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| 5/25 |
| 2007/4/11-16 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:46262 Activity:low |
4/11 New York City produces 1% of the nation's greenhouse gas emission. But
wait, the city has 2.7% of the country's population. That's pretty
good. http://www.csua.org/u/ig7 (Yahoo! News).
I wonder how the Bay Area cities rank.
\_ Im pulling this out of my ass but I bet most New Yorkers dont drive,
in a car, to work.
\_ I like to type, using commas, at random, places.
\_ Yeah, the article mentioned the city's mass transit system as the
\_ Yo,ur ,gra,mmar is te,h suk!!,! You, don,t kno,w how t,o use
comma,s.
\_ Uhh, the out of my ass line is not correct.
\_ Most New Yorkers, do in fact commute by transit.
\_ I'm talking sentance structure, not facts.
\_ Good thing you are not talking spelling.
\_ Yeah, the article mentions the city's mass transit system as the
major factor. -- OP
\_ And it's populated almost entirely by liberals!
\_ I bet a significant chunk of Brooklyn, the largest borough,
are NY Post reading driving conservatives. USA USA USA
\_ Well, in general rural areas tend to use more energy.
\_ Similarly, Western Europe per-capita energy use is half of ours.
It's partly mass transit, but even more than that, it's about
designing liveable human spaces. -tom
\_ Excuse me? Packed like a sardine can in a 800sqft 2 bdrm
apartment and not having the freedom to do yard work or
running around in the backyard is considered liveable human
space? Sorry buddy you should take your communist propaganda
back to Russia
\_ I don't think Tom's from Russia.
\_ Yes, we need more lebensraum! Heil!
\_ you really should get a perspective on how humans live.
(As distinct from "Americans"). -tom
\_ How most humans on this planet live is not in doubt. They
live worse than most animals. How humans *should* live and
what "liveable human spaces" *are* is the question. Packed
like sardines is not a "liveable human space".
\_ You will find out otherwise when gasoline goes to
$10 gallon. Which will happen sooner than you think.
\_ Uh, what? I'll find out what?
\_ Why not run around in shared spaces? 90% of the time your
precious backyard sits there unused.
\_ That is how it is done in Russian tenement housing.
\_ Do you share your apartment with everyone who walks by?
Of course not. Why not? Because you need your own
personal space. And it is being used 100% of the time.
It exists to put distance between you and your neighbors.
Good fences make good neighbors and all that.
\_ Define "need". -tom
\_ "need": I won't quote the dictionary at you. By need
I mean that people have a psychological need for some
private space and time to 'get away from it all'. Do
you disagree? Or do you just think that going
camping or skiing every so often is enough?
\_ I think that the fact that the vast majority of
the human population does not segment itself off
from other humans indicates that the need for
community is stronger than the need for
private space. I think there is also research
to support that concept. The faceless subdivision
is something that's been marketed and sold to
Americans; it is most assuredly not the ultimate
expression of the human condition. And, faceless
subdivision dwellers don't report higher life
satisfaction than city dwellers. -tom
\_ I never said they isolate themselves like the
person below tossing out the Unibomber
strawman. I said having some space, ie: not
sharing 3 walls a ceiling and a floor with
other people 24x7 is unhealthy. The current
propensity for super high density living is
relatively new in human societies. It
requires materials and engineering that didn't
exist until very recently. I think it is an
odd claim that just because there are many
people living that way is the same as saying
they enjoy living that way and it is a healthy
way for people to live.
\_ As I said, there is a lot of research that
suggests that people are more satisfied
with their lives when they are more
connected with other people. And
specifically in America, our measurements
of life satisfaction have gone consistently
downhill since 1950, concurrent with the
flight to the suburbs. America is the
developed country with the least density,
but it's certainly not the happiest nor
the healthiest by any objective measure.
-tom
\_ There are in misanthropes, like the Unabomber,
that really "need" to get away from other people,
I will grant you that.
\_ That is what Supermax is for.
