California to sue carmakers for pollution
Chris Ayres
September 21, 2006
CALIFORNIA'S love affair with the car is officially over. In one of the most aggressive moves to confront global warming, the Golden State yesterday sued six car manufacturers, including Ford and General Motors, for damages related to pollution, beach erosion and a reduced drinking water supply.
The lawsuit follows a summer of record-breaking 49C (120F) temperatures in California that killed more than 100 people, and comes amid growing concern that Los Angeles would have to be abandoned if the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which supplies most of the city's drinking water, disappears by the end of the century, as some scientists predict.
Although no specific sum of compensation was mentioned in the lawsuit, the amount could easily be in the hundreds of millions. It is not clear how cash-strapped American carmakers could afford to pay.
California's decision to take the lead against car emissions is all the more surprising given that California practically invented car culture, depicted in movies from American Graffiti to The Fast and the Furious. Los Angeles is the home of the TV show Pimp My Ride, Dan Neil, the Pulitzer Prize-winning motoring writer, hot-rod races and drive-thru Starbucks outlets.
Yet Bill Lockyer, the attorney-general of California, issued a declaration of war yesterday. “Vehicle emissions are the single most rapidly growing source of the carbon emissions contributing to global warming, yet the automakers have refused to act,” he said. “It is time to hold these companies responsible for their contribution to this crisis.”
The lawsuit - which brought to mind litigation against the tobacco industry over lung cancer - follows an internationally praised announcement by the Hummer-driving Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, that he wants to cut the Golden State's carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
The target will involve stiff legislation against factories, power plants and refineries, and even tougher emissions standards for car manufacturers, which have themselves sued California, arguing that the standards are a de facto mandate on fuel economy standards, which can be set only by the federal government. Yesterday's counter-suit from Mr Lockyer was California's response.
It accused the car companies, which also included Toyota, DaimlerChrysler, Honda and Nissan, of creating a “public nuisance” by making vehicles that emit huge quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Many scientists argue that greenhouses gases are causing the Earth's climate to warm, devastating agriculture in regions such as Napa Valley, where winemakers are already spraying their vines with sunscreen.
About 30 million vehicles are registered in California - 10 per cent of the national total for the US. According to California's lawsuit, vehicles made by the “Big Six” car manufacturers emit a combined 289 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the US atmosphere every year. These gases account for more than 30 per cent of all the carbon dioxide emissions in California.
Apart from the facinating idea of a state sueing car makers (shouldnt they sue all californians for driving too), im interested in the idea of the natural selection (for want of a better word) of modern cities, particularly in young countries like the US and Australia, where we take the permanence of our society for granted to some extent. are we prepared to lose a city or two which may become socially, environmentally or economically unviable possibly within our lifetimes?
at the moment Perth is growing at some 10-12% per year while our dams our at around 18% capacity, off the back of exports to china the government is seriously considering a pipeline 3500km from the tropics to supply the city, but without the current economy its doubtful that we could continue pumping enough to supply the 4 million residence expected by 2050.
likewise san Francisco, la and new Orleans are potentially on shaky ground (sometimes literally). its reasonable to assume that the existing large cities of the 'old world' are the successful ones, being in stable geological and climactic locations, while Pompeii is an obvious example of a city that didn't make it.
have we reached a state as a civilisation that we have the ability and economy to counter these problems to maintain a city like LA because we have invested so much in its creation?
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.
why sue the car companies? so you can cripple a worker at GM who is only doing his job building your s.u.v.?
instead, sue yourself! might as well sue the developer too if that's what you want to do... the problem is in the market, as long as there is the demand for consumption, the supply will be there. tax pollution, that's it... or like the kyoto protocol, create ownership rights for pollution... or provide desirable alternatves. architects are ideas people are we not?
regarding cities, sadly it's a resource driven society, environmental resources are one thing... but it's the flows of resources, mobility that ultimately kicks our ucket... labour, capital, information are intangible resources as real as anything else... a city can trade these for as much water or energy or food or automobiles as it needs. L.A. won't die... It will just suck the life out of nappa valley, or south american rainforests, or whatever environmentally rich and geographically ideal country or city is part of the global economy...
or maybe we can engineer babies that breathe carbon dioxide...
...or maybe we can engineer babies that breathe carbon dioxide...
Well, not that exactly, bRink, but something along those lines is what interests me. Isn't pretty much any problem solvable through engineering and science combined with a tenacious desire to succeed? And if "success" is defined as a sustainable way of living, or even a step further, a way of living that improves the natural world (leaving the woods cleaner than you found them, for example), why can't we just engineer that future?
