Is country living environmentally irresponsible?

Pineapple_Boi

is it not true that a properly managed fully 'urban society' has a much lower environmental impact than a society with a large amount of people living beyond the city limits?

off grid living is a nice idea and all but would a very compact centralised urban system not be far more efficient and involve far less maintainence cost than thousands of individual microgenerators?

the country side could become a well managed automated farming system without lots of individual fields and hedges and farmers who each need to buy their own tractors.

people could live in very densely populated high rise apartments to maximise free space for farming and electricity generation.

there is also far less travel involved, all travel in a dense city could be done by bicycle, walking and automated driverless pods and long distances would not need to be travelled at all due to telecommuting (Facebook,Twitter).

something seems inherently backward about one eking out an existence in the wild even if everything is done using supposedly sustainable and carbon neutral equipment.

even if all travel is done using sustainably built and powered vehicles there is still the damage done by building roads

should everyone just pack up their belongings and move to a densely populated ultra-managed urban environment to reduce their overall impact on the earth. is the sustainable countryside farmhouse with off-grid electricity an impractical, outdated ideal?

Mahatma coat

Such an ass backwards concept, surely we'd all be better off if we lived in the Country, grew our fruit and veg and killed our own meat.

and how could it be true that Urban life has a lower impact, EVERYTHING must be provided for you and transported to you.

Now it has less strain on the individual as you are removed from the process of providing your own food, but as we have seen, this leads to a mollified population incapable of fending for itself should it all come crashing down.


Why do you think that Automation is such a good Idea??
have you not considered that even though some people squirm at the thought of dirt under their fingernails some of us actually enjoy Farming.


without the countryside NOTHING is sustainable.



there was this little fella in S.E Asia a few years ago, he noticed the same thing but he was of the opinion that Urban livin was the problem, didnt work out all that well for most involved :eek:

cnocbui

You don't have a soul, and that is the very least of your problems from the sounds of it.

Mahatma coat

WTF??

who is that aimed at???

Cool Mo D

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Such an ass backwards concept, surely we'd all be better off if we lived in the Country, grew our fruit and veg and killed our own meat.

and how could it be true that Urban life has a lower impact, EVERYTHING must be provided for you and transported to you.

Now it has less strain on the individual as you are removed from the process of providing your own food, but as we have seen, this leads to a mollified population incapable of fending for itself should it all come crashing down.


Why do you think that Automation is such a good Idea??
have you not considered that even though some people squirm at the thought of dirt under their fingernails some of us actually enjoy Farming.


without the countryside NOTHING is sustainable.



there was this little fella in S.E Asia a few years ago, he noticed the same thing but he was of the opinion that Urban livin was the problem, didnt work out all that well for most involved :eek:

How is what he's saying untrue? The reason why automation and mass production are more environmentally friendly than growing your own is that you can provide the same amount of food for the same population in a smaller space.

Farming, including organic farming, is not a natural state of being for the land. It destroys habitats for animals, and takes away wild spaces. There are two options - either a small amount of highly intensive farming that completely removes all natural habitat, or a large amount of less intensive farming, including people growing their own food in gardens and the like, in areas that can still support some natural environment, but not the same amount as a truly wild place.

Now, I'm not advocating everyone moving to a city, as a connection to the land by growing your own food fills a deep seated human want, and to deny people the right to express that would be to treat people as robots. People have a right to pursue a relationship with nature through their own hard work.
But lets not pretend that it's more sustainable, or greener then the alternative, because it doesn't really add up.

And bringing Pol Pot into this is more than a wee bit hysterical - no-one is trying to forcibly move people to the cities, even though this does crop up a lot in the rhetoric of suspicious Healy-Rae types pretty often.

Macha

cnocbui wrote: »

You don't have a soul, and that is the very least of your problems from the sounds of it.

As stated very recently in another thread, this sort of language is really not conducive to a decent debate. Infracted.

