Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Mar 24, 2009 12:51:22 GMT -5
City dwellers 'harm climate less'
newscientist.com — City lights may burn bright, but overall the greenhouse gas emissions of large cities are far below those of rural areas, a new report finds. More… (Environment)
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City dwellers 'harm climate less'
* 12:21 23 March 2009 by Nora Schultz * For similar stories, visit the Climate Change Topic Guide
City lights may burn bright, but overall the greenhouse gas emissions of large cities are far below those of rural areas, a new report finds.
David Dodman at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, who led the study, says previous claims that cities contribute disproportionately to global climate change are unfounded.
"Historically, people have associated pollution and environmental damage with cities and, as far as climate warming goes, it is true that urban areas have large energy consumption," he says. "But many emissions come from rural areas, and methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide."
To discover just how bad city life is for the climate, Dodman compared greenhouse gas emissions in 12 large cities around the world with the average emissions of their respective countries. He found that, on average, city dwellers emit fewer greenhouse gases than the average for their country (see the complete list at bottom). 'Critical mass'
In terms of per-capita emissions, the most environmentally unfriendly city of those studied is Washington, DC. With 19.7 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per head, the carbon footprint of each citizen there is nearly three times that of other large cities in developed nations. Dodman blames this on the amount of office space in the city. However, residents of DC still emit only 82.4% of the US average.
This holds true for other wealthy cities. Per capita emissions in New York, Toronto and Barcelona are only a third of their national average, and the emissions of Tokyo, London and Seoul come in at about half of their countries' level.
"There are density-related advantages for both travel and heating," says Dodman. "When you have a critical mass of people like in London or New York, public transport becomes a feasible option for many, while people in more rural areas rely more on cars. And a flat that is surrounded by others is more efficient to heat than a free-standing house."
On paper, citizens of the Brazilian cities Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have small carbon footprints, emitting only 28 and 18% of the country's average. But according to Dodman, this is "more because the Brazilian national profile is heavily dominated by deforestation and agriculture, not because those cities are doing particularly well".
Beijing and Shanghai, in contrast, emit more than double China's national average, but this most likely results from their thriving manufacturing industries and city boundaries encompassing more rural areas than elsewhere, he says. 'Outsourced emissions'
Jim Hall at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK says that, although dense cities may reduce transport emissions and act as "hugely beneficial" hubs of innovation, their total effect on the climate also depends on measures that were not captured by the current analysis.
"Cities where the service sector dominates have outsourced carbon intensive industries to developing countries, yet are still voracious consumers of industrial products," Hall says. "There is a large discrepancy between production-based and consumptions-based metrics of emissions."
Dodman agrees. "The emissions for a pair of shoes made in China and sold in the UK are currently allocated to China, not to [the UK], so it is fair to ask whether we should count emissions according to the location of production or the location that is driving the consumption."
Dodman also stresses that despite comparing well to their nations' average carbon footprint, western cities have room for plenty of improvement. In the list of top climate offenders, their emissions still dwarf those from cities in developing nations. Dirty dozen?
The following list shows the greenhouse gas emissions per person in the 12 cities analysed – in descending order of emissions. The cities were chosen on the basis of good data being available for comparison and to cover Asia, Europe and North and Latin America.
1. Washington, DC, US – 19.7 tonnes of CO2 equivalent
2. Glasgow, UK – 8.4 tonnes
3. Toronto, Canada – 8.2 tonnes
4. Shanghai, China – 8.1 tonnes
5. New York City, US – 7.1 tonnes
6. Beijing, China – 6.9 tonnes
7. London, UK – 6.2 tonnes
8. Tokyo, Japan – 4.8 tonnes
9. Seoul, South Korea – 3.8 tonnes
10. Barcelona, Spain – 3.4 tonnes
11. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 2.3 tonnes
12. Sao Paulo, Brazil – 1.5 tonnes
Journal Reference: Environment & Urbanization (DOI: 10.1177/0956247809103016) www.newscientist.com/article/dn16819-city-dwellers-harm-climate-less.html
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Bozur
Amicus
Posts: 5,515
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Post by Bozur on Mar 24, 2009 13:04:05 GMT -5
some replies ------ Demand Is The Issue
Mon Mar 23 12:42:19 GMT 2009 by GMcCredie
Almost all the emissions from rural communities will be as a result of urban demand, demand created by population. Until we control human population things will keep get worrying. ------- Demand Is The Issue
Tue Mar 24 02:12:48 GMT 2009 by BP
Its a fact. Cities compromise of approximately 2% of the land, but consume 95% of the resources.
It's urban demand that is the cause of higher environmental impact.
All those cows, pigs, and chickens with all the agricultural fields go towards supplying urban living.
Rural areas by themselves, have less resource consumption overall.
Your analogies are lacking.
-------- Demand Is The Issue
Mon Mar 23 21:41:26 GMT 2009 by J B
Even though GMcCredie may not "know" what he has suggested, it is nevertheless a reasonable supposition which should be taken into account.