I think of the unbelievable odds and hardships of the pioneers going out west in the first place - the novel "The Living" by Annie Dillard brilliantly represents how hard and unforgiving pioneering was - and think if we had even a little of that toughness and desire in our collective conciousness applied to reformatting our cities towards a balanced way of living we would succeed in a generation. I have enormous faith in the collective brainpower of today. Sadly, I'm afraid the current politicization (?) of scientific endeavor has slowed down our ability to research alternative ways of living that could be significantly more sustainable than we live now.
To answer your question, upside down, I do think we have so much invested - simply in material energy, if nothing else - in places like LA and NYC that we do need to keep them viable, but not through means that mess up the remaining open landscape or natural features. On the other hand, I think the city of Flint Michigan should be razed and turned into farmland - organic, of course.
maybe CA should sue HVAC manufactures, power companies, the airlines, concrete kilns, the shipping industry, steel mills, landfills, and alumninum plants to name some of the other 80% of CO2 emmissions!
While they are at it, sue china for all of their air pollution that is impacting the West Coast (china generated about 20% of all toxins in CA's air)
i think the environment will thrive, and it will happen as a couple leaps forward in technology that change society completely...
1. the non-polluting, forever replenishing fuel source, like water... cold fusion or something like it
2. virtual urbanism... where work and interaction can happen in any place you are... changes the way we live
the city becomes more about living and community than about concentrations of labor... since, you can live wherever you want...
real estate begins to decline... but design professions flourish... the virtual and real become one, and everybody buys architecture like buying clothing...
i think that this will happen eventually... its a matter of 30 years from now, within our lifetimes? the old urban pollution, suburban sprawl days will seem like the dark ages...
Good discussion here. I agree with LB... we have too much invested in civilization to go talking heads on it and retreat to nothing but flowers. The only way to fix it is by refitting, not demolition.
As an environmentalist and a Californian, I have to say I'm a bit pissed about this lawsuit. After all, California is suing car manufacturers for operating legally during a period when the state could have enacted tougher emmissions requirements, and didn't. It stinks of retroactive hypocrisy.
What's more interesting than this lawsuit was Schwarzenegger (!) recently signing a bill that would reduce California's greenhouse gas emmissions even more aggressively than the Kyoto treaty that W (and I suspect many current Democrats if given the chance) wouldn''t ratify. I think it is slicing the pie to narrowly to say that propose that every City must be independently sustainable - as Brink pointed out we are too dependant on other producers and flows with different specializations to have such a narrow footprint. Instead, our emphasis should be on sustainable Regions. I think as the cost of energy increases, this will occurr on its own as the cost of shipping diminishes international trade except for very high margin items. This is likely even if fossil fuels are replaced with green energy - it's going to take a shit load of PV panels to push a 747 full of fedex boxes across the US. And I would optimistically like to propose that the politics of adjacency would put more political pressure on the regions themselves to behave responsibly.
Or let's hope so. Otherwise, the only real solution to global sustainability is population control - or more direly, population reduction. And whether through pragmatics or racism, most of the areas that would be earmarked for trimming would be inhabited by yellow and brown people, since the world's temperate regions best suited to human occupation also happen to be mostly occupied by rich white folks.
LB- remind me some time to give you my organic agriculture isn't better for the planet speech (when you're bored).
janosh, im not suggesting a general retreat from civilisation as you put it, it simply wouldnt be possible to reverse the trend of modern urbanisation. my question is more about specific examples and isnt neccesarily related to environmentalism, but to the idea that young countries may find that a few of their cities have been built in areas that are unsuitable in the long run.
using my own city as an example, perth was located here because it was really the only natural harbour with a good supply of water that could export goods from the gold/iron mines and the wheat belt. its becoming apparent however that the local environment cant easily support a city of 2 million. i agree with Lb that there is too much invested in the city for it to be abandoned but what are the other answers?
i guess im getting at the urban implications of this situation, at the moment is seems that as a city we would rather spend 14billion on a pipeline than change the mode of urban development (sprawl) that sees most of our water go on front lawns
i think bruegmann raises an interesting question about how to deal with sprawl and all of the bad things associated with it (ther are btw a lot of important positive things associated with suburbia too)...
