good thing for environmentalists and those opposed to sprawl? One way to think about this is to ask whether the individual-level declines are enough to offset the still-increasing number of cars due to more people.

2. For policy makers, is it better to pursue better gas mileage or getting more cars off the roads in the first place? To put it another way, is the enemy just gas guzzlers like pick-up trucks and SUVs or is the problem all cars? The second option is less popular though both could be pursued: think stricter gas mileage standards for cars and promoting more New Urbanist and dense development.

3. Just how much decline might we expect in the future? It is one thing to cut back on driving but most Americans can’t get rid of it all together or even cut it in half by fifty percent.

The difference in tree cover between poorer and wealthier neighborhoods

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One recent newspaper analysis and a new academic study both agree: tree cover differs between richer and poorer urban neighborhoods.

Last month, the Washington Post conducted its own study of the city’s tree canopy, with some findings that may not surprise anyone who lives in the capital: Lower-income neighborhoods were substantially less likely to have trees, with the city’s densest greenery clustered west of the 16th Street Northwest fault line that divides some of Washington’s wealthiest neighborhoods from the rest of town. Tree density in Washington, in short, provides a kind of proxy for wealth (and if you’ve spent time in Washington, you also know that wealth is a proxy for race).

Lest other cities scoff at Washington’s arbor-inequality, research just published online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives confirms that a very similar pattern appears all across the country. Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley looked at 63,436 census block groups from across the country covering 304 metropolitan areas and more than 81 million people. And they identified those blocks most at risk in extreme heat waves thanks to the lack of tree cover or the presence of too much asphalt (or impervious surfaces). Both of these factors have been shown to exacerbate the urban heat island effect, raising surface temperatures, suggesting that people who live in these neighborhoods may be at the highest heat risk as temperatures warm with climate change.

According to the findings, blacks were 52 percent more likely than whites to live in such neighborhoods, Asians 32 percent more likely, and Hispanics 21 percent more likely (controlling for factors that explain variation in tree growth, like climate and rainfall).

“It’s in the same range of elevated risk that we see for a number of environmental concerns,” says Bill Jesdale, one of the authors, referring to similar findings in the environmental justice literature that show minorities living in communities with greater exposure to traffic, pollution and other environmental hazards. “Often, unfortunately, you see relative risks that are quite a bit higher than that.”

Interesting findings. Trees might seem rather basic, even in cities, until such differences are pointed out.

So, what is behind these differences in tree cover? Are cities planting fewer trees in poorer neighborhoods? Do poorer neighborhoods tend to have fewer parks, fewer tree-lined streets, and more manufacturing and industrial facilities? Do the residents of wealthier neighborhoods make sure that their neighborhoods have more trees? Is this primarily about trees themselves or is this just part of a larger package of fewer amenities in poorer neighborhoods?

Based on these findings, I wonder if we’ll see more people advocate for trees in poorer neighborhoods. Who could be against trees and more greenery, particularly if it is an issue of justice and inequality?

Seeing stars in the world’s major cities if they had no lights

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Photographer Thierry Cohen has put together a number of images of what the sky above major world cities would look like if the cities had no lights. The takeaway: city dwellers would see a lot of stars. Here is one example:

Photographer Imagines What World Cities Would Look Like Without Lights thierrydarkened 3

 

My first thought is that such scenes would only be possible in reality in a post-apocalyptic scenario (which is quite popular these days). But perhaps a city could undergo a project like this for a night or weekend? Imagine a positive sort of Carmageddon but not quite Earth Hour which is more about reducing energy use and environmentalism.

Suburban tree ordinance helps fight off McMansions, preserve “suburban quality of life”

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Many suburban residents may not pay much attention to tree ordinances in their community. However, a recent debate about the ordinance in Oyster Bay, New York reveals some interesting motivations for such ordinances:

Amendments to the code of the Town of Oyster Bay were discussed at the Tuesday, Aug. 14, town board meeting. They included regulations pertaining to the growing of bamboo on both residential and commercial property (see article on page 10), storm water management and erosion and sediment control, and the removal of trees on private property…

Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto opened the hearing by explaining the town’s decision that the law as stated was burdensome and needed balance. He said, “Trees are probably the most visible symbols of our suburban quality of life.” The supervisor explained the law was intended to protect the tree population but that when it was instituted they didn’t hear the other side of the story. Now the board members are hearing from residents who are saying, “Who are you to come into my backyard and say I can’t remove a tree.” He said homeowners viewed it as a loss of their individual rights and called it “government intrusion.” After listening to many speakers who seemed to understand his views, he said, “It’s a question of balance.” Mr. Venditto said it was the homeowner dealing with trees on their private property that were the ones the repeal of the ordinance would benefit.