Lollymcd

IMO rural life, just for the sake of it, is very wasteful. Just to use one example; a postman can deliver to 1000 homes in an urban apartment building in just one hour while on foot. To deliver to the same amount of people in a rural setting it would take a least a couple of days and the postman would have to drive. It's a bit simplified but you can translate this to most services, water, electricity etc.

cnocbui

Mahatma coat wrote: »

WTF??

who is that aimed at???

It was not directed at you, so apologies if you took offence.

Pineapple_Boi

Mahatma coat wrote: »

and how could it be true that Urban life has a lower impact, EVERYTHING must be provided for you and transported to you.

Now it has less strain on the individual as you are removed from the process of providing your own food, but as we have seen, this leads to a mollified population incapable of fending for itself should it all come crashing down.


Why do you think that Automation is such a good Idea??
have you not considered that even though some people squirm at the thought of dirt under their fingernails some of us actually enjoy Farming.

everything must be provided but it is much more efficient. factory farming, electricity generation, everything. when designed by the right engineers and eventually maintained by robots the system will never fail.

why should an ordinary person have to learn how to fish or grow a plant when the system is so reliable? it won't come crashing down even when it is run by incompetent humans so why would it come down in a robot-run future?

Lollymcd wrote: »

IMO rural life, just for the sake of it, is very wasteful. Just to use one example; a postman can deliver to 1000 homes in an urban apartment building in just one hour while on foot. To deliver to the same amount of people in a rural setting it would take a least a couple of days and the postman would have to drive. It's a bit simplified but you can translate this to most services, water, electricity etc.

a bad example really, since some places don't even get a post man and have to collect their post from the local post office. how do off-grid facilities compare to current and future urban centralised facilities when it comes to ecological impact?

Lollymcd

Pineapple_Boi wrote: »

how do off-grid facilities compare to current and future urban centralised facilities when it comes to ecological impact?

I imagine it must depend on the amount of people they cater for. I don't think the situation we have at the moment, whereby people are moving to the countryside for some country living but who buy their produce in Blanchardstown, is sustainable. Maybe if these new rural dwellers lived off the land?

boomshackala

Country life will become more and more necessary in the future as hands become necessary to work the land. This is unavoidable and will become ultimately sustainable. The trick is to practice high yielding forms of organic agriculture or permaculture which adds to the soils fertility as it goes along.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2006/HeinbergFiftyMillion.html

here's a recent (excellent) documentary to brighten up your day: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread530565/pg1

Pineapple_Boi

Lollymcd wrote: »

I imagine it must depend on the amount of people they cater for. I don't think the situation we have at the moment, whereby people are moving to the countryside for some country living but who buy their produce in Blanchardstown, is sustainable. Maybe if these new rural dwellers lived off the land?

all depends on how often they go i suppose and the environmental impact of the produce they buy. the people you mention are the absolute worst of the worst offenders.

the 'commuting family' with 4WD that never sees a speck of dirt who live in a slapped up McMansion with no insulation to speak of. have no interest in the countryside what so ever and its these very same complainers that expect the urban services and government to clean up anything that gets in their way (ice/snow) so that their life can go on as usual.

instead of allowing these affluent McMansion buyers to increase urban sprawl why not put up some decent apartment complexes with no cars allowed and therefore no air pollution and maybe driverless pod link to the city centre

why is the government expected to pay for wasteful infrastructure like water, mobile phone masts, electricity to people living it up in celtic tiger era mcMansions spaced 500m apart on some boreen in ballynowhere?

can they not tell people that if they want to live in such a place they will need to put up with the distinct lack of services?


it is still the height of madness that people in this country buy milk imported from abroad when there is a milk lake here at home

Del2005

Pineapple_Boi wrote: »

can they not tell people that if they want to live in such a place they will need to put up with the distinct lack of services?