\- You may enjoy reading this fellow's work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Glaeser
See e.g. http://www.nysun.com/article/47626
[On other fav motd topic, see: http://tinyurl.com/3brjny] |
| 5/25 |
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| www.csua.org/u/ig7 -> news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070411/ap_on_sc/carbon_count;_ylt=ArmM2NfgExw2RvbqVgAVAiazvtEF AP Greenhouse gas study says 1 pct from NYC By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer Wed Apr 11, 9:27 AM ET NEW YORK - New York City produces nearly 1 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions -- an amount that puts it on par with Ireland or Portugal -- according to a city study. The study, released Tuesday, was ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to assess the city's progress in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030. It was conducted by the mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability. "You have to have a real baseline or we're just talking past each other as to what works and what doesn't work -- we won't ever know whether we really made a difference," Bloomberg said. The report said the city's emissions "are currently as much as those of Ireland or Portugal." Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane and other gases, essentially trap energy from the sun, which warms the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere. Many scientists believe human activity that increases those gases is contributing to global warming. United Nations network of 2,000 scientists, warned last week of possible catastrophic risks such as floods, disease, food shortages, species extinction and human suffering throughout the world. The city has 27 percent of the country's population -- 82 million of 300 million -- and the average New York City resident contributes less than a third of the emissions generated by a typical American. This is largely due to the popularity of the city's mass transit system, which cuts down on car emissions, officials said. The operation of the city's hundreds of thousands of buildings -- which consume electricity, natural gas, fuel oil and steam -- contribute 79 percent of the city's emissions total. The study found that the city's focus on environmentally friendly initiatives -- including alternative fuel vehicles, energy efficient traffic lights and green buildings -- appears to have helped stabilize emissions rates in recent years. "Each one of these things really does make a difference, and they add up," Bloomberg said. Still, emissions were found to have increased by more than 8 percent between 1995 and 2005, the study found. A view of the skyline of lower Manhattan from Hoboken, January 6, 2007. New York City produced 58 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2005, according to officials who promised on Tuesday to cut that by 30 percent by 2030. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. |
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Glaeser game theory) to explain human economic and social behavior. Glaeser develops models using these tools and then evaluates them with real world data, so as to verify their applicability. edit Contribution to Urban Economics Glaeser's empirical research has offered a distinct explanation for the secular increase in housing prices in many parts of the United States over the past several decades. Glaeser points out that the increase in housing prices have not been uniform throughout the country. In fact, the most dramatic increases have occuried in places like Boston, Massachusetts or San Francisco, California where permits for new buildings have been hard to come by since the 1970s. This, compounds with their strident zoning laws, seriously disrupted the supply of new housings in those places, making the real estate markets incapable of accommodating the increasing demands, hence resulting in skyrocketing housing prices. Glaeser also points to the fact that while states like Arizona and Texas also experienced tremendous growth in demand for real estates, the housing prices there did not exprience abnormal increase thanks to the loosen regulations and feasibility of obtaining new building permits in those states. Americans have become more obese over the past 25 years because they "have been consuming more calories. The increase in food consumption is itself the result of technological innovations which made it possible for food to be mass prepared far from the point of consumption, and consumed with lower time costs of preparation and cleaning. Price changes are normally beneficial, but may not be if people have self-control problems." |
| www.nysun.com/article/47626 At Walden Pond he became so "suddenly sensible of the sweet and beneficent society in Nature" that "the fancied advantages of human neighborhood" became "insignificant." Lewis Mumford, praised the "parklike setting" of suburbs and denigrated the urban "deterioration of the environment." Millions of Americans proclaimed their love of nature by moving to leafy suburbs while denigrating New Yorkers for living in the most man-made of places. Manhattan's great glazed brick towers seemed worthy of both pity and disdain. Now we know that the suburban environmentalists had it backwards. Manhattan, not suburbia, is the real friend of the environment. Those alleged nature lovers who live on multiacre estates surrounded by trees and lawn consume vast amounts of space and energy. New York's biggest environmental contribution lies in the fact that less than one-third of New Yorkers drive to work. Nationwide, more than seven out of eight commuters drive. The absence of cars leads Matthew Kahn, in his fascinating book, "Green Cities," to estimate that New York has by a wide margin the least gas usage per capita of all American metropolitan areas. Is there any reason beyond civic pride to care that New Yorkers are true friends of the environment? Environmental benefits are one of the many good reasons that New York should grow. Email me if someone replies to my comment Title of Comments: Comments: Send Comment Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable. |
