There is a sharp divide between a "deep green" look at the social nature of ecological problems and the "shallow green" approach of corporate environmentalism. Deep greens emphasize that America can improve its health and quality of life while manufacturing fewer objects and shortening the work week. Shallow greens are loathe to say anything about the need to produce less and flee from addressing moral and political dilemmas of a growth economy.
Shallow greens often accuse deeps of being uncompromising and refusing to accept small steps in the right direction. Mass transit shows the opposite to be true. While mass transit has negative aspects, it is a step in the right direction because it reduces the number of cars.
Don Fitz manages to express succinctly some of the main things that have been knocking around in my head about this topic. But his article raises a few very important questions. Primarily, how do we change the social landscape of the consumer-capitalist economy of the United States of America (or the entire first world even) by opting out of it's norms?
Examples of how you can live life without an automobile help illustrate the point, but they do little to actually reshape the communities where we live until more than the early adopters join in. How do we help people transition from car-dependency to pedestrian/bicycle-riding freedom? And a lower speed lifestyle inherently means a lower material wealth lifestyle by our current standards. Many people balk at the very suggestion that they give up the shiny toys even with the proof of very real health benefits from eschewing techno-wizardry.
And the science behind many of these diversions provides very real benefits in materials technology, deeper understanding of physical mechanics and medical advances. If we remove the consumer sector, how does the current technology development model adapt? Do we accept slower advances as part of the price?
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