Big developments and the green new vision

Pondering the environmental dimensions of Valley’s Edge, I can’t help but imagine Councilor Tom van Overbeek and Professor Mark Stemen holding hands, strolling on one of the development’s crushed granite pedestrian trails. You may ask, what do a pro-development cheerleader and a “big solution” eco-professional have in common?

Listening to the presentation by the Valley’s Edge sales force, I heard gobs of greenreach rhetoric as the pitch clawed for the eco-highground with promises of land stewardship and visions of an electric vehicle valhalla; that is, eco-magic smoke and mirrors given habitat loss and the resources sucked-up by any development—exponentially so as per unit housing size bloats and dwellings sprawl as proposed in 98% of Valley’s Edge.

But, in such a sales moment, to what extent has big solution environmentalism teed-up the ball for developers? Quite a bit. State-of-the-art environmentalism is owned by the notion that Homo sapiens are inherently incapable of making significant lifestyle sacrifices. Our only hope therefore rests with green-tech giant solutions, poised to deliver both the excesses to which we’re accustomed and freedom from a carbon nightmare future.

Zero sacrifice talk is music to the ears of developers and anyone making a buck on American hyper-consumerism. In the new green vision, a soft spoken battery powered Amazon robot brings Kobe beef to the door of the McGreen McMansion on a cobalt platter. What could go wrong? (For reality on a platter, YouTube Mark Mills, The Energy Transition Delusion: Inescapable Mineral Realities)

— Patrick Newman, Chico