In the past few days, I’ve caught myself thinking about how (my)1 life would be different under implementation of the net-zero, carbon-reducing policies that I advocate and support. A brief look into such a society seems, to me, to paint a portrait not perfect, but bountiful and more beautiful than today’s.
The vrooms and hums and mechanical respirations are gone. A few relics may remain on the roads, but by and large the vehicles that (autonomously?) ferry individuals and families through our concrete jungles are electric. The bellowing of thousands and thousands of piston repetitions, now near unavoidable in any city or suburb, are near nowhere to be found. EVs zip and zoom and stroll and lull through the streets with light, airy whirs and rolling, rubber rounds. Highways, to be sure, retain their hum (3 tons of metal fronted by a flat face can only displace air so quietly). But the hum will be diminished in body, starved. On city streets and suburban driveways, engine revving will be a removed experience. Cars will meander without such sonic imposition. Meander: let’s talk about cities and suburbs.
Cars will be electrified, but they will also be de-emphasized. Walking, biking, busing, train-ing, tram-ing, all modes of transportation more efficient than driving will be prioritized, public transit more plentiful and accessible. Cars become an option among many, not a necessity.
If you are old, disabled, or otherwise impaired, driving may not be an option. In a society where driving is the only option,2 that means you have no option.3 The ability to get nearly anywhere with public transit means you have an option once more. And cars will still exist. Tokyo has a massive, immensely-comprehensive train system, plus millions of cars.
Less cars means better cities and radically different suburbs. My life in suburbia has always equaled at least one thing: I need a car to go. To go to school, go to the grocery store, get a haircut, get a Jamba Juice, go for a hike, see my friends; life is car-dependent. Instead, suburbs not dependent on cars, cities not designed around cars offer the opportunity of life on the setting: car optional. Car-optional life is facilitated by not just more public transit, but more walking too. Life lived as it has been since time immemorial, self-propelled.
Making cities walkable means grocery stores, schools, parks, hospitals, even offices all a walk away. Maybe just a 15-minute walk, at that. Centering cities on not-cars lets this happen. A focus away from cars also means streets centered on people. Streets more inviting and safe to walk near, promoting more conversation and neighborhood business. More lounging outside of cafes and restaurants without the huff of vehicle exhaust (EVs help here, too) or danger of being hit.
Suburbs change, too. A car-dependent suburb, categorically, can’t be walkable. Drop4 the car-dependence and it can have safer streets and more access to public transportation, parks, stores, schools, and all the rest.
Oh, and, for all of the above, every building, every block, every town and city breathes. More efficient heating and cooling, self-generating energy from rooftop solar panels, adaptive window tinting, more abundant urban and building vegetation, native and local plants, carbon-conscious design, these steps and more will help our metropoli breathe in the emissions they breathe out. They will also be cooler, quieter, and shadier.5
Food waste slashed: more food will make it to hungry mouths and more food waste will make it to hungry composts. One third of food in my country is thrown away. One third of “trash” in my town is compostable. Trash goes to the landfill to breakdown over eons; food/vegetation waste can go to the compost to be broken down near immediately (along with the added bonus of subsequent re-use). Food shipping made more efficient, food procurement made less wasteful, food disposal made less necessary and, when still present, more responsible and ethical: more food donation and more composting.
Less going to landfills means less eternal trash. Trash: the embodiment of unusable refuse. One’s trash is another’s treasure, but what about that which is trash to all? Best to limit that. Less plastic. Less single-use plastic. Less unrecyclable plastic. Plastic: first, embodied stretch, then, embodied stiff.
You know what haunts me? My candy wrappers will long outlive my grandpa’s buildings of brick.
Toil falls before consumption; that alone motivates me.
Farming is diversified and made holistic. Massive monocultures may still persist, but they are not the be-all end-all. Varied vegetation through intercropping makes more fruitful, more long-lived farms. Localization, more food made local, made of native plants, and made through regenerative practice.
Soil is not churned to dust; it is sustained in the same way it sustains us.
A natural ecosystem is developed with a minimization of foreign chemicals which have a tendency to intensely strain soil. Healthy soil makes better plants, produces more longer, and stores more carbon.
A smaller niche, but bogs are protected. Made over tens of thousands of years, we won’t replace lost peatland anytime soon. But protecting what remains will store carbon: all the world’s forests hold half the carbon that all the world’s bogs do. Peat covers just 3% of our land, but stores nearly one-third of our soil carbon.6
Energy, that thing which powers us and our lives, is renewable. The energy of the sun and the water and the winds will, on the puny scale of human history, never end. It is constant and immense. A society which lives off of that energy, which requires no burning-based air particulates clogging our lungs, can breathe easier.
Concluding remarks:
A net-zero world is different than a net-zero life in our current world. There are those who strive for such an ideal in present day, a herculean task it seems to me. While we should all strive to live closer to such an ideal, producing less waste and harnessing less fossil fuel energy, a net-zero world will not be our current world filled with citizens straining to manage under its pressures. A net-zero world will be a transformation in policy and systemic structure which allows, promotes, and facilitates the clean living of each of its citizens. A net-zero world will require huge changes from where we are now, but its gradual7 arrival will be accompanied by the naturalization of net-zero options to the point that they become the norm and then become nearly exclusive. This piece attempts to look at such a world, but the actions of net-zero strivers in our current world are undoubtedly ones deserving of commendation.
My title, Dashed Eutopia, highlights achievability (eutopia not utopia) but also flaw, flaw not touched on in the above. The absent failing is the effect(s) climate change is currently having and will continue to have. Sea-level rise, ocean acidification, global warming, more drought, more severe weather, plant migration, weather-influenced conflict, and much, much more are also part of a net-zero world. Whenever we reach that goal, be it sooner or later, many effects of climate change will be there with it. That is simply unavoidable. My goal with this piece was to reflect on some of the things I am most excited about in a carbon-reduced world. I marveled at the apparent oxymoron of quiet, car-filled streets and wanted to explore some of those incoming boons. But we are not headed towards Eden; we are headed towards Earth, changed, hopefully more for the better than for the worse, which might be a tall order considering the natural world’s current rate of destruction. I did not see fit to include this broader contextualization in the main text, but I could not wholly ignore it, either. So it hopefully rests well here.
Today is also Memorial Day. I believe my family will be enjoying an Impossible Meat-centered barbeque.8 Much of my mom’s side served in World War 2, and it left its mark. But that is chiefly family I have never known. A few relatives who I know have served in various branches, but generally not in combat. I don’t really know my personal connection to the day. Most other holidays, the 4th, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Arbor Day, I can, to myself, constitute my relative connection and feelings fairly well. But most other holidays are also not so deeply focused on others in such a way as our Memorial Day. Most years it passes me by without much note, other than a likely barbeque, a tradition resolutely American. War is hell, seems to be what many conclude. People suffer in innumerable ways. Soldiers suffer, either against evil or in becoming evil. Maybe the latter doesn’t get to be called suffering. I think it should. Then again, who am I to speak on war.
I can only speak on life through my own lens, obviously, so when I talk about the differences in life/society in this piece, I am talking about the differences as I would be able to see them
ie much of my society
I am not counting dependence on others’ cars as a standalone option. Uber and the like may have increased the ability to get around for non-driving persons, but such a solution is undoubtedly inferior to a more accessible society with abounding public transportation
or at least lessen
less sun not less safety
protection of peatlands also means peat can continued to be used for (sustainable) whisk(e)y
read: necessarily-too-slow
though, we will likely still include some actual meat