The best place for an environmentalist to live is in the city. If you love nature, stay away from it.
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If you want to take good care of the environment, stay away
from it and live in cities. Edward L. Glaeser
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That might be an odd notion. We like to be close to the things
we love.
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Environmentalists like to be close to nature.
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Indeed theres a long-held misconception in the U.S., perhaps
beginning with Thoreau, that we can effectively live among the
trees, interspersed with nature.
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But there are almost 7 billion of us. If we all moved closer to
nature, there would be no nature, only us.
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Nature is vanishing.
To restore it, we need to live closer, travel less, sustain
ourselves by growing and producing closer to home and occupying
less space.
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Approximately 20% of North American forests have been
permanently cleared for agriculture and other uses.
Currently, forest cover is stable, however, in most of the
lower 48 states and southern Canada, remaining forests have
experienced significant human disturbance and do not possess the
same degree of ecological integrity as the original forest.
www.globalforestwatch.org
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According to one estimate, stands of century-old forest now
account for only 7% of forest cover in the United States.
www.globalforestwatch.org
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Farms and our food supply are also threatened.
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It is estimated that 570,000 hectares of rural land was
converted to urban uses between 1982 and 1992.
U.S. Department of Agricultures National Resource Conservation
Service
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You might have heard the phrase killing with kindness. Its not
likely the intention, but we destroy nature when we come too close
to it.
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Living in nature means we need to drive more.
In many cases it means we want our friends to live in nature
too.
Only then might we notice where there was nature, there is only
us.
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If you would be known, and not know,
vegetate in a village;
if you would know and not be known, live in a city .
Charles Caleb Colton
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Suburban residents may be closer to more greenery, but city
residents are greenest in terms of energy use.
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David Owen, writing in the New Yorker , commented that New York
City is more populous than all but eleven states; if it were
granted statehood it would rank fifty-first in per-capita energy
use.
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Imagine if New Yorkers, all 8 million of us, abandoned the city
and moved out yonder.
If we all lived on a one-acre lot, we would occupy a space half
the size of Maine.
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That would make for a very big carbon footprint!
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Residents of metro areas have smaller partial carbon footprints
than the average American.
The average metro area residents partial carbon footprint (2.24
metric tons) in 2005 was only 86 percent of the average Americans
partial footprint (2.60 metric tons).
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The difference owes primarily to less car travel and
residential electricity use.
(Brookings Institution)
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Its not entirely about big city vs. small town or suburb,
however.
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Its about density.
Whether in metro areas or small towns, the higher-density
development have smaller transportation and residential carbon
footprints.
(Brookings Institution)
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Low-density metro areas such as Nashville and
Oklahoma City are prominent among the 10 largest per capita
carbon emitters.
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Environmentalists should make good urbanists, since they
understand systems, diversity, connectivity and interdependence
.
Caryl Terrell
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So
Come out of the woods
Be a New Colonist
MOVE IN!
26. STOP! Dont print this, email it to all your friends Be a
New Colonist visit www.newcolonist.com