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US Inertia Could Scupper World Climate Deal in Copenhagen, Says Expert
Leading climate scientist criticises Bush administration and points to general ignorance of global warming in US public polls
Professor John Schellnhuber, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said the US was "climate illiterate" and that the rest of the world may be forced to agree a new deal without it.
Police boats pass under Greenpeace activists as they rappell from a bridge with a banner denouncing climate change near downtown ahead of the G20 summit on September 23, 2009 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (AFP/Getty Images/File/John Moore) "Nobody should dream of the possibility that numbers and targets for countries will be sealed in Copenhagen," said Schellnhuber, one of the world's foremost climate scientists. "If the US doesn't move then nothing will happen."
He added: "The US in a sense is climate illiterate. It is a deeper problem in the US, if you look at global polls about what the public knows about climate change. Even in Brazil and China, you have more people who know the problem, who think that deep cuts in emissions are needed."
He predicted that it could be several years before the US would be willing to take on carbon cuts that were ambitious enough to persuade countries such as China to set targets of their own. At UN talks last week, China and India made small steps forward on this issue, but Obama was unable to do the same.
"The political chances seem very slim that something will happen in Copenhagen and even in the years after," he said. "Maybe in the conferences following Copenhagen some countries – including China and the EU – whatever the US does, will say: we go ahead now. Why can't we save the world without the US? Why should that not happen?"
The US has some of the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world, and any deal without it would be significantly less effective at curbing global temperature rise.
Speaking on the fringes of a climate science conference at Oxford University today, Schellnhuber said the former US president, George Bush, was to blame for a decade of inaction on climate change, and that many in the Republican party and the wider US population still did not understand the need to act. European nations and others have been waiting for President Obama to engage with the issue in a way that Bush refused to.
Schellnhuber said: "Obama is aware of the problem and he personally wants to do something. The problem is: can he provide the leadership to overcome the system? Every top politician gets to do two or three unpopular things, and the right politicians choose the right things."
To convert a global deal on climate change into US law would require a two-thirds majority vote in the US Senate, something that many in Europe believe is unrealistic given Obama's ongoing troubles with healthcare reform. "It just may not be possible to overcome the American inertia," Scellnhuber said.
Kevin Anderson, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said: "It's vital for the climate that we get the Americans on board, but if we can't, then we can't just do nothing – we still need to make the biggest emission cuts that we can. If that means China and Europe and others going on without the Americans, then that may be the price we need to pay."
Schellnhuber's comments come as UN talks on a possible Copenhagen deal continue in Bangkok. Negotiators from 190 countries are wrestling with a draft treaty text, which runs to 200 pages and is riddled with alternate options and provisional text in square brackets.
His words reflect growing suspicion in Europe that the talks are crawling towards a unsatisfactory outcome, and that little progress is being made in the US. Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed a growing rift between Europe and the US over the latter's approach to how carbon targets could be set and met.
The Oxford conference is centred around the implications of a 4C rise in global average temperature, which scientists believe could be a possibility if serious carbon cuts are not agreed in Copenhagen.
Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, presented a study demonstrating that the world could see a 4C rise as soon as 2060-2070 – within the lifetime of many people alive today.
Nigel Arnell, a climate expert at the University of Reading, said a temperature rise on this scale would bring about colossal changes in weather conditions, affecting billions of people. Some 15% of land worldwide that is currently suitable for agriculture would become useless, he said. Available land would shift north, to regions such as Siberia, which is currently covered in forest.
• This article was amended on Tuesday 29 September 2009. In the article above we said that the US has by some distance the largest carbon emissions per capita in the world, what we should have said is the US has some of the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world. This has been changed.
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31 Comments so far
Show AllObama/Bush
One Black/One White
Both on the same side of the coin
The reason the US will do nothing about global warming/climate change is because to do so they would have to give up their fossil fuel using toys and processes. In effect, the US, and the entire world would have to abandon modern technological society.
And that's just going to happen.
Look at it this way: 65% of the US population wants the kind single payer healthcare the rest of the rational world enjoys. But the US congress, in the pocket of various corporations, just cut the public's throat. All so the corporations could continue to make obscene profits, literally from the suffering of the American people.
And you are asking the US Corporate elite, let alone Joe Sixpack, to give up the SUV, big screen LCD TV and air conditioning, just because his children will suffer extreme weather, starvation and deprivation? Do you really think that they will let that happen?
