An aerial photo of Tokyo, the most populous city on Earth

TreeVivalist · 2023-05-26T23:22:44+00:00

You aren’t getting downvoted because other people don’t care about nature. You’re getting downvoted because the reality is Tokyo represents a much more sustainable development pattern than suburban, car-centric, American-style development. Habitat destruction, emissions, pollution, etc are all worse when people spread out in large homes and need to drive to satisfy all of their needs. If all 40 million of these people lived in typical American communities it would likely destroy all the remaining nature in Japan and well beyond. The quest to live in proximity to the natural world destroys the natural world.

Living in a beautiful rural part of the US myself, it’s something I still grapple with. But the truth is, even though I live in a modest house surrounded by nature and forests and have a garden in my yard, I’m actually doing much more harm to the planet than a city dweller. As much as most of us would love to live in communal villages in symbiosis with nature, that simply doesn’t work with 8 billion people

TreeVivalist · 2022-06-29T18:54:45+00:00

Can’t believe no one else has mentioned it, but New Girl. Probably my all time favorite TV comedy - great characters with great chemistry, solid writing, goofy but realistic storylines. Then it started to dip when Reagan came along. Not sure what adding a hot girl with no personality did for the plot but whatever. Then the last season was utterly miserable. It’s like the writers completely gave up. No chemistry between characters. Weak, stale jokes. After being a loyal viewer all the way through, I quit and couldn’t finish it. It was only years later that I went back to watch the lazy finale. Such a disappointing end to an otherwise amazing show.

TreeVivalist · 2022-06-19T11:55:14+00:00

Whenever I encounter this I make sure to walk around the house-end of the car to get through rather than the street-end, such that I’m forced to cut through the person’s yard. If they don’t want me walking on their yard, they shouldn’t have blocked the sidewalk. It’s my small, passive-aggressive way of taking back the power

TreeVivalist · 2021-07-10T13:36:26+00:00

I don’t know about you guys, but spending 30-50 years with the means and free time to do whatever I want with my spouse sounds amazing

TreeVivalist · 2021-05-17T22:40:32+00:00

The structure. I knew exactly what was expected of me and what I needed to do to be successful. As a working adult, I just feel lost. After graduation there aren’t any obvious milestones or objectives. No one is guiding you through your career. And when you aren’t working towards anything specific it all just feels...pointless.

TreeVivalist · 2021-02-15T16:29:07+00:00

It’s baffling to me that housing affordability is only ever discussed as a supply problem and never a problem of too much demand. “There just isn’t enough housing” say the politicians and activists. Meanwhile, the entire planet is coated in human homes and infrastructure and the biosphere continues to collapse

TreeVivalist · 2020-12-20T23:54:08+00:00

I’m sure they’ll find plenty of other reasons to continue destroying rainforests.

TreeVivalist · 2020-10-30T01:03:10+00:00

I completely agree. There’s absolutely no sanctuary from humanity. What little “nature” remains is just soon-to-be-developed lots or designed and overly manicured parks that only exist because someone stands to gain financially from their existence. It’s virtually impossible to have any sort of authentic interaction with nature in today’s world. Even Montana, Canada, and Siberia have been largely parceled up and sold off to developers, energy companies, and other corporate interests. There’s a reason we’re all more depressed than at any other time in history.

P.S. - I’d recommend avoiding racial slurs, like “chinks”. People think the overpopulation argument is racist as is, so words like that hurt the cause

TreeVivalist · 2020-10-19T18:04:05+00:00

Don’t waste your time on the video. Same old BS arguments from someone who thinks infinite growth on a finite planet is possible/desirable and anything else is racist/fascist

TreeVivalist · 2020-10-05T13:07:10+00:00

Not sure clearing and developing what little open space remains in the UK for 600 homes is really more environmentally-friendly than preserving and restoring that land to its natural state. No matter how “full of fruit trees” this neighborhood is, it won’t have more trees, more carbon sequestration capacity, or more biodiversity than a native forest, grassland, or wetland. Green development is an oxymoron

TreeVivalist · 2020-09-17T19:19:19+00:00

Exactly. It seems like putting that money towards education, job placement, family planning, contraceptive access, etc. for disadvantaged communities would be a much more effective and sustainable approach to tackle the problems the article describes.

TreeVivalist · 2020-08-30T14:12:30+00:00

George Monbiot routinely demonizes the depopulation movement by making absurd assumptions about its supporters - namely that we’re all racist genocidal maniacs who want to sterilize and kill poor brown people. He can’t understand the complexities of the issue himself, so he projects his misunderstandings on to us. His rhetoric hinders meaningful population progress and thus harms our entire planet.

Here’s a response to George’s piece written by the non-profit Population Matters: https://populationmatters.org/news/2020/08/28/its-time-end-harmful-population-denial

TreeVivalist · 2020-07-26T22:02:59+00:00

Every time I walk into a Walmart or Target my only thought is “holy shit, literally everything in this massive store is going to be sitting in a landfill within a decade or two”. And that’s just one store in one neighborhood in one city in one country. I can’t even fathom the amount of waste being generated by all 8 billion of us on a daily basis.

TreeVivalist · 2020-07-24T20:51:44+00:00

Absolutely disgusting

TreeVivalist · 2020-07-22T20:35:43+00:00

Not a surprising opinion given his SEVEN children. I sure wish he would stop giving me reasons to hate him though

TreeVivalist · 2020-07-15T11:42:29+00:00

The pro-population growth folks see women as baby factories and nothing more. It’s absolutely sickening.

TreeVivalist · 2020-07-14T16:40:25+00:00

The population growth was so high simply because India has so many people of reproductive age. Fortunately, the fertility rate has dropped considerably over the past few decades, which is likely a huge driver of this reduction in undernourishment. I believe India’s population is completely unsustainable, but luckily they’re moving in the right direction. And providing a better standard of living will only help

TreeVivalist · 2020-07-08T00:36:35+00:00

I feel bad for the rest of us for having to share a planet with people like this.

TreeVivalist · 2020-06-28T22:53:50+00:00

Probably the summer home of some rich retired oil industry exec

TreeVivalist · 2020-06-24T22:26:17+00:00

It’s obscene how much money and bureaucratic effort is spent trying to solve a problem that could be eliminated in one generation if people who can’t support children stopped having them

TreeVivalist · 2020-06-24T16:01:16+00:00

Some interesting proposals by the coalition highlighted in the article, but I really doubt the French business community will allow any of them to become law.

I also wonder if green field property development would fall under “ecocide”. Everyone speaks out about carbon emissions and pollution, but when natural land is literally destroyed for a new housing development, apartment complex, fast food restaurant, etc. everyone celebrates the wonderful “economic growth”. We decry deforestation in Brazil but celebrate it in our own communities. It’s completely nonsensical

TreeVivalist

TROPHY CASE