basically it goes like this. sprawl is not in itself bad. cars are not in themselves bad. and instead of trying to solve it all with a single package (new urbanism or whatever) we should break the problems down and do each at a time, cuz to be honest not all of the ant-sprawl stuff is connected in any way except by a dislike for it (on aesthetic or moral grounds) from a small group of people. if it was a big group of people then sprawl wouldn't exist...
so, if we break the problem down, what is it about cars? would they still be a problem if fueled by water? the answer is no. so the problem is not cars, it is fuel, or their effiency. by sueing the makers and imposing the tough laws we get to keep cars and all the culture that it allows. in this sense the approach is very conservative.
all the problems can be broken down like that. if water is a problem then lets resolve it intelligently. change the species, et cetera. doesn't mean that detached homes are bad.
i suspect that the future of cities is going to be more or less a continuation of what we have now, except there will be more coal burned for electricity, and we will otherwise be more efficient. maybe even nucleur will come back...and hopefully in the next few decades, if we haven't gone all stupid from war or other, we actually will find an alternative energy source.
or we could do like the anasazzi and easter islanders, and go the way of the dodo under environmental pressure...that is the howard kunstler prediction...i prefer/believe tertzakian more.
Good discussion but I'm too wiped out to contribute meaningfully to it at the moment. Exhausting day. But Janosh, I do want to ask if you can explain - succintly? - why organic isn't better than a chemically-fueled huge scale monoculture (is that what you're saying?) and simultaneously agree that I think the notion of a "local culture" is going to be more important than blanket "organic" in the near future. I already choose locally grown over certified organic these days, and think that if people work within a given region's cultural/natural requirements it will naturally tend toward being sustainable.
Which doesn't mean I don't also want fresh strawberries in December, so I hope water-fueled air transport becomes a reality soon. Of course I do worry about the drinkable water supply running out, so let's say grey- or sea-water fueled, please!!
monocultural organic is better then fertilized and pesticided monocultural crops.
local food is better then distant farms of either sort.
the local farms that sell direct are more likely going to be organic/pesticide free/permaculture of some variant and non-monocultural since that's what it takes to cultivate a local market.
LB - don't you remember water rockets?
maybe the solution to material/energy shortage is to grow our buildings with frankenplants!
treekiller- don't forget the cows. How can you sue for pollution without suing the cows?
I'm with upside down on this one- someday Los Angeles will make beautiful ruins. Possibly beautiful ruins that I can scuba dive to. It's definitely a possibility that whole cities, or at least the fringes of cities, could be abandoned in the future.
LB... Succinctly, (especially because I have to go to the bar) here is the speal on organic:
-It's not pesticide free. Certified organic produce is allowed under US rules to use pesticides that are not synthetically produced. Organic pesticides such as pyrethrin (made from chrysanthemums) are broad spectrum and kill good critters as well as bad. RAID uses pyrethrin and you sure wouldn't spray that on your food.
-It's wasteful. Crop yields for organic crops are much lower than conventionally grown crops. This means more land is required to produce the same amount of food. Even then, a large proportion of organic crop yield is unsaleable because it is unaesthetic or predator or mold damaged.
-It's not socially responsible. Organic farming requires much more underpaid migrant farm labor to cultivate and harvest. These folks are exploited by all types of agriculture, but organic farming exacerbates the problem by multiplying the need.
-Organic doesn't taste better, and isn't more nutritious. The biggest factor in both cases is when the product is picked or harvested. Products that are picked ripe are better, organic or conventional.
-Organic doesn't necesssarily support small farmers. Agribusiness follows the money, and now represents more than half of organic agricultural production.
I totally agree local agriculture is better - economically and ecologically (since it precludes large agri-business). But organic isn't going to save the planet, and I'm not sure it even makes it any better. I'll save the GM discussion for another day.
What about biodiesel (basically have your car run on corn oil), and other biofuel technologies (basically combustion of biomass, replenishable fuel sources)... The efficient conversion of carbon monoxide (toxic product of oil) into carbon dioxide which plants can convert into oxygen, including those plants that are the fuel source...
