Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps recently noted that 70 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions come from cities.
Did the mayor ever bother to note the breakneck pace of residential high-rise development obscuring the once picturesque Victoria skyline? The obvious takeaway is that this is clearly only going to make matters worse and increase Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Why then do the mayors of Victoria and Saanich keep making the preposterous claim that increased residential city development actually decreases greenhouse gas emissions?
The most basic litmus test of logic reveals this to be false, given the exact statistic that she provided above.
If the residents are at fault, as the mayors have suggested, then how is increasing the number of residents supposed to improve that situation?
As is clear, even though we have more bike lanes, traffic congestion is only getting worse, as increasing population density is merely inducing further demand for road traffic amid a steadily decreasing urban forest canopy, which could have helped absorb and sequester the added C02 emissions.
According to NASA, land clearance is one of the main causes of GHG buildup. Clearing natural habitat for an ever-increasing number of warehoused consumers sitting idly in apartments, ignores the fact that they are still dependent on the entire carbon-intensive supply chain necessary to support sedentary urban existence. Without the area needed for locally produced foods, where are the foods and other necessities of life coming from? The answer is from much of the globe as it steadily warms predominantly due to city life.
Sasha Izard
Saanich
