American consumption and our everyday living have become chronically unsustainable. We cannot deny entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Regular Conservation Report readers know I preach the Second Law of Thermodynamics ad nauseum. However, the Law is relevant to conservation, our energy needs and the stability of America.

The Law is starting to eat visibly into the suburbs. The suburbs are perhaps America’s biggest mistake because suburbs are essentially useless. Good lands that could have been used for agricultural purposes, growing lumber or even forest carbon sequestration are paved over with concrete. Wetlands that provide ecosystem services such as filtration, which promotes clean drinking water, are drained. As nature is further fragmented entropy increases. Wildlife and plants disappear. Generalists and commensal animals like cockroaches and rats thrive.

Another unsustainable event in America was the Great American Streetcar Scandal or the General Motors streetcar conspiracy. The Scandal forced Americans to drive automobiles. Cities all over America like Norfolk, Virginia used streetcar systems but these systems were dismantled by National City Lines – a company formed by “General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum.” National City Lines was a defendant in U.S. vs. National City Lines for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act but the action was too little too late. The Sherman Antitrust Act states “every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony…”

We can live better, happier lives but we take for granted the fragility of modern civilization. From the Atlantic Online:

Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, has looked carefully at trends in American demographics, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences. In 2006, using recent consumer research, housing supply data, and population growth rates, he modeled future demand for various types of housing. The results were bracing: Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an acre or more) by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today.

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

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