"The production of biofuels to replace oil and natural gas is in active development, focusing on the use of cheap organic matter (usually cellulose, agricultural and sewage waste) in the efficient production of liquid and gas biofuels which yield high net energy gain. The carbon in biofuels was recently extracted from atmospheric carbon dioxide by growing plants, so burning it does not result in a net increase of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere."
another interesting aspect of biomass is that certain waste products can be made to [b]be[/i] fuel... get rid of your garbage, and **BONUS!!** fuel your home and car while you are at it... I'd buy that... Who wouldn't?
here's the conspiracy theory (which isn't really a conspiracy theory, it's just the brutal reality):
the problem i think isn't really that we don't have the technology, it's a matter of money, politics, and power.
too many people / moneys that have to lose from free energy... and who would fund free energy r&d, how could they possibly profit from it? if people are willing to go to war, sacrifice thousands of lives and billions of dollars for fuel and money from fuel, and if entire nations' economies are dependent on these old fuels for survival, do you really think anybody is going to pay joe blow to design and publicize their ecologically friendly alternative? sure they will fund it in a token way somewhere where they can win a few votes, but the reality is, this is not about the good of the people or the planet... it's about profit and power... that's the wrench in progress towards a better society.
and anybody who thinks the foreign policy of our current government is not about resources, control of those resources, money, and power, i invite you to explain why... this isn't about ideology, it's about money and power. NOBODY in our society should be against new energy sources if they really knew what they were getting... free replenishable energy that makes the air you breath less toxic, and your kids and nieghbors not have to get killed at war over oil...
why sue the automobile manufacturer? that's b.s. just token desperate vote grubbing action that is about power... let's be real... the problem is that the market is not really free, supply lags behind what people *would* really want if they knew they could have it, the reason for the lag: so the organizations and establishments that profit from low tech energy can milk that for everything its worth before technology inevitably progresses and makes that cash cow obsolete... That "lag" thrives on complacency and ignorance and feeds bank accounts at the expense of our LIVES, and the life of our planet...
This is lame. I though sueing the big tabacco was lame, but at least they deliberately misled people, so they do have some liabilities.
They should be sueing the gov't. Businesses merely try to make money within the law. It's the gov't's job to make the law. CAFE (corporate averabe fuel economy) is in place to keep the average mpg of each manufacturer at a certain level - below it and you pay a fee for every car you make (so Porsche, BMW, Mercedes is paying a lot, whereas Honda probably is paying nothing).
There are many other factors, of course, but it's the responsibility of our 'leaders' to look out for our well being.
This discussion is all over the place but that's OK, there's lots to talk about.
I agree that the lawsuit is a joke - but isn't this how social change comes about in our country, through the deadeningly boring and long process of dragging an issue through the courts? California knew that when it passed the air quality law there would be a lawsuit brought by the carmakers adn thus they had their countersuit prepared no doubt months or years beforehand.
I complain about how slowly we see results in the architecture world, where it can be years before the building gets finished - as opposed to, say, a hair salon where you see the results of your "design" walk out the door the same day. But I wonder sometimes if people who work in the attorney general's office of a state - one that brings a big social impact lawsuit like this one or a civil rights issue or something - feel like they are really doing good in this world in a way that my work doesn't. They must.
I wish California all the best with this. I have to wonder, though...has the attorney general ever gone down to the border of Mexico? While California is a huge state, without regulations across the border, harmful emissions will continue to not only spread in the air across the border, but un-inspected vehicles will continue to roll across the border from Mexico the US every single hour. I worked down there and it was a mess. And, what of other bordering states? While they probably inspect vehicles and regulate emissions at equal or better levels than Mexico, what impact will they continue to have even if California were to rid the entire state of emissions concerns through legislation and tariffs?
It's funny...anyone who registers a vehicle in California has to pay a smog impact fee (if the vehicle is not certified as manufactured to conform to standards by the state of California for emissions). Now, legislation may have made people think twice about buying another car that DIDN'T conform to these standards, but what are the results? And, how did they set the price point?
While I don't necessarily agree with bRink about free markets, I think markets forces could actually appropriate change. Make the smog impact fee (if they still have it) overly expensive to ever consider cars that are not compliant with California emissions standards. I paid $400 some years ago...make it $4,000, $40,000. Then tighten emissions standards. Then create real, viable tax incentives to make people move towards alternative transportation, be it public transport or just more eco-friendly transport. Anyone ever try to use public transportation in California? In San Diego, a 20-minute car commute turned to a 2-hour odyssey on the bus that either arrived at my destination 1.5 hours early or 2 hours late. What kind of choice is that?
If you are serious about this, Golden State, don't sue a car company...make people care about things other than cars by appealing to their strongest senses - their wallets. I suppose this applies to anything in free markets.
Sep 25, 06 12:59 pm ·
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it has begun
California to sue carmakers for pollution
Chris Ayres
September 21, 2006
CALIFORNIA'S love affair with the car is officially over. In one of the most aggressive moves to confront global warming, the Golden State yesterday sued six car manufacturers, including Ford and General Motors, for damages related to pollution, beach erosion and a reduced drinking water supply.
