Rising Cities, Shrinking Emissions?

By TIM KILLEEN

Richard Florida wrote yesterday at The Atlantic about 2009's rise in city populations. The Atlantic as an organization has begun a fascination with the revival that urban areas have seen over the last 10 or 20 years, with more young people opting for these areas and the major innovations that have had to come out of that growing population. One thing that's been discussed- but not enough- is how cities are reshaping our use of energy and making the world a more "green" place to live.

When you first think about it, the idea of cities being better for the environment may seem backwards. Don't areas with high populations cause a lot of pollution? Aren't we doing terrible things to the land by constantly expanding our city limits and tearing down more trees and green space to accommodate more people? Yes, sort of. But cities are green in a whole host of ways that suburbs simply are not.

First, cramming people into a smaller area may mean a lot of pollution in that one area, but it's much more efficient to have people living in closer quarters than all spread out. People in tight spaces make choices out of necessity that also happen to be green: smaller homes and apartments use less energy; owning a condo in a larger building is more efficient for heating and cooling than separate homes; people often opt out of driving places as to avoid traffic and take public transportation, walk or bike instead. And with the rise in population, most cities don't seem to be expanding out, but up- causing efficiency to actually rise rather than razing nature.

Cities are also leading the way in a lot of environmental innovation. Energy grids are becoming "smarter," in an attempt to better distribute clean energy where it's needed and conserve it where it's not. Electric cars are perfect for city driving, as the current state of batteries dictates short commutes. Public transit, already a fairly green concept, is moving even farther to reduce emissions, with cities purchasing hybrid buses and using more efficient rail systems. Urban planning has, for a good while, considered green space within a city to be paramount to sound city layouts. And, as Chadwick Flores explained yesterday, urban agriculture is seeing a revival, with more farmer's markets, community gardens, etc. popping up all over and city restaurants beginning to use more sustainable and local produce. (Huffington Post even recently ran this story about green bars- most of which are in cities).

Certainly, city living has its environmental downsides and it's not as green as living out on a farm and growing your own food. But as more people opt for an urban lifestyle, it's interesting to watch what once was considered a dirty and environmentally-dangerous way to live make a 180-degree turn. Cities continue to make advancements in the green movement and should be commended and recognized for those achievements.

Analyzing Palin's Logic

Yesterday, Sarah Palin- one time VP candidate, half time governor, full-time "mama grizzly"- posted a note on her Facebook page, blaming "extreme enviros" for the BP oil spill and claiming that drilling in places like the protected ANWR would have prevented such a disaster. Because some 7,000+ people (at the time of this writing) clicked that they "liked" Palin's post, I think it's important to go through the major portions of it and look at the claims being made.

Palin writes:

This is a message to extreme “environmentalists” who hypocritically protest domestic energy production offshore and onshore. There is nothing “clean and green” about your efforts. Look, here’s the deal: when you lock up our land, you outsource jobs and opportunity away from America and into foreign countries that are making us beholden to them. Some of these countries don’t like America. Some of these countries don’t care for planet earth like we do – as evidenced by our stricter environmental standards.

First, environmentalists don't protest domestic energy production offshore and onshore, they protest drilling for oil offshore (because of the fear of exactly what's happening) and onshore in certain special wildlife sanctuaries. There are, surprisingly, other means of "energy production" that don't even involve oil- wind, solar, hydrogen fuel cells, etc.- and environmentalists all for those right here in America.

With your nonsensical efforts to lock up safer drilling areas, all you’re doing is outsourcing energy development, which makes us more controlled by foreign countries, less safe, and less prosperous on a dirtier planet. Your hypocrisy is showing. You’re not preventing environmental hazards; you’re outsourcing them and making drilling more dangerous.

Really? Nonsensical? The point is to keep certain areas safe from environmental disasters. Say what you will about the likelihood of such a catastrophe vs. the benefit of domestic oil, it certainly makes some sense. Also, what makes Palin and others believe that by opening domestic drilling cites, foreign countries won't still be used for oil as well? Oil companies don't care if we're dependent on foreign oil, just that we're dependent on oil. There's no set number of drilling cites that can be active at any one time, and opening up more cites doesn't mean companies will close down others to drill at home, they'll just drill in both places and make higher profits.

Radical environmentalists: you are damaging the planet with your efforts to lock up safer drilling areas. There’s nothing clean and green about your misguided, nonsensical radicalism, and Americans are on to you as we question your true motives.

Honestly, let's be fair here. Environmentalists concerned about drilling disasters are not the following: "radical"- they have been proven to be correct through the BP spill and because shallow-water drilling has also led to disasters which is why the ban was put in place to begin with; "damaging the planet"- oil companies who screw up or do their jobs negligently are doing that, not the people who want to protect wildlife; un-clean and un-green- once again, simply because an oil driller has done his job improperly does not mean it's the fault of environmentalists who worked to bar him from screwing up in wildlife refuges. There are options outside of drilling in ANWR, shallow coasts and deep water- we've been getting our oil elsewhere (including on-land American drilling cites) for years.

This type of rhetoric goes over big with the folks who need a mantra to chant and a "tough lady" to follow, but it simply has no base in logic. Oil disasters are caused either by fluke accidents or, more often, by human error and negligence in drilling. I understand Palin has an affinity for oil companies, but there comes a time when even the poor, battered, defenseless corporation deserves to take responsibility for its actions.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

As logic often eludes chanting crowds, the environmental dangers of offshore drilling seemed either to escape the audiences of John McCain's 2008 campaign rallies or just not make any difference at all (I hope the former, I assume the latter). However, the recent spill in the Gulf is a perfect example of why the ban on offshore drilling (put in place by a Republican President) existed in the first place and why it needs to stay in effect now.

Dan Lashof notes in the Huffington Post:

The damage being done by the oil gushing out of the hole left by the Deepwater Horizon blowout and coating birds, killing turtles, decimating fisheries and destroying wetlands is visible for all to see. Had it been successfully produced by BP and burned for its energy, the oil would have been converted into carbon dioxide, which is colorless and odorless but still dangerous.

However, as issues become more and more politicized and politics becomes more and more polarized, we see sides being taken even on environmental issues as obvious as this. For some, the devastation of an ecosystem just doesn't seem to matter. So, let's not just focus on the environmental aspect of the issue; let's come to the political right from a perspective they understand and love: economics.

Look here and here to see one aspect of the economic impact of an oil spill. However, it's not just local and small businesses being harmed. BP will have to pay substantial amounts for the cleanup and, though I don't know for sure, one could assume they'll pay out more to clean it up than they would have, simply, to implement stronger safeguards. Shipping costs will go up for any business whose freighters had to go out of their way so as not to interfere with the cleanup effort. Litigation costs that will arise out of this catastrophe will be high. Tourism in an area still hurting from Katrina will be down this summer. Federal, state and local governments will, surely, bear some of the financial burden. All of these are strong economic incentives to keep from risky drilling in offshore areas. While "Shine, Baby, Shine" is a much less catchy slogan, we need to consider that the economic drawbacks to implementing costly solar and wind power programs would be mitigated by the fact that such programs pose much less risk for costly damage control.

Earth Day, Ctd.

Those who are interested, may want to check out Lester Brown's Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth. Though the book is now nine years old, he makes some good points, positing that corporate interests need to put a high value on natural resources, as without them, the ability to create products vanishes. This seems like a practical way to talk environmentalism in a private sector fashion.

Also, The Atlantic has here its "8 Best Earth Day Ideas."