No because these are the people that vote them in and we know what politicians will promise for a few votes

it is still the height of madness that people in this country buy milk imported from abroad when there is a milk lake here at home

I though all our milk/wine lakes and butter mountains where sorted out years ago. People only buy what's in the shop, if the shop didn't sell it then it wouldn't be bought.

boomshackala

boomshackala wrote: »

Country life will become more and more necessary in the future as hands become necessary to work the land. This is unavoidable and will become ultimately sustainable. The trick is to practice high yielding forms of organic agriculture or permaculture which adds to the soils fertility as it goes along.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2006/HeinbergFiftyMillion.html

here's a recent (excellent) documentary to brighten up your day: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread530565/pg1

the doco has been removed by youtube, if you can get it by any other means, its worth a watch

HelenRyan

Does the quality of a persons life ever come into the thoughts of a greenie, or is it a case of ants first?

Lollymcd

HelenRyan wrote: »

Does the quality of a persons life ever come into the thoughts of a greenie, or is it a case of ants first?

Everyone's quality of life matters, that's why I get annoyed with people who abuse our resources and consume more than they need.

Pineapple_boi - that's excatly what I wanted to say. Well said. Thank you.

boomshackala

Lollymcd wrote: »

Everyone's quality of life matters, that's why I get annoyed with people who abuse our resources and consume more than they need.

Pineapple_boi - that's excatly what I wanted to say. Well said. Thank you.

Paradoxical as it may seem, efficiency of resource use can hasten its depletion:
If I live in the countryside and decide that I can save 300 euro a month by moving to the city I can either spend that saving on other resource hungry activities or worse, save it in a bank. The banks will lend it out on margin (up to 10:1) to finance a new business or something similar, creating more resource hungry activity.
It's called Jevon's paradox:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Efficiency benefits the individual but not the resource, or society in general for that matter, as something that hastens any overshoot will cause more pain in the long run

CJhaughey

Pineapple_Boi wrote: »

the country side could become a well managed automated farming system without lots of individual fields and hedges and farmers who each need to buy their own tractors.

This is the path that Britain has followed for the past 60 years and has resulted in huge loss of biodiversity. The countryside is not only about growing stuff it also has to support life in general, not massive monoculture.
Knocking hedgrows to facilitate large scale agriculture is very damaging to all kinds of wildlife.

Lollymcd

I don't think anyone is advocating the destruction of hedges

Judgement Day

Lollymcd wrote: »

I don't think anyone is advocating the destruction of hedges

I have to disagree with you on that - is this not one of the points that is made by the OP?

'the country side could become a well managed automated farming system without lots of individual fields and hedges and farmers who each need to buy their own tractors'.

Lollymcd

Oops sorry read that bit wrong. I'd have to disagree with the destruction of hedges alright.

As an aside, is there not a law restricting the destruction of hedgerows?

Sapsorrow

Way to crush my self sufficient hippy dream bubble!

old boy

methinks according to the op one who choses to live out in the sticks are just a little bit deprived, for me the cinema is 19 miles away, mc donalds the same, the nearest big shopping mall is also 19 miles away,i have no bus service, i do not live in a box roomed house, alongside 100 more indentical ones, i have no street lighting, no recycled toilet waste in my sink tap, no car noise 24 hours a day, no danger of been broken into, no anti social beheivour, no having to keep my doors and windows locked 24/7, no management service telling me what i cannot do to my own property, no refuse bins being overturned, or uncollected, no litter strewen roads and sidewalks, no trains rumbling in the distance, no sirens wailing, not having to dodge rushing bodys on the sidewalks, oh and i almost forgot no rush hour, ah yes.

Avns1s

Pineapple_Boi wrote: »

why is the government expected to pay for wasteful infrastructure like water, mobile phone masts, electricity to people living it up in celtic tiger era mcMansions spaced 500m apart on some boreen in ballynowhere?

can they not tell people that if they want to live in such a place they will need to put up with the distinct lack of services?

I think you might find that these infrastructures generally exist in rural areas as it is. The roads, water supplies, telecoms and ESB are either in every site that these "frowned upon rural dwellers" dare to reside in or are very close by, and IF THEY AREN'T you'll find that it is up to the aspiring rural dweller to provide their own road extension, pay for the cost of additional poles to connect to the ESB or the local water scheme and so on.

As a matter of interest, how many people here would know that rural dwellers connected to group water schemes NEVER had FREE water. They have (generally) paid water charges through all the years that their urban counterparts have had *free water. (* = paid for by the taxpayer which ironically, includes money collected from the rural taxpayer).