| tinyurl.com/3brjny] -> www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/magazine/305glaeser.1.html?ex=1299214800&en=2c54fd804ddaf7ae&ei=5088/ For one thing, he is not a good driver, and the new commute has prompted him to leave his house by 6 am so as not to get ensnared in the morning rush hour. For another, Glaeser and the suburbs are clearly an unholy marriage of sensibilities, especially since his new house is bordered by about 600 acres of conservation land. "I wake up every day, thinking, My goodness, how many units of housing could you build here?" Harvard, he has spent almost his entire professional life walking around, and thinking about, cities seeking explanations why some metropolitan areas thrive and some suffer and what factors make some places pricey and some cheap. In the years since earning his PhD at the University of Chicago, though, he has been prolific and provocative in a way that has left many of his colleagues awestruck. University of California, Berkeley, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2001. Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago and a Nobel laureate, notes that before Glaeser came along, "urban economics was dried up. No one had come up with some new ways to look at cities." David Cutler, Glaeser's Harvard colleague and an academic star in his own right, puts it this way: "I think Ed is probably the most exciting urban researcher in half a century, if not longer." John F Kennedy School of Government, which finances studies on local and state governments, as well as the university's Rappaport Institute, which tries to link Harvard faculty members with Boston-related projects. As a result, Glaeser now divides his time between doing his personal research and serving as a dashing public advocate for urbanism. Glaeser is not heir to the tweedy, harrumphing, bad-haircut tradition of academics. He radiates a confidence that to some fellow economists borders on arrogance. He has a tendency to speak quickly and in paragraphs rather than sentences, while projecting an Old World decorousness more reminiscent of Edith Wharton's New York than of today's Boston. He is tall, broad-shouldered and patrician in his bearing; he began wearing three-piece suits 23 years ago, back when he was in prep school, he says. One afternoon last December in his Cambridge office, Glaeser sported a bespoke pinstriped get-up and a pale blue silk tie, which he had tucked into a matching, fully buttoned pinstripe vest draped with the gold fob from his pocket watch. He seemed to have stepped from a hansom cab, missing only a top hat. As he began to explain some of his recent work on housing prices, his large silver cuff links clinked against the table. Unlike that of most other housing economists, Glaeser's recent work on real estate addresses the issues of supply rather than of demand. He is far more interested in the forces shaping land development and residential building in the United States than in the forces shaping buyers' motivations and actions. He views supply as crucial to appreciating what has happened to the US real-estate market over the past 30 years. A few months ago, he traveled from his Harvard office to the Massachusetts State House, near Boston Common, to discuss with the leaders of the State Legislature a research project he had just completed on the local housing market. Between 1980 and 2000, four of the five cities in the US with the fastest-growing housing prices were in Boston's metropolitan area: Cambridge, Somerville, Newton and Boston itself. First, the possibility that builders in the metro area were running out of land and that home prices reflected that scarcity. The second hypothesis was that building permits were scarce, not land. Had the 187 townships in the metro area created a web of regulations that hindered building to such a degree that demand far outstripped supply, driving prices up? Almost as a rule, Glaeser is skeptical of the lack-of-land argument. He has previously noted (with a collaborator, Matthew Kahn) that 95 percent of the United States remains undeveloped and that if every American were given a house on a quarter acre, so that every family of four had a full acre, that distribution would not use up half the land in Texas. Most of Boston's metro area, he concluded, wasn't particularly dense, and even in places where it was, like the centers of Boston and Cambridge, there was ample opportunity to construct higher buildings with more housing units. So, after sorting through a mountain of data, Glaeser decided that the housing crisis was man-made. The region's zoning regulations which were enacted by locales in the first half of the 20th century to separate residential land from commercial and industrial land and which generally promoted the orderly growth of suburbs had become so various and complex in the second half of the 20th century that they were limiting growth. Land-use rules of the 1920's were meant to assure homeowners that their neighbors wouldn't raise hogs in their backyards, throw up a shack on a sliver of land nearby or build a factory next door, but the zoning rules of the 1970's and 1980's were different in nature and effect. Regulations in Glaeser's new hometown of Weston, for instance, made extremely large lot sizes mandatory in some neighborhoods and placed high environmental hurdles (some reasonable, others not, in Glaeser's view) in front of developers. Other towns passed ordinances governing sidewalks, street widths, the shape of lots, septic lines and so on all with the result, in Glaeser's analysis, of curtailing the supply of housing. The same phenomenon, he says, has inflated prices in metro areas all along the East and West Coasts. |