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Cycling like the Dutch would slash the world’s carbon footprint (www.euronews.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [M] to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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Dutch people cycle an average of 2.6 kilometres each per day. If this pattern was replicated worldwide, the study suggests, annual global carbon emissions would drop by 686 million tonnes.

This mammoth figure exceeds the entire carbon footprint of most countries, including the UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia.

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[–] 44 points 1 month ago* (16 children)

No, I'm suggesting zoning law reform. Right now, it is very often literally illegal to build in a sustainable way, and that has to stop.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (15 children)

    I agree with that, but sorry I don't understand how thats related to biking more and mass transit, other than a complete rework of the layout of towns and cities across the country that would take decades or more to have an impact.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The rework is the suggestion, I think A gradual rework would already help and wouldn't take that long. It's just that somebody would have to start that, and I am not sure if the will for that exists.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago*

    I would have to disagree on it taking that long (as in so short) - not the change to zoning law, but the actual existing building infrastructure.

    Cities are one thing, and often have better infrastructure in place (though absolutely not a guarantee), but general suburbia you wouldn't find much shift in a short time. For one, availability of sites for new construction, and two, its the most likely place for quick capitalist change (new expensive clothing store rather than say, a small grocer).

    Its going to get harder the further rural you get, there is more space but won't be as much appetite. Small businesses had already been squeezed out by the likes of Walmart and their ilk, and wouldn't sensibly be able to return without other changes (like being low cost enough and affordable to the local folks to go there instead of a Walmart Super Center or whatever those giant warehouse mini mall ones are called), which means financial incentives and lower and middle class folks having more money to spend.

    Which you'd need to start having people stay more local for work to grow the local community.

    Its a part of a solution, but it isn't a solution by itself IMO. And its going to take time to have an impact. Time that will be on a decades-long scale, considering many towns have been around for a hundred years or more that isn't a staggering timeframe, its sensible.

    It definitely can't be done in the same kind of timeline as bike lines and bus infrastructure.

    (Edit: stupid mobile keyboard)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (11 children)

    You might be surprised at how much pent-up demand for density there is in the inner suburbs (the ones old enough to still have been built on a reasonable grid system instead of cul-de-sacs).

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    People really gotta start saying what they mean by "density", because I've had 4 people in 700sqft, and cannot imagine people actually want to live like that.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (7 children)

    When people complain about lack of density they’re complaining about 2 people living in a 4500+ sq ft suburban house with an even larger yard.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (6 children)

    Are they? I've heard that 100sqft is ideal for a single person, but I can't see how.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (5 children)

    Lol. 100 sqft is the legal limit under which you cannot rent a place in France.
    It is the size of the worst rooms in student dormitory. Those have "extra" space that are shared for shower, toilet and kitchen. They barely exist today.
    Not even the cheapest hotel rent that. No sound people wish that.

    I've lived in very small sized appartement and would estimated that ideal to be around 430 sqft (40 m²). Even with a poor laid out place a single person doesn't need more that 590 sqft (55 m²).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

    Really? The legal limit in the US is 70sqft.

    This is why I get so confused whenever people bring up increasing density without specifying. Like, we just had a local legal initiative about homeless housing where people were arguing that 8x10 units were acceptable for families to live in.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    people were arguing that 8x10 units were acceptable for families to live in.

    8x10 ft? That's crazy.

    Well... The thing is even with 590 sqft per person you could stack them of top of each other and have a low rise appartement building which only used on average 148 sqrt of land per person. Si even with enough space per person and without building new skyline better density can be achived in many spaces.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    It was getting couched as an "it's an emergency measure" and a "if it's uncomfortable, they'll work harder to be less homeless" thing that we love to do over here, to my eternal frustration. Back when I worked at a low-cost hotel, we'd get migrant farm worker companies rolling through town, and they'd get a tiny room with two queen beds and have four workers split it for a couple months at a time, so it's not even a particularly unusual arrangement either.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    As a emergency solution it migh work. I don't thing we should settle for such a low-effort emergency option.

    That won't work for people with claustrophobia, families and I'm sure plenty of other.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    It was the most ridiculously high effort low effort proposal too. I'd be more onboard with emergency housing like that in hotels or apartments, but they wanted to convert shipping containers to housing, take over a city park, and just cram them full of people.

    It was absolutely insane.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago*

    I'm not, I just don't think there is that much by comparison to the huge swaths of the rest of the country.

    For the record, I've lived in city, suburb, and more rural, and have spent long periods of time in really rural (like a town of 200 people that my mom has family in, and a not-even-a-town where its just 50+ acres of woods between everyone's home and its only 20 minutes by car, on roads with no speed limit, to reach the highway).

    The time scale for those sorts of changes is long, and need other changes to make it work.

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