The future population of the world will curse every single one of us. And rightly so.
Walk in peace.
Death to Corporate 'Personhood'
The changes will start once it's definitely too late.
Exactly. Only when the U.S. has had several Katrina-like drownings of its coastal cities, millions of Americans homeless, its economy in tatters (moreso than currently), massive water shortages, skyrocketing fuel/food prices due to climate, etc, will the US FINALLY and far-too-late begin to try and do something about it.
Only when it is too late, and there is literally no other choice, will the US be dragged, kicking and screaming like the stupid, ignorant child that it is, into the reality of acting. But of course, by then it won't make any difference. The U.S. had its shot for decades now, and blew it, because there was still other choices - it could still shrug and ignore it.
The U.S. deserves everything that is going to happen to it over the coming decades. Unfortunately, it's stupidity and stubbornness will also hurt billions of people all over the globe.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis, "It Cant Happen Here", 1935
and that's WHEN americans in general will - however - ONLY THEN BEGIN TO OPENLY say THIS , a very american habit:
"I WON'T LET THE WORLD, THE UN, THOSE EUROS, THOSE ASIANS, THOSE SOUTH AMERICANS, THOSE AFRICANS
TAKE MY CHOICE AWAY!!!! THIS IS AMERICA... DAMMIT!!!"
right NOW =- it is MORE likely that given the ignorance and self-wrapped selfishness of americans in general -- americans are MERELY THINKING IT privately:
"THIS IS AMERICA, DAMMIT....i WON"T let the world take MY CHOICE away!!!!"
but then , who knows, if in some fantastic way -- the rest of the world ACTUALLY gets together and in dealing with global warming and pollution properly - "goes ahead without america" --
and comes up with VERY VERY ADVANCED science - -
decides to create one that just goes and ENVELOPES ALL AMERICANS in one BIG , BIG BUBBLE - and SHIPS THEM ALL OUT to Pluto
complete with their Humvees, their TV's, their NASCARs....so they can live happily ever after in a planet of THEIR VERY OWN where they can WARM PLUTO or NEPTUNE with "global warming" and their wonderful WARS.
all out of CHOICE too! oh....americans would be so RAPTURED at THAT! thinking - still ignorant and FAITHFUL -- and entertained -- that it was GOD that RAPTURED THEM UP, up , up and awaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!
just not EARTH!
I have the same feelings - and I was born heer and lived here all my life. "Rapturing" the entire USAn population to another planet is a splendid idea! Just please give me a bit of advance warning!
a saying goes:
"AMERICANS ARE THE MOST ENTERTAINED PEOPLE ON EARTH.....AND THE LEAST INFORMED".
it is also largely self-inflicted.
and between being "the most entertained" and being "the least informed" --
Americans practice something which americans have for generations claimed as the ESSENCE of being american:
it is called
CHOICE .
in this "choice"
americans have largely CHOSEN
being "the most entertained" over "being informed".
being "the most FAITHbased religiousity" over being REASONED
being "the most ENTITLED to resources" over being responsible to the earth
"CHOICE" - it's the american way...defined IN the american way MEANS :
"ENTERTAIN ME" over INFORM me.
"GIVE ME FAITH" over REASON
Interesting that you bring 'faith' into the mix.
65% of the US population believe in angels, and 30%+ are expecting a Tim Lahey-style 'rapture' to rescue from this wicked wicked world. Oddly enough, most evangelicals are also deeply opposed to the teaching of science (especially evolution), and are among the most energetic climate change deniers.
And these numbers are increasing.
Very soon I would be willing to bet that the US will look more like Margaret Atwood's 'A Handmaid's Tale' than they are willing to admit.
Walk in peace.
well..maybe the time will yet arrive when americans WON'T be able to AFFORD the technological accoutrements of modern civilization --
after the USA has been turned COMPLETELY into the world's
BASKET CASE economy...full of sweat-shop "service" workers and "manufacturers" - who will however be doing jobs at rock bottom prices - courtesy of their Capitalism -
to produce FOR the rest of the world MArvelous scientific and technological goodies that the REST of the world DEVELOPED - pollution free, sustainable, efficient, humane towards EACH OTHER -
in response to AMERICA's RECALCITRANCE...
and THEN maybe america will be "looking out" but not ALLOWED to PLAY ....
in a world SAVED by OTHERS .....