The lawsuit follows a summer of record-breaking 49C (120F) temperatures in California that killed more than 100 people, and comes amid growing concern that Los Angeles would have to be abandoned if the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which supplies most of the city's drinking water, disappears by the end of the century, as some scientists predict.
Although no specific sum of compensation was mentioned in the lawsuit, the amount could easily be in the hundreds of millions. It is not clear how cash-strapped American carmakers could afford to pay.
California's decision to take the lead against car emissions is all the more surprising given that California practically invented car culture, depicted in movies from American Graffiti to The Fast and the Furious. Los Angeles is the home of the TV show Pimp My Ride, Dan Neil, the Pulitzer Prize-winning motoring writer, hot-rod races and drive-thru Starbucks outlets.
Yet Bill Lockyer, the attorney-general of California, issued a declaration of war yesterday. “Vehicle emissions are the single most rapidly growing source of the carbon emissions contributing to global warming, yet the automakers have refused to act,” he said. “It is time to hold these companies responsible for their contribution to this crisis.”
The lawsuit - which brought to mind litigation against the tobacco industry over lung cancer - follows an internationally praised announcement by the Hummer-driving Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, that he wants to cut the Golden State's carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
The target will involve stiff legislation against factories, power plants and refineries, and even tougher emissions standards for car manufacturers, which have themselves sued California, arguing that the standards are a de facto mandate on fuel economy standards, which can be set only by the federal government. Yesterday's counter-suit from Mr Lockyer was California's response.
It accused the car companies, which also included Toyota, DaimlerChrysler, Honda and Nissan, of creating a “public nuisance” by making vehicles that emit huge quantities of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Many scientists argue that greenhouses gases are causing the Earth's climate to warm, devastating agriculture in regions such as Napa Valley, where winemakers are already spraying their vines with sunscreen.
About 30 million vehicles are registered in California - 10 per cent of the national total for the US. According to California's lawsuit, vehicles made by the “Big Six” car manufacturers emit a combined 289 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the US atmosphere every year. These gases account for more than 30 per cent of all the carbon dioxide emissions in California.
Apart from the facinating idea of a state sueing car makers (shouldnt they sue all californians for driving too), im interested in the idea of the natural selection (for want of a better word) of modern cities, particularly in young countries like the US and Australia, where we take the permanence of our society for granted to some extent. are we prepared to lose a city or two which may become socially, environmentally or economically unviable possibly within our lifetimes?
at the moment Perth is growing at some 10-12% per year while our dams our at around 18% capacity, off the back of exports to china the government is seriously considering a pipeline 3500km from the tropics to supply the city, but without the current economy its doubtful that we could continue pumping enough to supply the 4 million residence expected by 2050.
likewise san Francisco, la and new Orleans are potentially on shaky ground (sometimes literally). its reasonable to assume that the existing large cities of the 'old world' are the successful ones, being in stable geological and climactic locations, while Pompeii is an obvious example of a city that didn't make it.
have we reached a state as a civilisation that we have the ability and economy to counter these problems to maintain a city like LA because we have invested so much in its creation?
I'd like to share a revelation that I've had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.
why sue the car companies? so you can cripple a worker at GM who is only doing his job building your s.u.v.?
instead, sue yourself! might as well sue the developer too if that's what you want to do... the problem is in the market, as long as there is the demand for consumption, the supply will be there. tax pollution, that's it... or like the kyoto protocol, create ownership rights for pollution... or provide desirable alternatves. architects are ideas people are we not?
regarding cities, sadly it's a resource driven society, environmental resources are one thing... but it's the flows of resources, mobility that ultimately kicks our ucket... labour, capital, information are intangible resources as real as anything else... a city can trade these for as much water or energy or food or automobiles as it needs. L.A. won't die... It will just suck the life out of nappa valley, or south american rainforests, or whatever environmentally rich and geographically ideal country or city is part of the global economy...
or maybe we can engineer babies that breathe carbon dioxide...
Well, not that exactly, bRink, but something along those lines is what interests me. Isn't pretty much any problem solvable through engineering and science combined with a tenacious desire to succeed? And if "success" is defined as a sustainable way of living, or even a step further, a way of living that improves the natural world (leaving the woods cleaner than you found them, for example), why can't we just engineer that future?
