Yes, Ca has done some small things to remediate the damage done by automobiles. Prior to 1950 nearly all of the air pollution originated at smokestacks. After that, tailpipes took over. We should hardly be patting ourselves on the back for putting a Band-Aid on a severed artery. Our poisoned air is directly related to the unlimited use of automobiles and the fact that we removed our light-rail systems half a century ago, which was immediately followed by the need to deal with our newfound smog. Our current young people (for me, that means folks under 50) are so car-addicted they can’t even conceive of doing a little shopping or running an errand without using a fossil-fool powered wheelchair. Is there any wonder that we have epidemic levels of heart disease and cancer and our teenagers are developing type II diabetes and smog-induced asthma? With something like six of the twelve worst air basins in the country, it hardly seems appropriate to toot our horns about our great environmental record.

Will we ever have the courage, foresight and sense to restrict fuel usage with individual quotas? How about rebuilding our former trolley lines (a large gasoline and utility tax would seem to be a fair way to pay for them)? Maybe we could even stop building so much car-centered transportation infrastructure and rebuild our roadways to safely accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. If history is any guide, we probably won’t take any substantial steps until the Central Valley is the Central Sea.

I am soooooo tired of hearing how the so-called “new urbanism” is going to solve all of our unlivable landscape problems that I could just retch. I watched a small city (100K, counting college students) use this planning fad to transform itself from a city where pedestrians, bus riders and, especially, bicyclists outnumbered fossil-fool powered wheelchairs by at least ten to one to a bedroom community almost totally devoid of human powered transportation.

How did this happen? It works like this: new urbanism requires commercial centers to be very close to each other because it assumes that people’s transportation choices are driven exclusively by distance, with fossil-fool powered wheelchairs required for any distance exceeding two miles. Where you have these commercial centers, you have high densities of cars. Add the high density housing next to or over these centers (a main feature of “new urbanism”) and you get densities of fossil-fool powered wheelchairs that cause almost everyone to refuse to walk/cycle in these areas. Since these high-density zones are everywhere, no one can get anywhere with any degree of safety without a ton or two of steel around them.

A secondary tragedy of “new urbanism” is that very few of these developments “pencil out” on brownfields. This results in any and all open space being pressed into service to save us from sprawl. Of course, since people have a natural desire to spend time in open space away from other people’s cars, communities that adopt “new urbanism” soon find that everyone is driving out of town every chance they get just to enjoy a walk or bike ride (as was already suggested by one responder).

I’m sorry, it is difficult to get behind a group of people who are recommending such ineffective less-than-half-measures. Fluorescent lights? We still don’t have a way to deal with the mercury in them. How about only using the lighting that is absolutely necessary to the task at hand. Modern LEDs can meet many lighting needs now.

And “Drive More Efficiently”? How about canning the convenience driving. That would be about 95% of most American’s driving. Also, how about being more considerate of the safety needs of cyclists/pedestrians? That means assuming they are around the next blind corner and not speeding past within inches of them. And, “drive a hybrid” really is ignorant. Many “hybrids” appearing on the market today are SUVs that get 15 mpg (considered a big improvement over the 12 mpg nonhybrid version) and even the most fuel efficient hybrids take up to five years to pay down the carbon footprint of their creation.

I notice they don’t mention eliminating air conditioning or significantly reducing home heating (if you’re not an invalid, why do you need to heat over 50 F? Get a sweater.). Considering that these interior climate controls are contributing to the global climate catastrophe at a level comparable to unnecessary driving, how can they be ignored?

Overall, it looks like just another bunch of car-bound Americans who don’t want to view themselves as part of the problem. These groups seem designed to allow people to feel less guilty about not making the necessary changes in their lifestyles that are required in order to prevent the environmental genocide that is coming in Africa, Asia and South America as a result of America’s indefensibly large energy use. Our carbon footprint is being laid across the world’s throat.

If a bible-thumper staying at a Hooters surprises you, then you obviously don’t understand our evangelical cousins. Do you see strip joints and adult stores along the highways of Northern California? No. But you do see these all over the retro-states (the south, parts of the midwest and Or, Az and Id, also known as flyover states). It is the same way of thinking that allows them to believe they are Christians while simultaneously supporting every war that some weapons lobbyist comes up with. They only turn against wars when the U.S. is losing. I think this is why they like strip joints so much; there is no risk that the woman being degraded will say no. Unfortunately, their values are slowly degrading the rest of America.