Quote:
Originally Posted by Dadhawk
Per capita seems like a poor measurement in a country like China where only about 60% of it's massive population lives in an Urban area, most associated with carbon emissions. The US is considered over 80% "urbanized" in contrast, but the difference is even greater when you consider the population differences between the two countries.
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Urban, dense living is far more carbon friendly than living in the countryside. In a skyscraper, you've got people heating or cooling all around you, sharing the HVAC. You take a bus or a subway to your destination, if you don't just walk. A big truck can take a large amount into the city and distribute it efficiently. Dense cities are awesome for carbon impact.
In the countryside, you heat and cool a much larger space, without the benefit of other units insulating your home. You drive to get anywhere, and all deliveries are inefficient. The carbon footprint is dramatically higher.
Hence, arcologies are likely the future of much of the human race if we keep growing. The planet can sustain far more people in arcology lifestyles than it can in single family homes. That said, the falling birthrate in industrialized nations suggests that maybe the future will not be so dense. We may see a future where single child families are the norm, and the world population eventually drops or at least flattens out.
As for global climate change, (not at Dadhawk) it is abundantly clear that the planet is warming and warming quickly. The evidence is large and keeps piling up. Sure, there are holes in the evidence, but they're insignificant and require a lot of contorting to get through. Mostly they're just illogical.
There's also about the same amount of evidence that humans are responsible for the heating. It's not just carbon. It's methane and natural gas and a many other activities we do. We are a polluting our environment, and we're seeing the consequences.
Anti-science thinking pollutes minds and gets people killed. I can have my own beliefs, and I can have my own actions, but I can't have my own facts.