Originally Posted by stevep
As far as how my wife would feel, she would be jealous if I went care (Freudian slip) free.
As far as moving to a better place, this brings up another issue. I'm not meaning to bring up personal things for the world to discuss, but we are having a debate about what our next living arrangement should be. She is on the side of moving further out in to the country, getting more land, living as sustainable as possible on that land. Even though I would love to do that, I think it would be more responsible to move closer to town into a higher density area which would drastically reduce our gas and oil consumption, but would increase our reliance on businesses and the general unsustainable delivery of foods and services.
What is more responsible, living low impact on a lot of land or moving into the city and relying more on public transportation and walking/ biking?
If you intend to become a subsistence farmer, by all means go out and live on the land. Otherwise, just resign yourself to the simple fact that living the bucolic life your wife dreams about (and I don't blame her for wanting to do it) is going to have a
much bigger impact on the biosphere than living closer in and going without a car. If you live in the country, being a modern American, you'll most likely still be reliant on businesses to fulfill your basic needs, and you'll not only deal with longer commutes, you'll have larger utility bills, you'll spend more time in the car just to amuse yourself and your family, you'll spend less time with your kids because you'll be out mowing grass and fixing things on your time off, and you'll possibly be dealing with a septic system.