I think of the unbelievable odds and hardships of the pioneers going out west in the first place - the novel "The Living" by Annie Dillard brilliantly represents how hard and unforgiving pioneering was - and think if we had even a little of that toughness and desire in our collective conciousness applied to reformatting our cities towards a balanced way of living we would succeed in a generation. I have enormous faith in the collective brainpower of today. Sadly, I'm afraid the current politicization (?) of scientific endeavor has slowed down our ability to research alternative ways of living that could be significantly more sustainable than we live now.
To answer your question, upside down, I do think we have so much invested - simply in material energy, if nothing else - in places like LA and NYC that we do need to keep them viable, but not through means that mess up the remaining open landscape or natural features. On the other hand, I think the city of Flint Michigan should be razed and turned into farmland - organic, of course.
Nice LB. Some of that tuff midwestern sticktoitiveness.
maybe CA should sue HVAC manufactures, power companies, the airlines, concrete kilns, the shipping industry, steel mills, landfills, and alumninum plants to name some of the other 80% of CO2 emmissions!
While they are at it, sue china for all of their air pollution that is impacting the West Coast (china generated about 20% of all toxins in CA's air)
i wonder if they're gonna sue architects one day, for contributing to pollution as much as 60% in building construction
i think the environment will thrive, and it will happen as a couple leaps forward in technology that change society completely...
1. the non-polluting, forever replenishing fuel source, like water... cold fusion or something like it
2. virtual urbanism... where work and interaction can happen in any place you are... changes the way we live
the city becomes more about living and community than about concentrations of labor... since, you can live wherever you want...
real estate begins to decline... but design professions flourish... the virtual and real become one, and everybody buys architecture like buying clothing...
i think that this will happen eventually... its a matter of 30 years from now, within our lifetimes? the old urban pollution, suburban sprawl days will seem like the dark ages...
Good discussion here. I agree with LB... we have too much invested in civilization to go talking heads on it and retreat to nothing but flowers. The only way to fix it is by refitting, not demolition.
As an environmentalist and a Californian, I have to say I'm a bit pissed about this lawsuit. After all, California is suing car manufacturers for operating legally during a period when the state could have enacted tougher emmissions requirements, and didn't. It stinks of retroactive hypocrisy.
What's more interesting than this lawsuit was Schwarzenegger (!) recently signing a bill that would reduce California's greenhouse gas emmissions even more aggressively than the Kyoto treaty that W (and I suspect many current Democrats if given the chance) wouldn''t ratify. I think it is slicing the pie to narrowly to say that propose that every City must be independently sustainable - as Brink pointed out we are too dependant on other producers and flows with different specializations to have such a narrow footprint. Instead, our emphasis should be on sustainable Regions. I think as the cost of energy increases, this will occurr on its own as the cost of shipping diminishes international trade except for very high margin items. This is likely even if fossil fuels are replaced with green energy - it's going to take a shit load of PV panels to push a 747 full of fedex boxes across the US. And I would optimistically like to propose that the politics of adjacency would put more political pressure on the regions themselves to behave responsibly.
Or let's hope so. Otherwise, the only real solution to global sustainability is population control - or more direly, population reduction. And whether through pragmatics or racism, most of the areas that would be earmarked for trimming would be inhabited by yellow and brown people, since the world's temperate regions best suited to human occupation also happen to be mostly occupied by rich white folks.
LB- remind me some time to give you my organic agriculture isn't better for the planet speech (when you're bored).
janosh, im not suggesting a general retreat from civilisation as you put it, it simply wouldnt be possible to reverse the trend of modern urbanisation. my question is more about specific examples and isnt neccesarily related to environmentalism, but to the idea that young countries may find that a few of their cities have been built in areas that are unsuitable in the long run.
using my own city as an example, perth was located here because it was really the only natural harbour with a good supply of water that could export goods from the gold/iron mines and the wheat belt. its becoming apparent however that the local environment cant easily support a city of 2 million. i agree with Lb that there is too much invested in the city for it to be abandoned but what are the other answers?
i guess im getting at the urban implications of this situation, at the moment is seems that as a city we would rather spend 14billion on a pipeline than change the mode of urban development (sprawl) that sees most of our water go on front lawns
i think bruegmann raises an interesting question about how to deal with sprawl and all of the bad things associated with it (ther are btw a lot of important positive things associated with suburbia too)...
basically it goes like this. sprawl is not in itself bad. cars are not in themselves bad. and instead of trying to solve it all with a single package (new urbanism or whatever) we should break the problems down and do each at a time, cuz to be honest not all of the ant-sprawl stuff is connected in any way except by a dislike for it (on aesthetic or moral grounds) from a small group of people. if it was a big group of people then sprawl wouldn't exist...
