The great divide isn't between race or class but geography

[I am Groot]

I thought this article resonated with Canada's own politics, as well as the US and Europe, particularly on climate change, which is being urged on by urban dwellers oblivious or uncaring that so much of the expense will be borne by those in more rural areas. 

The antipode to the urban terroir lies in the countryside and rural hinterlands, which are experiencing a modest revival across the Western world. Yet even as they begin to regain appeal, rural areas are struggling against the dominant urban drive to “net zero”, which threatens economies based on local fossil fuel development, farming and manufacturing. For instance, it was high energy prices brought on by climate policies that sparked the Gilets Jaunes movement in France’s small towns, villages and exurban communities. To meet climate demands and limit their use of chemical fertilisers, Dutch farmers, among the world’s most efficient and ecology minded, have similarly risen up and joined their Spanish, Polish and Italian counterparts.

Even worse, the urban elites propose reaching their net zero fantasies by physically disfiguring rural communities. This offensive is being pushed by oligarchs such as J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, who resents peasants blocking land acquisition for subsidy-driven “green” investments and seeks federal help to secure these lands. But he is just one man of a wider movement, in which rural areas, home to the vast majority of proposed new solar and wind projects, are now asked to fulfil the green dreams of Manhattan, San Francisco and west Los Angeles. In California, the Nature Conservancy estimates that fulfilling the state’s net zero targets would require up to one-tenth of the farming acreage in the coming decades.

 

https://unherd.com/2023/05/what-really-divides-america-2/

[Michael Hardner]

35 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

  the urban elites propose reaching their net zero fantasies by physically disfiguring rural communities.  

'urban elites' is kind of a confusing word.  There is more poverty in Toronto than in many small towns.  

Really we're talking about corporate elites, and climate change will indeed impact the poor more than the wealthy.  

But I support exploring such ideas, they're valid questions.  To my mind, you will always come down to how to run the economy so that working people reap the rewards at the same rate that corporations and wealthy do.

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, I am Groot said:

I thought this article resonated with Canada's own politics, as well as the US and Europe, particularly on climate change, which is being urged on by urban dwellers oblivious or uncaring that so much of the expense will be borne by those in more rural areas. 

The antipode to the urban terroir lies in the countryside and rural hinterlands, which are experiencing a modest revival across the Western world. Yet even as they begin to regain appeal, rural areas are struggling against the dominant urban drive to “net zero”, which threatens economies based on local fossil fuel development, farming and manufacturing. For instance, it was high energy prices brought on by climate policies that sparked the Gilets Jaunes movement in France’s small towns, villages and exurban communities. To meet climate demands and limit their use of chemical fertilisers, Dutch farmers, among the world’s most efficient and ecology minded, have similarly risen up and joined their Spanish, Polish and Italian counterparts.

Even worse, the urban elites propose reaching their net zero fantasies by physically disfiguring rural communities. This offensive is being pushed by oligarchs such as J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, who resents peasants blocking land acquisition for subsidy-driven “green” investments and seeks federal help to secure these lands. But he is just one man of a wider movement, in which rural areas, home to the vast majority of proposed new solar and wind projects, are now asked to fulfil the green dreams of Manhattan, San Francisco and west Los Angeles. In California, the Nature Conservancy estimates that fulfilling the state’s net zero targets would require up to one-tenth of the farming acreage in the coming decades.

 

https://unherd.com/2023/05/what-really-divides-america-2/

I would argue that really there is no great divide - there is only a great divider.  We all have differences, within the cities or without. THere's poor in both places, there are those who can't afford what the 'climate change' fight is bringing,etc.

Our politiicans however find those differences and then weaponize them for political capital and power. The reason that the rural people will suffer more is because politicians do some math and realize that nobody in the vote rich city with tonnes of seats up for grabs is going to see the rural people suffering, so they tell the urban people that rural people are just too stupid and they're "hicks" and we should just go ahead with what we the enlightened KNOW to be correct and they'll figure it out on their own in time.

THey do that with east vs west as well, gun owners and non gun owners, religious vs non, vaxxed vs unvaxxed. Etc etc.

The only reason we have actual divides is because that's what our politicians want there to be. That's why they call them "wedge" issues.

