cooker

Just read it a bit more - it's a "pie in the sky" concept piece, not a viable proposal. It would work if governments mandated (ie. forced) that all suburbanites install full solar panelling on their homes and drive electric cars.

In the USA at the moment, many homeowner associations have rules that you aren't allowed to install any solar panels, so it would require a huge cultural shift to overcome entrenched resistance and I don't think the people "rolling coal" are going to come around very soon.

Plus who would pay for manufacturing all that photovoltaic acreage, and is there even enough raw material like lithium and rare earths to build the installations and vehicles?

So basically it is a utopian vision.

Machka 

That's why I posted it "just for fun".

It's as viable as any of the other ideas being tossed about ... like multi-story parking garages every half mile.


But on a slightly more serious note ... the solar power ideas in that article are being used to a certain extent in places like Bordeaux.
An update on Stade Bordeaux Atlantique, the next big sporting arena ~ Invisible Bordeaux
Construction starts on solar-powered stadium - CNET

We cycled past that stadium in late 2012, and were quite impressed with all the solar panels over the parking area.

tandempower

I hate to imagine conspiracies but to me it seems like there is an active army of socialists who are cutting down trees just to spite conservationists for putting conservation interests over GDP growth. Whether it's a conspiracy or not, there are people who would cut down every tree they could to convert into money to pay for the energy derived from burning the rest of the wood. They don't look at well-treed cities and forests as public wealth but as obstacles to them increasing their personal income. They seem to think there's something worth spending money on once they're living in a sprawling wasteland devoid of trees. It's disturbing that there's so little to do about it without picking a fight that could further exacerbate things and make them worse. You can tell them over and over that prosperity comes by protecting natural land, trees, etc. and reducing sprawl but they don't know how to live happily with stagnant or declining income and conservative spending and so they support environmental destruction in the fleeting hope that it will put more money into their pockets.

How many arborists are thinking, "I'm trimming this tree to improve its health and longevity," and how many are thinking, "more cutting means more work hours and thus more pay?" How many people look at a field/forest being cleared for a construction project and think, "I wonder if there is a way to live without this construction even if it means less GDP and less jobs," and how many are thinking, "I don't care what the purpose of this building will be as long as it creates jobs and puts money into the economy?"

I-Like-To-Bike

Yeah sure. Whatever happened to the conspiracy to run a prison based society in the U.S. that you previously posted that the mysterious "they" were up to?

Machka 

You really need to stop hiding from the orderlies when they come round with the medication!!

RPK79

You just described this entire thread.

tandempower

It's not a conspiracy. It is simply a consequence of the relatively high level of GDP-per-capita required to provide everyone with a car and the means to drive it. If recession hits and budgets are cuts, people lose income. At that point do they ride bikes, take buses, or steal and commit other crimes to afford to continue driving? The only question that remains is what the relationship between sprawl-growth reaching its limits and economic recession is. Don't you think that a city growing so sprawling that people are moving away to escape the motor-traffic nightmare has negative economic effects? It's literally the bursting of a geographic economic bubble and, yes, people go to prison (and die) when economic recession hits. The recession would be less and people would have more options for living with less income if there was transportation parity - ergo lack of transportation parity is a factor that pushes more people to crime and death. It's not conspiracy; it's simply economic logic.

People resort to calling others crazy when they have no reasonable basis for refuting what they say logically.

RPK79

I used to have logic similar to that back in my pot smoking days of youth.

tandempower

Why do you think that 3-acre parking lots every quarter mile is viable? Why do you think that 4-6 lane roads filled with motor-traffic making trips between 10 and 70 miles multiple times daily without any imaginable hope of getting around by bike or transit is viable?

Things like lighting, electronics, and small appliances are well-suited for solar panels. Things like climate control, cooking, electric clothes drying, and DRIVING, are more energy-intense and thus less suited for solar power.

Regardless, electric vehicles only address the issue of power-sourcing. They do nothing about sprawl and disparity with cycling and transit. If cycling and transit are going to provide relief from the pressure to constantly widen roads and expand cities as they overfill with motor-traffic, everyone can't drive. It's really that simple. Why do people keep avoiding addressing that and instead focusing on power-sourcing, farmland, etc.?

Please answer the following questions (to everyone):

1) If average trips in an area are 10-60 miles, do you think there is adequate freedom for most able-bodied people to choose cycling or transit instead of driving?

2) If cycling and transit aren't viable options for living in an area, do you believe that the population of that area can grow indefinitely without undue congestion and driving-hassle causing social and economic problems for many if not most people?