so, if we break the problem down, what is it about cars? would they still be a problem if fueled by water? the answer is no. so the problem is not cars, it is fuel, or their effiency. by sueing the makers and imposing the tough laws we get to keep cars and all the culture that it allows. in this sense the approach is very conservative.
all the problems can be broken down like that. if water is a problem then lets resolve it intelligently. change the species, et cetera. doesn't mean that detached homes are bad.
i suspect that the future of cities is going to be more or less a continuation of what we have now, except there will be more coal burned for electricity, and we will otherwise be more efficient. maybe even nucleur will come back...and hopefully in the next few decades, if we haven't gone all stupid from war or other, we actually will find an alternative energy source.
or we could do like the anasazzi and easter islanders, and go the way of the dodo under environmental pressure...that is the howard kunstler prediction...i prefer/believe tertzakian more.
thanks to transtudio and Blaine Brownell for letting us know that we're running out of even more then just crude oil!
guess we have to start constructing building out of carbon fiber!
Good discussion but I'm too wiped out to contribute meaningfully to it at the moment. Exhausting day. But Janosh, I do want to ask if you can explain - succintly? - why organic isn't better than a chemically-fueled huge scale monoculture (is that what you're saying?) and simultaneously agree that I think the notion of a "local culture" is going to be more important than blanket "organic" in the near future. I already choose locally grown over certified organic these days, and think that if people work within a given region's cultural/natural requirements it will naturally tend toward being sustainable.
Which doesn't mean I don't also want fresh strawberries in December, so I hope water-fueled air transport becomes a reality soon. Of course I do worry about the drinkable water supply running out, so let's say grey- or sea-water fueled, please!!
monocultural organic is better then fertilized and pesticided monocultural crops.
local food is better then distant farms of either sort.
the local farms that sell direct are more likely going to be organic/pesticide free/permaculture of some variant and non-monocultural since that's what it takes to cultivate a local market.
LB - don't you remember water rockets?
maybe the solution to material/energy shortage is to grow our buildings with frankenplants!
treekiller- don't forget the cows. How can you sue for pollution without suing the cows?
I'm with upside down on this one- someday Los Angeles will make beautiful ruins. Possibly beautiful ruins that I can scuba dive to. It's definitely a possibility that whole cities, or at least the fringes of cities, could be abandoned in the future.
LB... Succinctly, (especially because I have to go to the bar) here is the speal on organic:
-It's not pesticide free. Certified organic produce is allowed under US rules to use pesticides that are not synthetically produced. Organic pesticides such as pyrethrin (made from chrysanthemums) are broad spectrum and kill good critters as well as bad. RAID uses pyrethrin and you sure wouldn't spray that on your food.
-It's wasteful. Crop yields for organic crops are much lower than conventionally grown crops. This means more land is required to produce the same amount of food. Even then, a large proportion of organic crop yield is unsaleable because it is unaesthetic or predator or mold damaged.
-It's not socially responsible. Organic farming requires much more underpaid migrant farm labor to cultivate and harvest. These folks are exploited by all types of agriculture, but organic farming exacerbates the problem by multiplying the need.
-Organic doesn't taste better, and isn't more nutritious. The biggest factor in both cases is when the product is picked or harvested. Products that are picked ripe are better, organic or conventional.
-Organic doesn't necesssarily support small farmers. Agribusiness follows the money, and now represents more than half of organic agricultural production.
I totally agree local agriculture is better - economically and ecologically (since it precludes large agri-business). But organic isn't going to save the planet, and I'm not sure it even makes it any better. I'll save the GM discussion for another day.
What about biodiesel (basically have your car run on corn oil), and other biofuel technologies (basically combustion of biomass, replenishable fuel sources)... The efficient conversion of carbon monoxide (toxic product of oil) into carbon dioxide which plants can convert into oxygen, including those plants that are the fuel source...
"The production of biofuels to replace oil and natural gas is in active development, focusing on the use of cheap organic matter (usually cellulose, agricultural and sewage waste) in the efficient production of liquid and gas biofuels which yield high net energy gain. The carbon in biofuels was recently extracted from atmospheric carbon dioxide by growing plants, so burning it does not result in a net increase of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere."
wikipedia biofuel
another interesting aspect of biomass is that certain waste products can be made to [b]be[/i] fuel... get rid of your garbage, and **BONUS!!** fuel your home and car while you are at it... I'd buy that... Who wouldn't?
