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#sprawl

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A suburb of Phoenix is not where one might expect to see a residential development based on emancipation from the dominion of the car.

Reducing car dependency in Arizona matters beyond the borders of the state. All too often those working for more human and environmentally sound planning and transit policies in the USA are met with a simplistic and thought stopping cry of "It might work in Europe, but our geography makes it impossible!"

youtu.be/ljdg11X8YBg?si=Ch4BNe

America’s unbeautiful suburban sprawl

"Long stretches of chain stores in single-storey, flat-topped buildings. The cluster of gas stations, with functionally and aesthetically similar convenience stores selling rows and rows of sugary food and drinks...rectangular islands of stuff surrounded by parking lots leading to other little islands of fast food, also surrounded by parking lots, filled with rows and rows of the most enormous pickup trucks"

theguardian.com/commentisfree/

The Guardian · What does Maga-land look like? Let me show you America’s unbeautiful suburban sprawlBy Alexander Hurst

From water pollution to blue gold

Water "“blighted by mats of algae, mountains of foam, scum, and dead fish floating on the surface. Pollution from water companies and agricultural runoff are driving the contamination, which affects all parts of the country, causing toxic algal blooms, mass die-offs of fish, and risks to human health."

"A country that once let raw sewage and industrial wastewater flow directly into its water. Today, it is 98%, and the country has a reputation for pristine swimming waters, sometimes referred to as its “blue gold” – and it’s all thanks to a complex network of sewage plants."
>>
theguardian.com/environment/20
#water #pollution #micropollutants #ecosystem #health #swimming #Australia #sewage #floods #runoff #ImperviousSurfaces #roads #MassMortalities #SepticTanks #sprawl #biodiversity #rivers #civilisation

The Guardian · From sewage and scum to swimming in ‘blue gold’: how Switzerland transformed its riversBy Phoebe Weston

The human carnage on the roads - "accidents" and road violence

"In Australia, a country with a terrible occurrence and societal acceptance of violent road deaths (would we, for example, be so lackadaisical about the death “toll” were we measuring killings, accidental and otherwise, involving knives or dogs or lawnmowers?), we are culturally imbued with notions of our “rights” rather than our “privileges” when it comes to motor vehicle driving. Something to do with our vast expanses and wide-open roads perhaps."
>>
theguardian.com/commentisfree/
#RoadViolence #cars #SUVs #roads #violence #accident #RoadTrauma #RoadTrafficFatalities #roadkill #sprawl #Australia #MobilityDesign

The Guardian · When Dad couldn’t drive any more, it was devastating – but he was just too oldBy Paul Daley

YES! VICTORY! Public pushback makes a difference!

#MaineTurnpikeAuthority drops controversial #GorhamConnector project

by WGME Staff Thu, March 6th 2025 at 7:56 PM

GORHAM (WGME) – "The Maine Turnpike Authority is now dropping its controversial Gorham connector project.

"The project would have built a new highway from South Portland to Gorham, with the goal of easing heavy road congestion.

"The MTA paused the project last year after receiving backlash from local residents.

"The project would have required the demolition of nearly a dozen homes and confiscation of #farmland."

"'There was a lot of concern, and people wondered if it's the right-sized tool for the job, a lot of people have concerns that, building another highway, there's concerns that it will just fill up,' MTA Director of Communications Erin Courtney said.

The MTA says it's heading back to the drawing board to re-examine traffic conditions and review past mobility studies to find better ways to ease congestion in the area." [Like #LightRail, #RapidTransitBusLines and more #BikeLanes!]

wgme.com/news/local/maine-turn
#Maine #SaveSmilingHillFarm #SmilingHillFarm #InducedSprawl #GorhamConnector #MainersForSmarterTransportation #Maine #MaineNews #GorhamBypass #GorhamSpur #Maine #RapidTransit #SaveTheFarms #ProtectTheForest #InducedDemand #Sprawl #SaveRedBrook #ProtectTheWetlands #BrookTrout #SaveTheForest #Wildlife #HuskyLine #RapidBusTransit

WGME · Maine Turnpike Authority drops controversial Gorham connector projectThe Maine Turnpike Authority is now dropping its controversial Gorham connector project.

Highway expansions and road widening
How America (Australia) Can Break Its Highway Addiction

"After a century of rampant roadbuilding, the U.S. highway network is ubiquitous, dominating the American landscape in bucolic rural settings as well as dense urban ones. Rather than being a tool for mobility, it has become a monument to an auto-centric lifestyle that fouls the air and depletes the public coffers. Neither the country nor the planet can afford to keep expanding it."

"At the federal level, even asking questions about the collective climate impact of highway building appears verboten."
>>
slate.com/business/2024/08/con
#Sprawl #roads #highways #expansion #cars #automobility #industry #asphalt #Motordom #MobilityDesign #ClimateBreakdown #pollution #NSW #CoffsHarbour #bellingen #GlenifferRoad

Provide habitat and fund wildlife hospitals!