3) If such areas grow to the point of unsustainablity and outlying areas or other new areas begin expanding according to the same driving-dependency model, can infrastructure growth keep up with population growth and/or sustain economic growth?

4) Are driving-dependent areas more vulnerable to economic recession than areas with greater transportation parity/choice? If not, why not?

5) If somehow social-economic governance can be used to permanently stave off recession and ensure perpetual growth of automobilist sprawl-cities, will there be sufficient opportunities in those cities for people to exercise outdoors and experience natural land or will most people end up driving to gyms as their exclusive option for exercise away from motor-traffic? Will their experience of nature become limited to those few parks and trees that are left in between parking lots, roads, and buildings?

6) Will (most) children grow up with the opportunity to move somewhere they can walk and cycle for transportation or will such areas become so scarce that they are subject to rigorous immigration control, such as Europe and probably other areas of the world as well are? If children grow up without this opportunity, is this not practically the same thing as imprisoning them in a world of private venues separated by long-drives? Does anyone consider this a healthy way to experience life?


Because only pot-smoking hippies can value trees? The more I understand the function of trees for managing water and regulating outdoor temperatures, the more I wonder how ignorant people have to be to reach full adulthood without grasping the simple physics and chemistry of what trees do for the environment.

RPK79

No, because following wild thoughts down crazy streams with seemingly logical rational to you yet completely unreasonable in reality is the bread and butter of pot smokers. Never said anything about hippy tree huggers.

RPK79

I think some of you need to get out of the city and visit some more rural areas. You may find yourselves pleasantly surprised.

I-Like-To-Bike

I used to hear similar logic spouted from college freshman BS'ing in the late hours after a few too many. Usually after at least one of them had at least a few weeks of of Soc. or Psy 101 and had become a self styled "intellectual."

cooker

I like rural. The parts that don't look like this:

tandempower

When people post ad hom insults with no explicit reasoning with regard to anything they've said, it indicates that their reasoning either 1) is non-existent or 2) they are too afraid of being wrong to actually put it on the table.

We've also all encountered people like you in college (and elsewhere) who make little snyde comments without saying anything substantial. It's called reactionism; i.e. reacting against what others say because you have nothing valuable to say yourself.

RPK79

Sorry, some of your content isn't quite worth countering since it is so off the wall. To dispute it would be giving it more credence than it deserves.

tandempower

If that's your opinion, why don't you just ignore it altogether instead of posting snyde little comments devoid of explicit reasoning?

RPK79

That's not as much fun. Besides, if people don't say *something* you might start to think you're actually right.

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure, some people think "bad ideas" are good; worse ones are even better. At least if the goal is to keep a deadhead thread/list active with discussion no matter how silly the bad idea(s).

tandempower

When I think I'm right, I post my reasons to see if others have other reasons I haven't thought about. You assume you're right, don't post any reasons, and then use snyde commentary to imply that you are without saying anything about why you might be or not.

You criticize authoritarian dictatorship yet you toss your judgments around as arbitrary prerogatives and imply that they are absolute truths. You suggest the thread should be de-activated because you have nothing to say about why you have a problem with it, yet you still think you're opinion should be decisive.

Seriously?

RPK79

We've both given reasons in the past and they were ignored by you. I think it's important to keep reminding your that your opinions are not shared by everyone. We're doing God's work (I'm an atheist).

I-Like-To-Bike

Ya think it might be part of some kind of evil conspiracy?

tandempower

I don't see what purpose it serves to bring up religion except that you're trying to get this thread moved to politics & religion. Could the moderators just strike these posts that contain nothing related to the thread topic? I'll include this post by me in that category.

When you say it, it indeed makes it seem like that's your intention but can we just stick to the thread topic and delete any off topic posts, including this one?

I-Like-To-Bike

Biggest whopper yet. Better than the "stuff" about the freedom and right to "transportation parity" as determined by some master czar who shares the OP's desire to remake the U.S. into a wonderland of shady trees, tiny houses cohabited by happy serfs.And the withholding of funds from states who don't meet the czar's dictates about reorganizing society to make way for the "freedom of transportation parity." The entire thread has been nothing but political, economic and social ranting., much of it stream of conscious babbling.

RPK79

LoL! Yeah, I really moved the thread into a religious discussion. :eyeroll:

Greybeard712

Two words that seldom rub against each other. Applied Intelligence.

I'll procrastinate tomorrow.