[herbie]

All those city dwellers banging together horseless carriages, what next they gonna force me to git rid of my horses and buy gasoline? Make me switch to growin' rape seeds instead of hay, the have the audacity to change it's name just to sell better?

[Moonbox]

Good topic.  One thing to note is that the truly poor and destitute don't usually live in rural areas.  There's a reason that people in Brantford, ON joke they don't go into town on the first of the month. 

People leave small towns etc for the cities because there are services and potential jobs that are lacking where they live.  It's an interesting sort of feedback-loop.  Rural ridings don't like paying for the services they're not really using (which in a reductionist way makes sense), but the folks who need them in their own communities are leaving for the cities were they exist.  It's not the worst system given it's better to operate at-scale, but it's not the best obviously either. 

The other thing that's always conveniently forgotten is how heavily rural areas (especially farmers) are heavily, heavily subsidized in general.  It's the same-old, same-old here.  Everyone hates subsidies and public services, except for the ones they need.  

[I am Groot]

6 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

'urban elites' is kind of a confusing word.  There is more poverty in Toronto than in many small towns.  

Really we're talking about corporate elites, and climate change will indeed impact the poor more than the wealthy.  

But I support exploring such ideas, they're valid questions.  To my mind, you will always come down to how to run the economy so that working people reap the rewards at the same rate that corporations and wealthy do.

That's unrealistic. The economy has never run that way - anywhere, as far as I'm aware. No matter what the political or economic system.  I do find it concerning about this talk of hollowing out urban areas to leave only the well healed and the poor as the middle class flees to suburbia, or the exurbs or rural areas. We see that happening here, in no small measure due to the high cost of real estate in urban areas. 

It's also much easier for people who live downtown (public transit) and in condos to support ideas about taxing fuel and shutting down resource industries when it doesn't impact them nearly as much as those who live outside the cities. They also don't have to see the forests of windmills cluttering up the skyline.

[I am Groot]

1 hour ago, herbie said:

All those city dwellers banging together horseless carriages, what next they gonna force me to git rid of my horses and buy gasoline? Make me switch to growin' rape seeds instead of hay, the have the audacity to change it's name just to sell better?

 

You mean all those city dwellers with public transit when there is none outside the cities, right? All those people living in condos whose heating costs are low compared to places exposed to the wind and cold on all five sides? 

Edited May 8, 2023 by I am Groot

[I am Groot]

31 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

Good topic.  One thing to note is that the truly poor and destitute don't usually live in rural areas.  There's a reason that people in Brantford, ON joke they don't go into town on the first of the month. 

Well, to start with, you can't exist in rural areas without a car, or, usually, multiple cars. And you use a LOT of fuel.

31 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

People leave small towns etc for the cities because there are services and potential jobs that are lacking where they live. 

They used to. According to the article that's being reversed now in an era of WFH and ridiculous costs of living in the city.

31 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

It's an interesting sort of feedback-loop.  Rural ridings don't like paying for the services they're not really using (which in a reductionist way makes sense),

What they also don't like is being taxed in a way which disproportionately harms them as compared to city dwellers. Not to mention having their industries shut down

31 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

The other thing that's always conveniently forgotten is how heavily rural areas (especially farmers) are heavily, heavily subsidized in general.  

Not everyone who lives outside the cities is a farmer.

[Michael Hardner]

34 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

1. That's unrealistic. The economy has never run that way - anywhere, as far as I'm aware.

2. It's also much easier for people who live downtown (public transit) and in condos to support ideas about taxing fuel and shutting down resource industries when it doesn't impact them nearly as much as those who live outside the cities. They also don't have to see the forests of windmills cluttering up the skyline.

1. In terms of expected results, I suspect you're right.  But if it's a goal, then we could expect some improvement.  There are places where it happens more than in other places.

2. Yes this is true also.

[Moonbox]

33 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

Well, to start with, you can't exist in rural areas without a car, or, usually, multiple cars. And you use a LOT of fuel.

Sure, but so does anyone who commutes.  

33 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

They used to. According to the article that's being reversed now in an era of WFH and ridiculous costs of living in the city.

COVID and the telecommuting fad aside, Canada was getting more and more urbanized each year (at least leading up to 2021.  Additionally, living in the city (as in, say, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver etc) is very different than living in a city.  The folks leaving the GTA weren't moving to Tobermory.  They were moving to a town or smaller city mostly.  