from America's OWN OLD GAME of :
"gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of others:"
General Smedley Butler, US Marines, 1933.
who knows...and then, generations from now..when americans will have FORGOTTEN that the USA was ONCE a powerful nation and RULED the world...americans will try to "save" money to "IMMIGRATE" to europe, asia, south america, africa
to become ILLEGAL ALIENS seeking to be treated as humanely as their own nation REFUSED to do to other nations long ago.
and americans might YET MARVEL at the GFENEROSITY of other people and nations..and ONLY THEN...generations from now
LEARN , be INFORMED , of the TRUE NATURE of the nation they came FROM........
the world's LAST BASTION of "CHOICE TO TRASH THE PLANET"..
and MAYBE americans will have learned what it means to be a CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.
"The U.S. deserves everything that is going to happen to it over the coming decades. Unfortunately, it's stupidity and stubbornness will also hurt billions of people all over the globe."
Oh please. Let's all get fatalistic and cynical now. That's the cool thing to do I guess. Let's all rant and rave about how dumb Americans are as if everyone posting here is on a higher plane of existence and that being smug and self-righteous will say the Earth.
We all consume, people. It's hard for most people to completely get away from it, especially when they're working two jobs, trying to raise kids. We all can't pull a Thoreau.
I keep saying this, you don't have to be a meterologist or a climatologist to see that something's wrong with the weather.
teddy-Not gonna happen. The people watching NASCAR and riding humvees and being disenfranchised too. I get annoyed with the MOR types, and believe me, they 'aint all white Middle Americana, but I'd rather train my rage on the elites. They're the ones truly causing and benefitting from all of this.
The idea of preventing people from driving or eating meat or consuming or whathaveyou, all of which is driven more by misanthropic spite than any desire to save the planet, isn't going to be enough to even halt climate change. I think the solutions to global warming are going to be more drastic and will probably involve some kind of scientific intervention.
Do doctors just tell skin cancer patients to stay out of the sun and send them home?
Why would limiting greenhouse gases by using more efficient cars (which China has set higher and sooner standards than the US) and industry mean preventing people from driving or consuming? This sounds like a typical strawman argument by those in the US who feel resentment when confronted by any responsibility in reducing GH gases, even thouhg the US has contributed more than any other nation. And not that the US population using more public transportation and consuming less would be a bad thing.
Should society as a whole not change it's direction and just wait for some grand scientific intervention? Whatever that means. Yes, we all consume but that doesn't mean we need to be unconscious about it. It's disgusting that higher mpg standards, more investment in alternative energy, and other conservation methods weren't put into place decades ago - let's not drag our feet now. Yes, i also blame the elites for this but that doesn't mean it's ok to be apathetic until they change their ways (which is never).
Do doctors tell patients at risk for skin cancer to just get all the sun they want becuase there's always surgery to fix things?
The idea that heavy energy consumption is needed for a comfortable and happy life is indeed pernicious. When I lived in town I didn't use a car at all except for out of town trips, and enjoyed the helck out of life. Even now that I've moved out to a closer-in suburb, I still use much less than a small tankful of gasoline a month - using my electric scooters (9 months out of the year) or public transit to get places.
The problem, in a word, is suburbia, and the tendency of suburbanites to be cultural cretins, replacing cultural activity (or simply enjoying the outdoors on foot), with something or another that is motorized. I am always amazed how suburban and rural USAns can't seem to enjoy life at all unless there is an IC engine somehere in it (SUV's ATV's dirt bikes, Harleys, chain saws etc...)
The first step is to get out of suburbia, and frankly rural areas unless you have ligitimate livlihood there (farming, forsstry, mining), and move to a public transportation-friendly community. Then, get some culture, so you can enjoy the art, music, film, cusine that such communities have.
Your respose reminds me of listening to Rush Limbaugh supporters (ditto-heads), that when they can not find an argument against some point of view, the mock those who support it.
Yes, we are all consumers, some more so than others. It is the waste that is the unfortunate consumption, in my view. It is not that we consume, we consume to the extreme, to the detriment of others. This is not to be critical of our way of life, it is just an observation.
As for Thoreau, he was a fraud. While he was contemplating 'back to nature', his sister was doing his laundry and cooking. So much for 'self'-sufficiency.
