Date published: 2006/06/19
The BBC says:
Apart from a few lower members of the animal kingdom, no-one other than human beings build cities.
They are totally artificial constructs and in them we live artificial lives. We travel differently, eat different food, receive water and energy through pipes and wires, live in different kinds of buildings, do different jobs.
All of these things come with an environmental price-tag. Given that the world's urban population is expanding at such a rate, it is worth asking what are the numbers on that price-tag, and whether they are higher or lower than the environmental cost of living a rural life.
Does a person produce more or less carbon dioxide on moving from the countryside to the city? If the answer is "less", how should that be offset against a bigger contribution to urban smog? Is trash piling up on a street corner better or worse than excess fertiliser running from farmland into the water supply?
How far does a city's environmental footprint extend beyond its boundaries - to the natural resources which feed it with water and food, or to the other side of the planet which feels its greenhouse gas emissions?
There is no simple answer.
Of course there is no simple answer because it is looking at the wrong question. To calculate your environmental impact on the planet it does not matter so much where you live as how much you earn (since that determines how much energy you can consume directly and indirectly), and secondarily whether you have children (since they continue your environmental impact potentially out to infinity).
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