The article does not talk about long car trips, it talks about methane emissions. These are primarily from cattle and sheep. Who eats the cattle and sheep? It's not just the locals. They get carted away in big smoke spewing trucks, taken to the slaughter house, cut up, shipped in large pieces for processing where they get cut up into smaller pieces, wrapped in cling film and then finally stacked into supermarket fridges - mostly in CITIES!
Now getting back to transport. In rural areas people have to drive FURTHER to get to places. But the majority of the food they consume does not have to come from very far, so they have lower average emissions than city dwellers with regard to delivery of food.
More importantly though, further does not necessarily equate to more emissions. Compare the farmer who does the big drive to his local town once a week for supplies, to the urbanite who spends 2 hours a day, 5 days a week getting to and from work in heavy traffic.
I live in a big city by the way, and know plenty of people who consume massive amounts of fuel for their personal use. Once guy who has a big commute and drives a 4WD, goes through over 100L fuel every week.
Whilst I believe that we have the potential to massively reduce emissions for city dwellers, it would take some massive improvements in infrastructure and possibly some quite draconian clampdown on private vehicle usage. There seems to be little will for such measures.
---------- Oh My! I'll Have To Quit Farming
Mon Mar 23 12:50:30 GMT 2009 by Farmer John
I am so shamed living as I do in a rural area; farming so many acres of wheat, corn, sunflower and beets. I think that I will just quit doing that so that my carbon footprint will be as politically correct as that of the city dweller
----------- The Solution Seems Obvious To Me
Mon Mar 23 13:24:02 GMT 2009 by Doug
It appears that people in rural areas should immediately work to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This can be accomplished by suspending all food production activities above and beyond thier own subsistence needs. Granted, this would lead to mass starvation in the cities of the world, but hey, at least the rural carbon footprint would shrink, eh?
I think that this article is rather poorly produced, not taking into account the needs of the urbanites and the fact that those needs can only be met by the food production of the rural zones. Every urban dweller is complicit with the greenhouse emissions of the country, including the fossil fuels needed to ship their meals an average of 1500 miles from the field to their tables.
Setting up a class-rivalry based on where people live won't do anything to set this right.
------- Ok, That Looks Poorly Designed.
Mon Mar 23 13:26:53 GMT 2009 by Galbinus_Caeli
A serious problem I see here is that a significant portion of the "rural" production is going to be in support of the "urban" population. If a farmer grows crops, then a trucker drives those crops to a processor, then the processor produces a packaged food product, which is then trucked to a city where it is microwaved and consumed, then the trash trucked back out of the city and land filled in the country, how much of that should be counted as "city" production? I would say all of it, but from this article I think that the study is only counting the energy used to microwave the food.
Poor study design. Or poor reporting of the study.
----------- Rural Dwellers Are Not All Farmers
Mon Mar 23 14:32:55 GMT 2009 by Reg
In the UK the bulk of rural dwellers have nothing to do with the land or with farming. Many small towns and villages have become little more than dormitories which empty out each morning as their inhabitants commute to the nearest city, often on their own in a car.
From an environmental standpoint, the majority of rural dwellers should move to the cities where they work.
----------- Rural Produce - Urban Consume
Mon Mar 23 16:00:05 GMT 2009 by David Norris
Does this report take into account that it is the city dwellers that consume the methane-producing products of the rural economy?
As has been said, it is the ever growing population that is the problem. The suggestion that we need perpetual population growth to maintain the economy is madness. We will have to learn to live with a stable population sometime - infinite growth and infinite population is plainly impossible.
-------- Whoa, Hold Up, You've Got Som Serious Math Errors In There. . .
Tue Mar 24 00:35:01 GMT 2009 by random mathemetician
of course the "average" city dweller is going to emit less CO2 than an "average" rural person. that's because the rural person has to be more active than a city dweller. They're going to have more equipment, tractors, pumps, etc than a city person would. br br
your study lacks mentioning that city-dwellers may use less per-capita, but there are MANY times more of them, more closely packed, amplifying individual emissions.
br br
Previous commenters are also correct in stating that most additional rural output is due to the cities needing things from the rural communities. Look at the average LA suburb: what are its output products? what's its consumption rate?
A rural area will most likely produce output in the forms of labor, fruits, vegetables, meats...items of produce.
A suburb does not produce anything. People simply live there and do not use the area to output anything. They waste fuel to go to another area, and produce output there, only to waste more fuel getting back.
From a strict input/output point of view, cities are massive consumer focus points, supported by the producing areas around it
---------- No Logic
Tue Mar 24 01:34:19 GMT 2009 by Ronnie
Where is the logic? The environmental damage done by the urban area is a total covering with steel & concrete. Therefore I would question the article's point on environmental damage. Population is the reason for high pollution & methane/CO2. Rural areas produce the food & fiber, etc.... for cities. Remove the urban population & there wouldn't be a huge market. How come the writer didn't think urban areas outsource emissions to rural area's. Remove all the rural people or urban, which do you think would lower pollution/emissions more? Not that I'm advocating removing my city brothers, just don't try & convince me of this left wing agenda crap.
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