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Cycling like the Dutch would slash the world’s carbon footprint (www.euronews.com)
submitted 1 week ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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Dutch people cycle an average of 2.6 kilometres each per day. If this pattern was replicated worldwide, the study suggests, annual global carbon emissions would drop by 686 million tonnes.

This mammoth figure exceeds the entire carbon footprint of most countries, including the UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia.

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[-] livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

but there is nothing we can do about it out here

I'd argue you actually can, as it is usually (1) zoning laws that prevent commercial buildings to mix with residential use and (2) parking mandates that make no sense. Both can be changed and have great effects locally

[-] y0kai@anarchist.nexus 5 points 6 days ago

I'd be inclined to agree except that no one wants to build a commercial center in an area where the roads are dirt and and the population density is < ~150 people per square mile, regardless of zoning laws.

That said, I don't mean to detract from the fact that you make a salient point for many areas of the world.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

no one wants to build a commercial center in an area where the roads are dirt and and the population density is < ~150 people per square mile, regardless of zoning laws.

If the "nobody wants to build that anyway" argument were true, density-restricting zoning laws wouldn't have been 'necessary' in the first place. You can tell their supporters are operating in bad faith because their arguments are self-contradictory.

[-] livligkinkajou@slrpnk.net 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

no one wants to build a commercial
population density is < ~150 people per square mile

Both are directly related to zoning and parking mandates.

No one builds because they can't. Low density because they can't build higher density, and I'm not talking about high rises, you can't even build ADUs (accessory dwelling units), home businesses, multifamily housing, gentle density. It is literally missing the middle due to laws

Strong towns goes into great details about it, if you are interested. See this article as an example:

The 6 Zoning Reforms Every Municipality Should Adopt

[-] y0kai@anarchist.nexus 4 points 6 days ago

Interesting, I will read more into this, thank you!

this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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Climate

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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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