33 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

What they also don't like is being taxed in a way which disproportionately harms them as compared to city dwellers. Not to mention having their industries shut down.

Granted, but then city dwellers aren't fond of things like ethanol subsidies, the dairy cartel or having to look after small town Canada's meth addicts.  As for shutting entire industries down, that's a bit of an exaggeration.  

33 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

Not everyone who lives outside the cities is a farmer.

No, but rural subsidization doesn't end with farmers.  

[herbie]

50 minutes ago, I am Groot said:

All those people living in condos whose heating costs are low compared to places exposed to the wind and cold on all five sides? 

6 sides! In the winter it's frozen uptop and below ground too!

No the political devide is due to so few Tory gov'ts that the rural people haven't figured out the Tories don't give a tinker's dam about them either.

[Michael Hardner]

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

 No, but rural subsidization doesn't end with farmers.  

Unless you are talking about wealth distribution there's no clear winners or losers.

[West]

15 hours ago, I am Groot said:

I thought this article resonated with Canada's own politics, as well as the US and Europe, particularly on climate change, which is being urged on by urban dwellers oblivious or uncaring that so much of the expense will be borne by those in more rural areas. 

The antipode to the urban terroir lies in the countryside and rural hinterlands, which are experiencing a modest revival across the Western world. Yet even as they begin to regain appeal, rural areas are struggling against the dominant urban drive to “net zero”, which threatens economies based on local fossil fuel development, farming and manufacturing. For instance, it was high energy prices brought on by climate policies that sparked the Gilets Jaunes movement in France’s small towns, villages and exurban communities. To meet climate demands and limit their use of chemical fertilisers, Dutch farmers, among the world’s most efficient and ecology minded, have similarly risen up and joined their Spanish, Polish and Italian counterparts.

Even worse, the urban elites propose reaching their net zero fantasies by physically disfiguring rural communities. This offensive is being pushed by oligarchs such as J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon, who resents peasants blocking land acquisition for subsidy-driven “green” investments and seeks federal help to secure these lands. But he is just one man of a wider movement, in which rural areas, home to the vast majority of proposed new solar and wind projects, are now asked to fulfil the green dreams of Manhattan, San Francisco and west Los Angeles. In California, the Nature Conservancy estimates that fulfilling the state’s net zero targets would require up to one-tenth of the farming acreage in the coming decades.

 

https://unherd.com/2023/05/what-really-divides-america-2/

The pie in the sky intellectual types tend to live in the cities and are the ones typically writing the policy. They often turn up their noses out of ignorance. Of course the policy rarely makes sense on a practical level. 

[August1991]

16 hours ago, I am Groot said:

I thought this article resonated with Canada's own politics, as well as the US and Europe, particularly on climate change

----

I disagree.

In Quebec, this article is typical American anglophone, so-called left-wing.

It does not resonate in my Canada.

====

Despite our two languages, and our two legal systems, we various Canadians get along. I would prefer a different Constitution/Confederation but that's for a different story/narrative.

Edited May 9, 2023 by August1991

[August1991]

The great divide?

======

In the late 1770s., the erstwhile French colony in America did not ally with the various English colonies in America.

The Seven Years War had two treaties:

The first - most important - between Prussia and Austria signed in Hubertsburg.

The second - irrelevant at the time  - signed in Fontainebleau.

Edited May 9, 2023 by August1991

[August1991]

Irrelevant?

Napoleon later fought the Prussians and Austrians on these precise battlefields. Napoleon wanted to show that he could defeat both.

====

I think Churchill referred to this period in European history as the wars of nations, 

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by August1991

[August1991]

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/hillary-clinton-urges-canada-to-keep-up-ukraine-support

She's a Protestant.

We are Catholic.

Russians are Orthodox.

Edited May 9, 2023 by August1991

[August1991]

Geography?

In my life, I passed some time in, uh, rural Bulgaria.

But I also passed some time in urban Paris, with some orthodox/catholic Ukrainian priests.

Did you know that some Catholic priests marry - have a wife? In rural areas, this happens.

As I was told, if a Catholic priest marries, he is not ambitious. He will never be a bishop.