Don't look for any 'scientific interventions'... Pie in the sky dream world.... And no Doctors do not tell skin cancer patients just to stay out of the sun, but neither do they tell them that dietary changes will reduce the chances of getting the cancer in the first place, or could determine a less drastic form of treatment.
I do agree that the 'elites' are the bigger part of the problem. While Al Gore is chanting the 'global warming' song, he's flying around the world in a private jet, rather than using commercial airlines. Corporate heads fly here and there because they can. Why tele-conference when you can enjoy a warm island get-a-way after a morning's business meeting. The rag pickers in the garbage dumps of India probably do more good for the planet with re-cycling and re-use than most Americans do by writing a check for thirty or fifty dollars and driving half a mile to mail it to some 'charity' that only writes stories about how bad it's getting. I'm not sure if it's 'fatalistic' when you're just reading the writing on the wall however.
"Your respose reminds me of listening to Rush Limbaugh supporters (ditto-heads), that when they can not find an argument against some point of view, the mock those who support it."
nobodyknown-I too think there's something wrong with the weather. Limbaugh doesn't or likely just doesn't care because he knows that he can afford to live in a bubble when things get really bad. I just get tired of people on the Left shaking their fingers at the majority of Americans, as if that's going to help. Dumpster diving isn't going to save the world. Alternative fuels will. Trying to fix global warming instead of exacerbating it less isn't going to cut it either. We're not as a civilization going to return to a fully agrarian society, especially if the environmentalists act like a bunch of born-again Christians.
"Yes, we are all consumers, some more so than others. It is the waste that is the unfortunate consumption, in my view. It is not that we consume, we consume to the extreme, to the detriment of others. This is not to be critical of our way of life, it is just an observation."
So what do we do? Lecture people into eating less, driving less, or do we look for and develop new energy sources or ways to destroy waste so that there are are no more landfills?
"As for Thoreau, he was a fraud. While he was contemplating 'back to nature', his sister was doing his laundry and cooking. So much for 'self'-sufficiency."
Well ya got me there, but he's often used as an example.
"Don't look for any 'scientific interventions'... Pie in the sky dream world...."
Well a lot of people say that Utopias in general are fantasy also and can never be achieved. Limbaugh thinks so. So you and him have something in common also.
"And no Doctors do not tell skin cancer patients just to stay out of the sun, but neither do they tell them that dietary changes will reduce the chances of getting the cancer in the first place, or could determine a less drastic form of treatment."
True, but when you have cancer, it's too late to save yourself through lifestyle changes alone.
"I do agree that the 'elites' are the bigger part of the problem. While Al Gore is chanting the 'global warming' song, he's flying around the world in a private jet, rather than using commercial airlines. Corporate heads fly here and there because they can. Why tele-conference when you can enjoy a warm island get-a-way after a morning's business meeting."
I agree. Good points.
"The rag pickers in the garbage dumps of India probably do more good for the planet with re-cycling and re-use than most Americans do by writing a check for thirty or fifty dollars and driving half a mile to mail it to some 'charity' that only writes stories about how bad it's getting."
Again, good point, but I'm sure those people in India wouldn't be garbage-picking if they didn't have to, and they shouldn't be garbage-picking. It's the fault of the ruling class that they're garbage-picking.
"I'm not sure if it's 'fatalistic' when you're just reading the writing on the wall however."
The human race isn't finished yet my friend. :)
I apologize for being snippy. I just think the doom and gloom mindset and hyperbole gets in the way of progress and solutions, and I do think there are solutions. We need alternatives to fossil fuels, ones that are clean, ethical, and renewable. If people can run their damn cars (and I myself do not own a car and get by without one) on used frying oil...geez. Even if the deniers were correct and global warming was a hoax (don't we wish?), having cleaner air and water would at least result in a healthier populace and a reduction or elimination of many diseases.
But I'm also thinking that we're going to have to actually fix the problem head-on through some kind of geo-engineering instead of just reducing greenhouse gases. I refuse to believe that there isn't a way.
