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We were and remain right to uphold nature, wildlife and the rural landscape as places critical to celebrate and preserve. But what we realize now, many of us anyway, is that cities and towns – the communities where for millennia people have aggregated in search of more efficient commerce and sharing of resources and social networks – are really the environmental solution, not the problem: the best way to save wilderness is through strong, compact, beautiful communities that are more, not less, urban and do not encroach on places of significant natural value.
Seeing cities as the environmental solution, not the problem, from the National Resources Defense Council Staff Blog.
American environmentalists from Thoreau and John Muir onward have held country living as more desireable and superior to life in morally bankrupt towns and cities. The NRDC argues that it is time to critique and rethink the American bucolic ideal, which, in practice leads to sprawl, increased car use, and further environmental degredation. Rather we should encourage more attractive “human habitats” in the form of beautiful, livable cities in order to better protect nature.
New York City boasts less than half the US average for per capita carbon emissions: 10.6 tons versus the US average of 23.6 tons, and is the only US city where most households do not own cars (source). Clearly, any modern, relevant definition of green living must take such factors into account.
Posted on August 12, 2011 with 1 note ()
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brokavore posted this
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Two broke Brooklynites + food politics, sustainability, and environmentalism = Brooklyn Brokavore
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