The rural dweller accepts that they will not likely ever have public transport to collect them within 100metres of their door but they dont generally complain about their taxes being used to subvent CIE, Dublin Bus and Dart, luas etc. so that these bodies might provide these services to do so.

While the urban dweller here complains about the lack of road gritting and salting in this cold and icy weather, rural dwellers accept that they are either housebound or they clear their own roads.

I hate this urban dweller driven self righteous assault on rural dwelling, generally driven by people whom are:
1. Generally speaking ill informed.
2. Not understanding of peoples desire to, and right to, live where they wish.
3. Most likely from a rural background if they look to one or even possibly, both parents.
4. Adopting a supposedly "green" stance because they hear others talking rubbish.
5. Show no understanding of the fact that if we all lived in urban centres there would be no milk, eggs, meat, and so on.

Living in a rural area, I probably spend less time in my car than the average city dweller though I drive far further. Is it not fair to assume that I pollute less therefore than my counterpart? I grow a fair proportion of my own food. I pay for water and all extra services I avail of?

Pray tell then, why I should not continue to reside in my rural setting without this constant barrage from the green brigade telling me I am undeserving of the "supports that the state are providing for me"??

Pineapple_Boi wrote: »

it is still the height of madness that people in this country buy milk imported from abroad when there is a milk lake here at home

I couldn't agree more. This is one of the biggest problems we face in Ireland, we don't see the bigger picture, we support the economies of other countries and then complain when our children have to outmigrate!! When will we ever cop-on?

Sapsorrow

old boy wrote: »

methinks according to the op one who choses to live out in the sticks are just a little bit deprived, for me the cinema is 19 miles away, mc donalds the same, the nearest big shopping mall is also 19 miles away,i have no bus service, i do not live in a box roomed house, alongside 100 more indentical ones, i have no street lighting, no recycled toilet waste in my sink tap, no car noise 24 hours a day, no danger of been broken into, no anti social beheivour, no having to keep my doors and windows locked 24/7, no management service telling me what i cannot do to my own property, no refuse bins being overturned, or uncollected, no litter strewen roads and sidewalks, no trains rumbling in the distance, no sirens wailing, not having to dodge rushing bodys on the sidewalks, oh and i almost forgot no rush hour, ah yes.

Bubble has regained some strength again thanks
I agree with all of the abve except we have a problem with people dumping on our beautiful road because it's so secluded, what is wrong with people! :mad:

Sapsorrow

I often feel guilty about all the driving we do, I commute to college most days and had planned to get the train but it's so expensive and my partner can't find any work so we're already on the breadline paying for 20 euro's worth of petrol a week ( it's 13euro a day return and a fiver each way to bring my bike on! :eek:)
But last year we cultivated an entire acre with veg and were able to supply 4 families (friends and neighbours) with free veg for months and months so surely that counts for something? Any thoughts?

Macha

HelenRyan wrote: »

Does the quality of a persons life ever come into the thoughts of a greenie, or is it a case of ants first?

Define "quality of life".

You might also want to read up on the role of ants in contributing to your "quality of life" through their role in issues like soil aeration and pest control.

Lollymcd wrote: »

As an aside, is there not a law restricting the destruction of hedgerows?

Yes, hedgerows can only be trimmed between the 1st September and the end of February, according to the Irish Wildlife Act. The REPS scheme for sustainable farming also contains some stipulations in relation to hedgerow management.

robtri

Both urban and rural living have their plus sides and their negative sides, but from an enviromental perspective, I would think living in an urban are these days is much more enviromantal destructive.....

urban area's have a lot of public transport, using dublin for example, virtually everyone has access to buses.... then the luas , dart and train services... yet the amount of cars sitting in traffic everyday polluting is massive.....
don't forget those familes who have big SUV for driving around them dublin roads ...like WTF...
litter blackspots.... where are they...... urban area's.....
with expanding urban area's green area's, wildlife all suffer.....


i am not saying rural area's are ideal.... but to me they seem a better way of life for me than a concrete slab to live on......