"back to the future fuel" in seattle...
here's the conspiracy theory (which isn't really a conspiracy theory, it's just the brutal reality):
the problem i think isn't really that we don't have the technology, it's a matter of money, politics, and power.
too many people / moneys that have to lose from free energy... and who would fund free energy r&d, how could they possibly profit from it? if people are willing to go to war, sacrifice thousands of lives and billions of dollars for fuel and money from fuel, and if entire nations' economies are dependent on these old fuels for survival, do you really think anybody is going to pay joe blow to design and publicize their ecologically friendly alternative? sure they will fund it in a token way somewhere where they can win a few votes, but the reality is, this is not about the good of the people or the planet... it's about profit and power... that's the wrench in progress towards a better society.
and anybody who thinks the foreign policy of our current government is not about resources, control of those resources, money, and power, i invite you to explain why... this isn't about ideology, it's about money and power. NOBODY in our society should be against new energy sources if they really knew what they were getting... free replenishable energy that makes the air you breath less toxic, and your kids and nieghbors not have to get killed at war over oil...
why sue the automobile manufacturer? that's b.s. just token desperate vote grubbing action that is about power... let's be real... the problem is that the market is not really free, supply lags behind what people *would* really want if they knew they could have it, the reason for the lag: so the organizations and establishments that profit from low tech energy can milk that for everything its worth before technology inevitably progresses and makes that cash cow obsolete... That "lag" thrives on complacency and ignorance and feeds bank accounts at the expense of our LIVES, and the life of our planet...
This is lame. I though sueing the big tabacco was lame, but at least they deliberately misled people, so they do have some liabilities.
They should be sueing the gov't. Businesses merely try to make money within the law. It's the gov't's job to make the law. CAFE (corporate averabe fuel economy) is in place to keep the average mpg of each manufacturer at a certain level - below it and you pay a fee for every car you make (so Porsche, BMW, Mercedes is paying a lot, whereas Honda probably is paying nothing).
There are many other factors, of course, but it's the responsibility of our 'leaders' to look out for our well being.
Ha. What a lame joke.
Hummer driving Arnold...another damn joke
This discussion is all over the place but that's OK, there's lots to talk about.
I agree that the lawsuit is a joke - but isn't this how social change comes about in our country, through the deadeningly boring and long process of dragging an issue through the courts? California knew that when it passed the air quality law there would be a lawsuit brought by the carmakers adn thus they had their countersuit prepared no doubt months or years beforehand.
I complain about how slowly we see results in the architecture world, where it can be years before the building gets finished - as opposed to, say, a hair salon where you see the results of your "design" walk out the door the same day. But I wonder sometimes if people who work in the attorney general's office of a state - one that brings a big social impact lawsuit like this one or a civil rights issue or something - feel like they are really doing good in this world in a way that my work doesn't. They must.
if we kill all the lawyers - how much energy would we save in reducing the amount of hot air?
I wish California all the best with this. I have to wonder, though...has the attorney general ever gone down to the border of Mexico? While California is a huge state, without regulations across the border, harmful emissions will continue to not only spread in the air across the border, but un-inspected vehicles will continue to roll across the border from Mexico the US every single hour. I worked down there and it was a mess. And, what of other bordering states? While they probably inspect vehicles and regulate emissions at equal or better levels than Mexico, what impact will they continue to have even if California were to rid the entire state of emissions concerns through legislation and tariffs?
It's funny...anyone who registers a vehicle in California has to pay a smog impact fee (if the vehicle is not certified as manufactured to conform to standards by the state of California for emissions). Now, legislation may have made people think twice about buying another car that DIDN'T conform to these standards, but what are the results? And, how did they set the price point?
While I don't necessarily agree with bRink about free markets, I think markets forces could actually appropriate change. Make the smog impact fee (if they still have it) overly expensive to ever consider cars that are not compliant with California emissions standards. I paid $400 some years ago...make it $4,000, $40,000. Then tighten emissions standards. Then create real, viable tax incentives to make people move towards alternative transportation, be it public transport or just more eco-friendly transport. Anyone ever try to use public transportation in California? In San Diego, a 20-minute car commute turned to a 2-hour odyssey on the bus that either arrived at my destination 1.5 hours early or 2 hours late. What kind of choice is that?
If you are serious about this, Golden State, don't sue a car company...make people care about things other than cars by appealing to their strongest senses - their wallets. I suppose this applies to anything in free markets.
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