Killer essay
This commentary hits just about every nail on the head. I couldn’t agree more with the following paragraph:
There are three things that keep me up nights: the threat of climate change, peak oil and the mountaintop removal strip mining that is destroying Appalachia. And I have reached the conclusion that, here in the United States, there are three major causes of these problems: Our homes are too big, our food travels too far, and our entire economy is built around the automobile. American homes are twice as big as they were 30 years ago, though fewer people actually live in them. The average item on a supermarket shelf has logged 1,500 miles to get there. And the homogenous suburb has ensured that we must drive everywhere, destroying at once the traditional, walkable city and the surrounding rural landscapes. Thus we have created a consumer culture that much of the developing world – most ominously, China – wants to emulate. But the problem is that this culture is based entirely on carbon-emitting fossil fuels, and it is therefore a culture that has no future.
