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Comment by boplicity | Hacker News Reader

Rural living has a huge carbon footprint compared to city living for many people. This is a real issue. Not that it can't be solved, but it is something that should be taken seriously.

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As far as I can tell, unless an energy source as convenient, cheap, and portable as fossil fuels is discovered, the additional carbon footprint of moving more mass further distances (rural living) is unavoidable.

> Rural living has a huge carbon footprint compared to city living for many people.

Ugh...

I want to assume the best about comments like this, but what is the point of citing this metric without context? It just feels like the only point is shaming and virtue signaling.

It’s not a new or controversial statement. Not only personal transports, but every transport of any type of goods are shorter and more efficient. As a corollary to that less land is used for roads (per capita). Less land is used for dwellings when apartments are stacked on top of each other. This also make heating and cooling more efficient.

All true, but cities are also far warmer, noisier, light polluting, cause more acute poising of their local environment, cost more to live in, and usually have higher crime rates. As for cost of support… that’s iffy. Many cities don’t allow 18 wheelers, so they have to use local distributors and put everything on box trucks. Each time this happens, more lumpers are involved, more vehicles are involved, costs get driven higher, and the distribution centers eat up land. Just saying.

All of the things you mentioned are less per capita in the city than in the country side. Agrarian living gives the impression of less environmental impact because the impact is more spread out. Outside the cities those lumper trucks are each replaced with many dozens of SUVs or pickup trucks when every family does the distribution themselves from the supermarkets. Just saying.

And the reason it is more expensive to live in a city is because more people find it more attractive to live there. That, and that fuel is subsidised and agrarian roads are disproportionally paid by taxpayers.

You wanna die of typhoid?

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great...

Because nothing happened since 1894?

My post was in response to this:

> > Rural living, outside those with careers in agriculture, is not scalable or sustainable.

> I have no idea what you mean by this.

It was an attempt to explain how rural living is not scalable or sustainable. Maybe you do understand how unsustainable carbon emissions are, especially in terms of the rural versus urban footprint. I don't know.

Rural industries that supply the urban areas, agriculture especially, tend to be incredibly carbon intensive.

But he asks why rural living? I have to question that too. The thing I love most about rural living is everything is right there. I can literally watch my food being grown, my electricity being produced (wind turbines), etc. just by looking out the window. I only need a vehicle like once a month. My feet get me to anything else I would need on a day-to-day basis.

Meanwhile, all I ever hear from city dwellers is how their whole world is coming to and end because they don't have the best transit known to man. And, based on my time living in a city, I get it. You can't hardly live a day without needing access to some kind of vehicle in the city. There is nothing in your backyard except more people. Granted, some cities have better planning – putting jobs, and services, etc. in your backyard – but, especially in North America, that is rare.

As such, it is counterintuitive to hear that rural living is the more carbon emitting option.

> I only need a vehicle like once a month. My feet get me to anything else I would need on a day to day basis.

I don't have anything beyond anecdata here, but this is wildly out of sync with my perception of how most people who live in rural areas live. That is, what you're describing, I think, goes beyond what most people consider "rural". Yes, it's possible to live a relatively low-carbon rural existence if you're in a nearly entirely self-sustaining compound, but lots of (most?) people who aren't "urbanites" don't do that - they instead, routinely, drive vast distances on a near-daily basis to go to the store, secure healthcare, visit friends, head to the bar, go hiking/hunting/fishing, just for fun, etc.

> to go to the store

Practically speaking, you will have go to the store at some point, but near-daily seems unusual. What could you possibly need that frequently that you wouldn't stock up on?

> visit friends

Traditionally, your neighbours become your 'regular' friends. You likely visit other friends from time to time, but when they are at a distance it isn't going to be a daily thing. It is actually quite challenging to stay in close contact with friends when they are not immediately nearby. In fact, there was an article posted here recently about exactly that.

> go hiking/hunting/fishing

Are those not the pastimes that rural backyards are best suited for? I know some who like to travel to other parts of the world to hunt/fish different species not found locally, but that's an infrequent vacation, not something done on the regular.

> this is wildly out of sync with my perception of how most people who live in rural areas live.

Is your perception based on living rurally? I get the impression from your comment that you see rural residents living exactly like city residents do, only differing by having to drive to the city each day. There may be someone who does that, but generally I find it is a different lifestyle.

My first-hand experience with rural living comes from time I spent with an ex's family, who lived in rural Montana, and also conversations with her about growing up there. They drove regularly for all the things I listed and more (I stupidly omitted a, maybe the, big one - driving to work every day). The distances they'd have to drive were enormous, too - the nearest Walmart was 90 miles away, and at least monthly they'd need to make the 200 mile drive to Billings (the nearest major city).

Anyway, anecdata aside: Google shows that the states with the highest per capita carbon emissions do tend to be states with lower urbanization rates. Montana, for instance, is the fifth least urbanized state and the sixth highest polluter per capita.

https://solarpower.guide/solar-energy-insights/states-ranked...

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/sp/mapping-us-urbanization-...

> Google shows that the states with the highest per capita carbon emissions do tend to be states with lower urbanization rates.

But that's due to industry, no? Agriculture and forestry alone count for ~20% of all carbon emissions. And getting those goods into the urban areas means shipping, which is another major contributor.

Even in more populace states, power generation typically happens in rural areas. Landfills are located in rural areas. Even large factories, even when they employ city-based workers, are quite often located in rural areas.

On balance, there isn't much that happens in large urban areas other than a whole lot of moving people around with machines (which seems completely ridiculous) and commercial business operations, which is not insignificant with respect to carbon emissions, but only about 6% of total emissions.

Basic household living probably isn't much different either way.

I wouldn't put too much stock into personal carbon footprint estimates.

It's just a way of re-framing the carbon problem away from those actually responsible for it and turn it into to a battle between folks arguing who is more virtuous.

Thought experiment:

What if we removed the "people" from the problem and just looked at the geographic area?

Does a rural 10 square mile produce as much GHG as an urban 10 square mile?

When you analyze it based on personal carbon footprint you are ignoring business and industry and focusing on residential.

This is by design, so those responsible aren't even included in the equation.

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