Mahatma coat

I dunno, how about back to medieval system where we live in Largeish villages but interlink them with highways and trains and International airports, each citizen gets an allotment to the common and this in itself will limit the size to which a town can grow down to it physical capacity to hold sustain people, there is no more organic solution than that.

course any dispersed civilisation like that wouldrequire a central 'one world government' against which we would natuarally rebell, and in effect destroy ourselves

Del2005

old boy wrote: »

methinks according to the op one who choses to live out in the sticks are just a little bit deprived, for me the cinema is 19 miles away, mc donalds the same, the nearest big shopping mall is also 19 miles away,i have no bus service, i do not live in a box roomed house, alongside 100 more indentical ones, i have no street lighting, no recycled toilet waste in my sink tap, no car noise 24 hours a day, no danger of been broken into, no anti social beheivour, no having to keep my doors and windows locked 24/7, no management service telling me what i cannot do to my own property, no refuse bins being overturned, or uncollected, no litter strewen roads and sidewalks, no trains rumbling in the distance, no sirens wailing, not having to dodge rushing bodys on the sidewalks, oh and i almost forgot no rush hour, ah yes.

I'd love to find your paradise as everyone I know living in a rural area has had their doors and windows locked for the last 10+ years for fear of being robbed.

robtri wrote: »

Both urban and rural living have their plus sides and their negative sides, but from an enviromental perspective, I would think living in an urban are these days is much more enviromantal destructive.....

urban area's have a lot of public transport, using dublin for example, virtually everyone has access to buses.... then the luas , dart and train services... yet the amount of cars sitting in traffic everyday polluting is massive.....

If you bothered to look at all these buses, Luases and trains at peak times you'll notice that they are all full and some dangerously overloaded. A lot of people sitting in their cars are coming into the city to work/shop are from rural areas. Which leads us to setting up a proper park and ride system.

don't forget those familes who have big SUV for driving around them dublin roads ...like WTF...

We have very few big SUV's in this country. What most people are driving is a glorified estate which does slightly less MPG then the car it's based on.

litter blackspots.... where are they...... urban area's.....
with expanding urban area's green area's, wildlife all suffer.....
.

Take off them rose tinted glasses. We have litter black spots everywhere not just in or close to urban areas.

Del2005

Mahatma coat wrote: »

I dunno, how about back to medieval system where we live in Largeish villages but interlink them with highways and trains and International airports, each citizen gets an allotment to the common and this in itself will limit the size to which a town can grow down to it physical capacity to hold sustain people, there is no more organic solution than that.

course any dispersed civilisation like that wouldrequire a central 'one world government' against which we would natuarally rebell, and in effect destroy ourselves

The government announced that with the national spatial strategy. Then when and ruined it with the decentralisation mess. Our brown bag planning laws also ruined this by allowing ribbon development along out major roads instead of concentrating development so we could have a large enough mass of people for train stations to be viable.

robtri

Del2005 wrote: »

If you bothered to look at all these buses, Luases and trains at peak times you'll notice that they are all full and some dangerously overloaded. A lot of people sitting in their cars are coming into the city to work/shop are from rural areas. Which leads us to setting up a proper park and ride system.

can you back up that comment, that a lot of people are coming from rural area's to dublin to work.....
i think you would be wrong in that most people working in dublin are from dublin or other urban area's.......
the point being keeping on topic with the op.... CURRENTLY we have **** infrastucture in large urban area's and as a result this is causing the majority of commuters to continue to use their cars as a means of transport, resulting in the massive traffic jams every day... resulting in very high pollution levels.......

Del2005 wrote: »

We have very few big SUV's in this country. What most people are driving is a glorified estate which does slightly less MPG then the car it's based on.

really???????
i will give you that the SUV's arent as big or as gas guzzling as other places like the US, but they do emit high quanitities of Co2....

so most SUV's here are based on cars??? care to list the top ten sold SUV's and the car the are based on.......
try looking at co2 emmissions for SUV's such as Audi Q7, BMW X5, VW tourareg.... and so on..

