this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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This highlights an ugly truth about climate change:
Unless you're an off-grid person who eats your own produce and generates power on-site, being rural isn't green at all. There's a reason Canada gives rural people a larger carbon-rebate and discounts the carbon taxes off of farm fuels, and still rural people scream bloody murder about carbon taxes.
Fundamentally, if you're rural for funsies and your life involves heavy interactions with the urban world (shopping, working, etc) then you're living an unustainably carbon-intensive life. But since we valorize rural people as the Salt of the Earth (and give them disproportionate representation in electoral bodies) nobody can say that out loud.
At least there used to be a time when rural towns were built around rail infrastructure. Canada was built by trains, so originally small towns were dense, one-main-street affairs abutting a train station. But now it's all about highways. And those are bad for the Earth.
Transit depends on density. That can even be tight pockets of density, like a small town with a dense low-rise street-wall and no driveways and parking-lots. But you can't feasibly run transit down rural roads, or suburban keyholes.