I understand and appreciate your points. note that my responses were actually A form of sarcasm...concerning ALL the reasons you cited.
in other words - as you have said:
"it ain't gonna happen" BECAUSE of those reasons - for which america is FAR TOO DEEP to be extricated from voluntarily.
it is like that of an ADDICT that can not EVER stop.
case in point:
America's PERPETUAL , CONTINUAL warfare.
there has been its inherently parasitic "growth" and "prosperity" which ENVELOPES everything that you have listed...and which has been ARTIFICIALLY , MANIPULATIVELY maintained...
but NOW has reached a point of maintaing that APPEARANCE of "wealth and prosperity" ONLY through constant injections of FOREIGN lending ON TOP of the structure that originally allowed the USA its "prosperity" and "power" - making other nations PAY for LENDING to the USA - or SUPPORTING the USA's RIGGED system at THEIR expense.
the USA is like an ADDICT for power that got away with intimidating others, manipulation, deceit, even habitual abrogation of treaties it imposed ON others
and now - that ADDICT has to BORROW money openly to try to maintain THAT "intimidation" over its LENDERS...
The proposed Cap and Trade bill is a SCAM boiled up in a pot from the Enron crowd. It's just the next ponzi scheme and should fail for we will all be better for it. We need to focus on private property rights and pollution to make any real difference. We need to hold International Corporations responsible for the pollution they create. Focusing only on the carbon is a bait and switch trick cooked up by corporations and government.
The global warming scare has been blown completely out of proportion to install this global tax scheme. WAKE UP PEOPLE we are being sold down the river once again.
Thanks for continuing to mislead the American people! Your check is in the mail.
Yours truly,
Exxon Mobil Corporation
You need to do some real research my friend. Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Sally Bulinas is the latest distinguished scientist to declare anthropogenic global warming theory wrong."Our home star composes 99.82 percent of the mass of the solar system. The sun’s mass is 330,000 times the Earth’s mass. About 1 million Earths could fit inside the sun.
The sun is a furnace of nuclear fusion beyond human comprehension. Although just an ordinary star, it produces an incomprehensible 386 billion-billion megawatts of energy per second."
We need to realize that every policy that has passed in the past twenty years in congress has benefited corporations not the people and the CAP and TAX is no different.
We need to kick them all out in 2010. Start fresh with term limits, remove the lobbyists and then get out the chain saw and begin removing all the special interest legislation that has been greased through the system over the years.
This article is only true when it treats 'global warming' as the weather of now and that by controlling emmissions we can all slip back into the clement weather the general over all planet has enjoyed for the past 10,000 or so years but by 'climate change' it is nothing that has not happened before and at times even more so in warming, but not by humans, but is so when considering not just the emissions but the loss of so much of the rain forests, tropical and temperate, that plays big into creating the faster, more volitle and unpredictable weather that in now sliding into the next ice age, maybe slower than faster but again maybe faster than slower.
Maybe more should be done about the 'unfettered' growth of the human population than anything else, because that is where most of the human induced change is coming from.
And the corporate world is playing for it all it's worth that the stupid americans will force yet another stand still so that those poor poor corporations will still get to spew pollution into the air, water and land to keep from 'paying to clean up the backyard'
Well said this should be about keeping International Corporations accountable for there pollution not just the carbon they produce. We all need to back away from globalization and start worrying about our own back yard our communities. We need to hold people and entities accountable for there actions.
Neighborhood, City, County, State, Country then the World... Remember the oxygen mask must be put on yourself before you can help others.
Resolving the energy crises is antithetical to ruling the world by cornering the market on hydrocarbons.
US policy attempts the latter. So the US government and major corporations do not do the former.
The European nations, still lulled by stories of the Marshall Plan - have little idea how violent and hostile a power they deal with.
Any progress will not only have to work around the US government and major corporations, but will also have to coerce them.
A union of nations should take direct action against US aims at complete hegemony:
- Get off the dollar standard, not onto the Euro, but onto an international currency.
- Stop sending token troops in to US invasions
- Start sanctions against the US for invasions, overconsumption, and bogus products like GM food.
Earlier will be less difficult than later.
FALLACY OF CLIMATE NON COMPLIANCE
Our Nation's non compliance with the rest of the developed nations concerning global warming mitigation underscores the dangerous control that special interests have exercised over the Bush administration’s policies. Their distortions of scientific data typifies their unconscionable war on science. Evidence linking carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists.
Special interests argue that the current warming trends follow historic warming cycles, and hence reflect natural weather patterns--but they omit obvious differences: The earlier warming trends developed at slower rates which permitted the ecosystems to adapt. Morever they resulted from temporary natural events, which allowed transitions back to normal temperature patterns--by contrast, the current warming patterns result from artificial causes that will only intensify unless mitigated.