Del2005 wrote: »

Take off them rose tinted glasses. We have litter black spots everywhere not just in or close to urban areas.

If you actually bother to read my comments.... there is nothing rose tinted about them... yes we have litter black spots all over the country, just the reallybad ones are generally in Urban area's...... look up the litter leagues... ...

djpbarry

robtri wrote: »

CURRENTLY we have **** infrastucture in large urban area's and as a result this is causing the majority of commuters to continue to use their cars as a means of transport, resulting in the massive traffic jams every day...

I don't think it's quite as simple as that - a large number of those car journeys are totally unnecessary.

robtri

djpbarry wrote: »

I don't think it's quite as simple as that - a large number of those car journeys are totally unnecessary.

i agree, a lot of journeys are unneccessary, and only compund the problem.

Mahatma coat

djpbarry wrote: »

I don't think it's quite as simple as that - a large number of those car journeys are totally unnecessary.

Eh, Stall the ball one goddammed second here, Who are you, that decides arbitrarily, whether a journey is 'neccessary' or not???

djpbarry

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Eh, Stall the ball one goddammed second here, Who are you, that decides arbitrarily, whether a journey is 'neccessary' or not???

I didn’t say ‘journey’, I said ‘car journey’; far too many people are overly-reliant on their cars for travelling short distances and surveys from the DTO support this. For example, a 2007 survey found that 40% of car owners don’t consider any travel options other than the car, 27% of all respondents said the car is preferable for short journeys of a mile or less, while 47% of all car owners take their car on these short journeys. A second 2007 survey found that half of all primary schoolchildren in Dublin and surrounding counties were driven to school every day, even though 55% of respondents travelled 2km or less to their school. Such a heavy reliance on private cars is totally unsustainable.

Sapsorrow

djpbarry wrote: »

A second 2007 survey found that half of all primary schoolchildren in Dublin and surrounding counties were driven to school every day, even though 55% of respondents travelled 2km or less to their school.

:eek: Thats a disgrace, when I was growing up you were lucky to get a lift in a tractor bucket in the p*ssing rain! And we had to cycle 5 miles to secondary school every day rain or shine and EVERYONE did it!
No wonder kids are getting so obese what with all the crap food to compound the problem.

Mahatma coat

how many more people drop their kids off on the way to work than when we were kids ?

RedPlanet

I couldn't agree more with the OP.
Here's an article written by a tree-hugger with an ideal of self-sufficiency.
After spending a decade out in the country along with other self-sufficiency buffs, they packed it in and moved back to a city.
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/3757

The Big Rural Footprint

I had always assumed that cities would be the worst place to be in bad times. I’m revising my opinion. Granted, Portland is an exceptional city. (Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone!) But I can’t help comparing this neighborhood to our old one. There, we were twelve families on two miles of road, driveways hundreds of feet long, all served by long runs of phone and electric wire, individual septic systems and wells, each commuting long distances.

In the city, an equal group of twelve families use 10% of the road, wire, and pipe needed in my old neighborhood. Many neighbors bus or bike to work, or at worst, drive single-digit mileages.

This is not the place to go deeply into the question of whether cities are more sustainable than contemporary American country life, but at each point where I delve into the issues, I find suggestions that
urbanites have a smaller ecological footprint per capita.

Urbanites Have Smaller Carbon Footprints
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/environment/May-June-08/Urbanites-Have-Smaller-Carbon-Footprints.html

boomshackala

+1
However villiage to large town living, that's another thing
But big cities are probably not sustainable

RedPlanet

The city of Havana (pop 2.4m) is pretty much writing the book on this.
Urban gardening is the future.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/04/0080501
(long article)

If you believe in Peak Oil, Life After Oil and a low energy future.

boomshackala

Agreed too. Cuba and the Soviet Union survived collapsing economies with a relative tolerable level of misery. They had the benefit of socialist systems though. Try ask an american who has just been foreclosed and living in a tent city if they have been allocated a decent garden. Dimitri Orlov has plenty to say on the matter, great read if you can spare he time

Dublin is not actually too bad for green space it seems