"The WA Wildlife Hospital has seen a 17 per cent year-on-year increase in patient admissions over the past 15 years."
Reasons?
"These include increasing urban sprawl, with suburbs encroaching on natural habitats as the population grows, and attacks from introduced predators such as wandering cats, foxes and dogs."
>>
abc.net.au/news/2025-02-20/wa-
#Biodiversity #wildlife #birds #carers #sprawl #FishingHooks #roads #drivers #IntroducedSpecies #pets #dogs #ExtinctionCrisis #SettlerSociety

ABC News · Record admissions to WA Wildlife Hospital trigger fears it may have to send animals elsewhereBy ABC News

The snakes belong here

"Years-long research project finds snakes become 'very disoriented', lose weight and get sick when relocated.The snakes belong here. They have always been here and it's us humans coming in needing to learn how to live better with snakes."
>>
abc.net.au/news/2025-02-09/res
#native #wildlife #habitat #HomeRange #snakes #possums #relocation #translocation #sprawl #pets #HWI #HumanWildlifeInteractions

Climate disasters have extensive repercussions for food supply chains

"A study published in 2022, led by my colleagues at the University of Sydney, found that almost one-fifth of total emissions from global food systems were produced by transport and supporting services, such as distribution warehouses. This was equivalent to about 6% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course, greenhouse gas emissions are warming the climate and leading to worse and more frequent natural disasters. And, as another University of Sydney study showed, these disasters have extensive repercussions for the food industry. "

"When it comes to food distribution, will Australia expand gas and coal production as a purported answer to lower energy costs in the short term – or will we move swiftly to decarbonise the sector and buy more local, sustainable food?"
>>
theconversation.com/yes-energy

>>
Malik, A., Li, M., Lenzen, M. et al. Impacts of climate change and extreme weather on food supply chains cascade across sectors and regions in Australia. Nat Food 3, 631–643 (2022). doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-005
#food #SupplyChains #energy #FossilFuels #coal #GHG #transport #trucks #pollution #FoodMiles #sprawl #TemperatureControlled #fruit #vegetable #meat #rail #climate #disasters

The ConversationYes, energy prices are hurting the food sector. But burning more fossil fuels is not the answer

The last yellow-tailed black cockatoos on Eyre Peninsula

"National Parks and Wildlife Service SA conservation ecologist Katrina Pobke said the loss of habitat through settlement and land clearing had impacted flocks that would have numbered in the hundreds of thousands across southern Australia's woodlands more than 10,000 years ago."
>>
abc.net.au/news/2025-01-28/sav
#birds #Biodiversity #sprawl #cockatoos

ABC News · Intervention needed to save last yellow-tailed black cockatoos on Eyre PeninsulaBy Jodie Hamilton

HOME UNSETTLED

Settlers are detached from the land and mostly mistake "Little boxes made of ticky tacky" as 'home.' But now
"Climate change is forcing us to rethink our sense of ‘home’ – and what it means to lose it."

Val Plumwood ... "argues that, under capitalism, the idea of personal belonging to a particular place or dwelling is often framed as being more important than many other vital attachments to place, such as connection to land. She uses the term “shadow places” to describe the ecosystems we exclude and exploit – including our forests and waterways – even though they are fundamental to our existence. These places provide essential labour, nourishment and the conditions we need to survive and flourish. For Plumwood, an expanded sense of “home” would encompass the broader ecological context we exist within."

" Indigenous Australian law scholar Irene Watson explains colonisers were already alienated from a sense of connection to land when they came to “Australia”. This disconnection led them to plunder the land, treating it as a commodity rather than a living, complex ecosystem that nurtures and is nurtured by First Nations peoples."
>>
theconversation.com/climate-ch

Malvina Reynolds - Little boxes on the hillside, Full Version with Lyrics >>
youtube.com/watch?v=VUoXtddNPAM
#Country #IndigenousPeoples #care #displacement #land #privatisation #commodification #LandSpeculation #landlordism #rentierisation #SettlerSociety #suburbia #housing #sprawl #homeplace #ClimateBreakdown #values #australia #NativeForests #plunder #ecosystems #biodiversity #ExtinctionCrisis #FossilFuels #extractivism #loss #home

The ConversationClimate change is forcing us to rethink our sense of ‘home’ – and what it means to lose it

A combustible world: "Any city can burn now. "
21st-century fires

"The intensity of the fire ...burned basically the same way as the ones in LA. You had the drought, you had the fuel, you had the wind and that’s all you need. That can be recreated anywhere in the world. Any city can burn now. "

"Don’t look at the fire, look at the wind. If the wind is blowing over you, it means the embers are, too. The fire could be 2 miles away, but if the wind is toward you, the embers are, too, and act accordingly."
>>
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j

"Fire fuel "used to be thought of as "the bush" leaf litter, grasses, shrubs, trees, in short Australian biodiversity. Now it is also houses, all the stuff and the petrol derived products and infrastructure.

Bushfire fuel classification overview >>
afac.com.au/docs/default-sourc
#fires #bushfires #Fossilfuels #combustion #wind #cars #HomoFagrans #energy #petrotopia #plastic #housing #cities #sprawl #flammable #fuel #chemicals #trauma #vegetation #biodiversity #TheBush #HazardReduction #ClimateBreakdown

The Guardian · How the climate crisis fuels devastating wildfires: ‘We have tweaked nature and pissed it off’By Victoria Namkung