By all indicators, global warming will self perpetuate as the melting ice sheets absorb rather than reflect heat, as the melting permafrost releases more CO2 & methane, and the list goes on. Inundation of low lying areas, spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, sea life destruction from changing ocean chemistry, & currents, are only some potential consequences.
Often overlooked is the fact that, the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were no issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
Contrary to right wing assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our rejection of Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our participation in international efforts, China & India could no longer use our non-compliance as an excuse for their non-participation.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution can only worsen if we allow the same special interests to force the new administration away from the desperately needed environmental reforms and reversal of the past administration’s war against our planet.
The Union of Concerned Scientists that you mention has a separate website on scientific integrity:
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/
Click on "Abuses of science" and see what the Bush administration was up to.
The way to deal with a Rogue nation is to punish it for being outside of the Group.
At airports: special, slower entry for airplanes from non-compliant climate countries.
At ports: tariffs on goods from countries that are not responsible global citizens.
At the UN: loss of privileges for countries that do not sign onto Copenhagen (if the US then refuses to pay dues, let China make up the difference, becoming a Superpower at U.S. expense). Move headquarters to EU or China if US continues intransigence.
International agencies: mail, phones, whatever: service fee for non-compliant countries.
The U.S. rightwing is betting that the responsible countries cannot organize and punish the US for their sabotage of a Treaty. But the World is close to ready to leaving the US behind, the post-WWII system having outlived its usefulness for the 21st Century. Within a decade, it could be the US and Israel against the World.
---And since God's going to "rapture" the believers (rich) away, WHO CARES if the planet is going to hell in a handbasket, right???
Solution: free public transit
http://freepublictransit.org
Good address, folks. Links to concrete local action - immediate, practical, well-founded.
For a good movie and a good treatment of how global issues are treated in these international conferences, see "The Girl in the Cafe". The conference is in Iceland, and the issue is poverty, but the dynamics are much the same. By the way, it is not US inertia, but US priorities that are the problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQLh2YkOguI
Tick tick tick.
Joe
The sane(er) await the loons.
Enough.
The US gov't & most elites are moving strongly against green reform by invading hydrocarbon-rich resources to lever resources to rule.
As countries, communities, and individuals reduce their carbon footprint, they limit that dominance and move towards ensuring their continued sovereignty.
"The idea that heavy energy consumption is needed for a comfortable and happy life is indeed pernicious. When I lived in town I didn't use a car at all except for out of town trips, and enjoyed the helck out of life. Even now that I've moved out to a closer-in suburb, I still use much less than a small tankful of gasoline a month - using my electric scooters (9 months out of the year) or public transit to get places."
Well I live in the city and don't drive. Not that I really want to drive (I hate it), but not everyone can get away with not driving. I know people that live in the city that have to drive 30-90 mins just to get to their job. Whenever I job hunt, I find that every job's in Cranberry or Wexford; places I would need to drive to. Not everyone can ride a bike or a scooter to work either. When my dad was working, he had to commute 40 minutes outside of the city. He tried riding his motorcycle to work since he thought it would save on fuel, but riding a motorcycle for that long was taxing on him physically. And riding on wet roads was out of the question.
"The problem, in a word, is suburbia, and the tendency of suburbanites to be cultural cretins, replacing cultural activity (or simply enjoying the outdoors on foot), with something or another that is motorized. I am always amazed how suburban and rural USAns can't seem to enjoy life at all unless there is an IC engine somehere in it (SUV's ATV's dirt bikes, Harleys, chain saws etc...)"
You have a point, but you have a lot of people like that in the city too. I see them all the time. People in general love to show off their rides, even if they're leasing them or working two jobs to have them. It's stupid. Being a non-driver I certainly feel the stigma.
But it's not just recreational thing. You have buses, construction equipment, myriad things that run on electricity.
"The first step is to get out of suburbia, and frankly rural areas unless you have ligitimate livlihood there (farming, forsstry, mining), and move to a public transportation-friendly community. Then, get some culture, so you can enjoy the art, music, film, cusine that such communities have."
Being that I'm a lifelong city-dweller, I'm certainly a supporter of urban living and public transit as there are many perks, but wouldn't having all of those people move into cities just cause overcrowding? Should we tear down all the homes and buildings out there and just leave it all? I don't know if that's practical.
You can find culture anywhere if you want to find it. The middle-of-the-road rules the roost pretty much everywhere. You always have to hunt for quality.