Edited May 9, 2023 by August1991

[I am Groot]

11 hours ago, August1991 said:

I disagree.

In Quebec, this article is typical American anglophone, so-called left-wing.

It does not resonate in my Canada.

 

 

 

ob·liv·i·ous

adjective

 

1. not aware of or not concerned about what is happening around one.

   "she became absorbed, oblivious to the passage of time"

[I am Groot]

10 hours ago, August1991 said:

Geography?

In my life, I passed some time in, uh, rural Bulgaria.

But I also passed some time in urban Paris, with some orthodox/catholic Ukrainian priests.

Did you know that some Catholic priests marry - have a wife? In rural areas, this happens.

As I was told, if a Catholic priest marries, he is not ambitious. He will never be a bishop.

de·men·tia

noun

 

1. a condition characterized by progressive or persistent loss of intellectual functioning, especially with impairment of memory and abstract thinking, and often with personality change, resulting from organic disease of the brain.

[I am Groot]

11 hours ago, West said:

The pie in the sky intellectual types tend to live in the cities and are the ones typically writing the policy. They often turn up their noses out of ignorance. Of course the policy rarely makes sense on a practical level. 

It makes sense from THEIR perspective. Which tends to be narrow and narcissistic. 

[Dougie93]

11 hours ago, August1991 said:

I disagree.

In Quebec, this article is typical American anglophone, so-called left-wing.

It does not resonate in my Canada.

====

Despite our two languages, and our two legal systems, we various Canadians get along. I would prefer a different Constitution/Confederation but that's for a different story/narrative.

I respect you and your knowledge of history

but I can't understand how you don't see the urban - rural divide

[Moonbox]

2 hours ago, I am Groot said:

It makes sense from THEIR perspective. Which tends to be narrow and narcissistic. 

Coming from a farming community, there's definitely some truth to this.  

I've spent years arguing (on this forum) about how clueless and wasteful Ontario's Green Energy plan was 10+ years ago.  The Liberals in Toronto and Ottawa were patting themselves on the back about fighting climate change, while farmers were gleefully taking free cash from them to set up zero-risk-guaranteed-return wind and solar projects on their land at guaranteed rates.  They were far from the only beneficiaries (corpos got nice subsidies as well to build factories that would close down a few years later), but my point here is:

1)  You're right

but also

2) Smaller communities change their minds quickly about government largesse and intervention when it's benefiting them.  

 

 

[RedDog]

I agree 100% with the play in geography. For example, I’ve long felt Canada is possibly 5 or 6 “countries” foolishly pretending to be one country.

Just in my own life there are countless examples such as Yugoslavia now being what, 6 or 7 nations.

I fell zero connection with any region east of maybe Saskatchewan. I align Atlantic Canada with Ireland, Wales, Scotland, etc. the culture here is far more in line with Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, etc.

Canada makes very little to no sense from a purely geographical standpoint. Some of us have never seen, nor consumed Screech (sp?).

[I am Groot]

4 hours ago, Moonbox said:

2) Smaller communities change their minds quickly about government largesse and intervention when it's benefiting them.  

And larger ones. 

The narrative on climate change is so much bullshit, but Canadians, like Americans, like Europeans, tend to be fairly knowledge free. And their media, like ours, is all on the same page and won't tolerate dissent. The whole effort at making energy and transportation cleaner is making it more expensive. It's punishing the poor and middle class. And that punishment will get worse over time. This is something the media and politicians are refusing to tell them. The upper class pushing this is making out like bandits. The upper middle class, esp in urban areas, which most major media, academia and politicians belong to will be able to ride it out without too much trouble.

The country as a whole, ours and everyone else in the West, will get poorer. There will be fewer jobs, less money for things like healthcare, roads, bridges and other infrastructure, as well as social and other government services. None of this will harm the rich, who are heavily invested in the 'green revolution'. The people it will harm the most, aside from the poor, are rural people who need to use a lot of energy, or whose jobs are in natural resource industries that use a lot of energy. Farmers might be heavily subsidized but this is hurting them already, which is why you see farmer revolts in a number of European countries and one starting to brew here.

And they will all get worse as government, pandering to the frightened urbanites who have been almost deliberately misinformed by scientific bodies eager for grants and subsidies and a media that loves scary stories, continue to tighten the screws on energy intensive industries.