[Pil-pc-oceania] Deb Guildner: Backyards are disappearing

[Terry Leahy]

Dear Russ, Some interesting points.  As always I seem to make various
assumptions that are not transparent to other readers.  A typical
problem with emails.  See below for detail.

>>> RussGrayson <info at pacific-edge.info> Thursday, 6 September 2007
9:38 pm >>>



On 6/9/07 5:10 PM, "Terry Leahy" <Terry.Leahy at newcastle.edu.au> wrote:

> An interesting issue.   What often bother me is the way "greenies"
are
> targeted as those who want everyone to live in medium and high
density.  From
> an environmentalist point of view, high density living makes sense if
everyone
> is commuting in fossil fuelled vehicles.

It also makes sense if we want compact cities rather than sprawl.
Public
transport is only economical where there is a fairly high population
density
and most of them make use of it.

Not sure about this.  Most models I have seen assume a train line
moving between suburban centres with high density close into the station
and more sprawl and agricultural land a bit further from these hubs (see
e.g. Diesendorf; Trainer).  What is economic in today's world is about
the economic competition between public transport and heavily subsidized
private cars.  Whether it is environmentally feasible to power commuter
public transport over longish distances is another matter.  I am not
assuming huge distances, merely that city centres might be accessible by
train for some commuting.

> However it is a different story if we are trying to grow food locally
after
> the oil crunch.  Then it makes sense for cities to be fairly open and
porous
> with many spaces that can be colonized by food gardens.

The assumption here is that in the depressed economic circumstances
likely
to follow an oil crunch, assuming that no energy substitute is found
in
time, we will be able to afford those houses with land.

There is little chance that people will really put up with the
disasters capitalism will have in store for us if there is no major
social and political change following the oil crunch.  I am sure that
people will just take over whatever housing stock is available - as in
most revolutions.

> In that environment, most jobs requiring commuting are only 20 hours
a week

What jobs would these be? For those that have jobs, anyway. If oil
depletion
follows a nonlinear progress then we are likely to be confronted with
a
global economic depression with all that means for loss of jobs,
livelihoods, homes and so on.

As above, I am not assuming the continuation of the capitalist economy.
 When I say "job" I mean work at some kind of largeish plant or
industrial centre.  But what the economic  meaning of this is I am not
sure and do not want to commit myself really.  Trainer envisages a money
economy with paid jobs in government or heavily regulated private firms.
 I think a gift economy without money is much more likely and likely to
work.  Of course we may readily get to the point where there is no
industrial civilisation at all but I am not making this assumption; I am
talking about what it would be like if we were running a zero growth
economy with less than 5% of the fossil fuels we use now and not all
that much in sustainable energy replacements.  There would be some
industrial plant in town centres, while most production would be at the
local level.  

> and you get to your job in a more central location by walking or
riding a
> bicycle to the train station where you hop on a solar, wind or
biodiesel
> powered train.  

Doubt it Terry. PV panels won't do much to move a 500 tonne suburban
train.
Have to be biofuel of some type.

Dear Russ, do you really think I am that ignorant?  Still it is my
fault for writing in shorthand.  What I mean is electrified trains
powered by a solar (probably solar thermal) plant or wind power fed into
a grid, or biodiesel (with an engine on the train).  What I wonder about
is whether it would be most practical to run these when it is sunny or
when there is wind powering the grid and organise working life around
these rhythms.

> Within suburbs, load bearing transport is on donkey carts

I guess that solves the fertiliser problem for all those urban food
gardens,
but where does the fuel for the donkeys come from? Doubt if there's
enough
space in the cities to grow straw or hay or whatever it is that they
eat, so
will there be competition for agricultural land with urban fringe
market
gardens that feed the city? Will it become a question of feeding people
or
docile quadrapeds?

Possibly.  I suppose this gets back to the old question of whether
ruralisation or suburban food production is more likely.  As on previous
occasions I tend to think a bit of both is the most likely with many
people from big cities moving to more rural locations while their old
cities are filled in with more open space for food production.

> and moving around is on foot, bicycles or rickshaws.  I get
particularly
> annoyed by Michael Duffy (or Duffer) on this subject when he
constantly
> accuses Greenies of destroying the Ozzie backyard.

Well, Dufffy is a soft spoken neoliberal. So of course he blames
greenies
and, generally, anyone else who does not follow his pet economic
philosophy.
remember that these are ideologically-driven people, not people driven
by
common sense, and thus are not very good at following normal processes
of
logic and reasoning.

Yes, he's strange though.  He had a really weird piece in the Herald
about two months ago when he admitted that global warming was likely to
be catastrophic in its effects, or at least acknowledged that this is
the scientific consensus, and then went on to say that the reason all
the political parties are just blowing hot air and not really doing
anything is that it would cost a heck of a lot of money to actually
substantially reduce fossil fuel energy and replace it with something
else.  On this topic see Trainer's forthcoming book "Alternative Energy
Cannot Sustain the Affluent Society" (Dordrecht).


Terry
...Russ

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