Still the possibility of repealing a tree ordinance reminds people of why they wanted one in the first place. Nassau County Legislator Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury) was the first to speak. She reminded the audience that, “The initial tree ordinance was passed in 1973 following the total destruction of a 15-acre parcel of land in Woodbury which was bull dozed by a developer, Sidney Kalvar, who was denied an application for zoning on the property.  Hundreds of trees were just leveled and a barren piece of land replaced the natural growth which was there.”

In 2007, an amendment to the town’s 1973 tree ordinance was adopted as a result of the work of Save the Jewel By the Bay which was working to protect the hamlet of Oyster Bay from an onslaught of “McMansions.” The town added to the tree ordinance as well as adopting several zoning ordinances to prevent McMansions; both ordinances were adopted townwide.

Trees clearly have environmental benefits. Yet, they also serve as status symbols. Two things struck me here:

  1. Regulations about trees are tied to fighting McMansions. A common image of the construction of McMansions includes a developer/builder coming in with teams of bulldozers, flattening the landscape, and then mass producing unnecessarily large and ugly houses. Of course, this is not that different of a process from other suburban construction going back to the early days of mass produced housing in places like Levittown. My question: can McMansions be made more acceptable if the developer/builder work more with the existing landscape and retain many of the trees? Put another way, can’t communities simply tell McMansion builders that they must retain or plant a certain number of trees? It doesn’t seem to me that McMansions and trees necessarily have to be antithetical to each other.
  2. Trees denote a “suburban quality of life.” Suburban streets are often depicted with broad, leafy trees spanning over the roadway. I recall reading how the creators of The Wonder Years wanted this sort of suburban image and found it in Culver City, California. Yet, one can find this is many urban neighborhoods. So perhaps it is more about the number of trees. Urban streetscapes are often limited to having trees in the space between the sidewalk and street and sidewalk and building. Or, perhaps it is about trees plus a little green space around the trees which is also tougher to find in cities. I wonder how much having older and/or more trees on a property increases the property value of suburban homes. Neighborhoods with few or shorter trees tends to indicate that the neighborhood is newer but is there a price reduction because of this? How much of the character of an older neighborhood is tied to the trees? Is having plenty of older trees an indication of the community being older and monied?

A final note: the article mentions that two residents say that in order to be known as a “Tree City USA” community, a municipality must have a tree ordinance on the books. I was not aware of this and have wondered what it took to get such a designation and sign along the roadway.

Argument in defense of sprawl: only 3% of US land is urban areas

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In discussing sprawl, a “free-market think tank” posts some figures about land use in the United States:

When speaking to audiences on the subject of the environment, I’m often confronted with people who express concerns about “urban sprawl,” and “over-development.” And polls suggest such concerns are widespread: In a March 2011, Gallup poll, 57% of people worried a great deal/fair amount about “urban sprawl and loss of open space;” and 42% of people said they worried “not much/not at all” about the same issue.

With so many people worried, the pie chart, below, offers some interesting context. Note that only about 3 percent of the US is urbanized. 56 percent is forest and pasture.

Driving outside urban areas makes this quite clear: most land in the United States is not urbanized. But here are some potential flaws with this argument:

1. Just because 3% of the land is urban doesn’t necessarily mean that this 3% is used well.

2. Misusing this 3% could have an overly large effect (compared to its proportion) on the rest of the land.

3. Most people live in these urban areas so while 3% is indeed small compared to all of the land available in the United States, people are much more concerned with the open field near them than they are with the more abstract idea that there is plenty of open land halfway around the country. And since they spend most of their time in denser areas, they think all other areas are like that.

4. Not all of that remaining 97% is “usable land” where it would be easy to build.

The page doesn’t say this but I’m amused that this could essentially be labeled a “pro-sprawl” page. Perhaps they would rather suggest it is a “pro-liberty” argument as there are not too many people who will outright endorse sprawl these days.

A dark and polluted Pittsburgh in the early 1940s

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This gallery of pictures of a dark and polluted Pittsburgh in the early 1940s is fascinating:

In 1941, influenced by a similar policy introduced in St. Louis four years earlier, the city of Pittsburgh passed a law designed to reduce coal production in pursuit of cleaner air. Not willing to cripple such an important part of the local economy, it promised to clean the air by using treated local coal. The new policy ended up not being fully enacted until after World War II.

While the idea was a small step in the right direction, other factors ultimately helped improve Pittsburgh’s notorious air quality. Natural gas was piped into the city. Regional railroad companies switched from coal to diesel locomotives. And, ultimately, the collapse of the iron and steel production industries in the 1980s led to rapidly improved air quality leading into the 21st century.

Control of coal smoke made it possible to clean soot-covered buildings and to re-plant hillsides, helping provide the city a look it could hardly envision in the depths of its industrial heyday.

I’ve seen some of these pictures before and they are hard to believe: how did people survive in a city that looked like this? Despite some of the debate over environmental regulations today, I think everyone could agree that Pittsburgh and other cities have benefited from having cleaner air.

This is also a reminder of how far some communities will go for their signature industries. Industry may bring in money and provide jobs but it is often not without downsides.