Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

ericmay

Idk why I see downvotes here for a legit comment and concern. Parking lots are absolutely awful.

First, cars. Enough said.

Second, they take up a lot of space with low utilization.

Third, heat.

View on HN

I recall during hurricane Harvey in 2017, the news reported that part of the reason for the innundation was due to so much green space and dirt being covered up by impermeable artificial surfaces, which caused the water to have no where to go except to accumulate and flow into the city.

If you choose to live in an over crowded area like a Coastal City, this is true. Texas is huge with a lot of space; so while yes, gas powered vehicles might not great, consider for a second there a much larger world than the small bubble you live in.

> Idk why I see downvotes here

discussion derailment

turning every thread into a debate about your pet sociopolitical issue is unhelpful.

>First, cars. Enough said.

No not really. Cars are wonderful, not everyone who lives on this planet wants to share space with strangers.

Cars are wonderful and useful when moving, less so, when stationary. Allowing a second way to use the area taken by the cars is reasonable — a car parking does not need access to the sky, until we have the fabled flying cars.

Nobody said cars have no benefits. But they do have very real drawbacks that are obvious at this point, they just aren't borne by the owner exclusively.

Cars as the exist today for the most part are the best method we have for increasing mobility and economic independence for those that don't live near or can't leverage public transportation (and sometimes in those cases too). They are still objectively awful in many other aspects though.

Not everyone wants to pay taxes either, but sometimes sacrifices will need to be made so that we don't ruin this planet. Sure having personal space and full autonomy in movement is nice, but it may have to be realized in different ways as we start to see the damage we are doing to this planet.

A planet with only mass transit is not a planet I want to live on. Many will fight you to the bitter end on this.

I think the crux of the argument here is that we will not have a planet to live on anymore.

> A planet with only mass transit is not a planet I want to live on

Pitiful strawman. I've never heard someone argue to have "only mass transit". More focus on common transports, cycling cities? Yes, please.

Of course, many like you will still fight it "to the bitter end", whatever that means.

Most people lived and died within 20 miles of where they were born until extremely recently. In that context, this sort of idea is kind of amusing given we have many different parameters (such as the viability of life on earth) to consider in solving social problems.

Let’s follow the science.

Cruise ships pollute more than cars. But you won’t see any green politician discuss that. Why?

https://www.thedrive.com/news/28469/carnival-cruise-ship-fle...

Because cruise ships do their polluting primarily in international waters and are registered under flags of convenience. They have separate fuel tanks for in western countries' jurisdictions to fulfill the regulations that these green politicians have already passed.

This sort of non-compliance compliance infuriates me. Any ships with dual tanks should be banned from western waters.

Then they'll invent one with triple tanks ;)

But you won’t see any green politician discuss that

Do you live in a city that gets a lot of cruise ship traffic? Because in my experience a lot of green politicians are very keen on banning cruise ships.

Source?

That article says nothing about CO2, which is by far the biggest man-made contributor to global warming (and probably what the person above you was referring to)

> Cruise ships pollute more than cars

Sulfur oxides (SOx), yes. Carbon dioxide (CO2), no.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com