The issue is not gardening, it is taking more land from nature. That’s actually the first reason for biodiversity loss way before any kind of pollution we may produce. So the smallest is the ground footprint of your place the less you play a role in that, hence why an apartment in a tall building is best on that matter. Extended suburbs with gardens are the worst on that matter.
well i might be wrong about this but last time i checked all infrastructure of modern society (and i assume that includes houses and cities) takes up about 3% of our land. That is not so much, if you compare it to agriculture which takes up much more (i forgot the exact number). So i would argue that gardens aren’t the biggest problem.
Frankly, if you have ten billion people on a planet, of course it’s gonna impact the environment. There is no way to avoid that. I wouldn’t start nitpicking with whether people can have a garden or not, though. A garden can help people with a fresh source of vegetables which can improve health and wellbeing, and strengthen independence and community-building, maybe, if the garden is shared or vegetables are distributed among neighbours. It also reduces the transport distance for vegetables which saves on emissions. So, a garden can be a meaningful part of human life, i’d argue.
We need to rationalize land usage to succeed in the environmental transition. Producing food is definitely a good reason. If one uses its garden as well as a farmer would to produce food, then that would not be a problem. But I think the vast majority of garden owners don’t, so it would be more reasonable to give back this land for farming or leave it to nature.
Yes, 10 billion people are going to have an impact, but the impact on land usage is not the same if they live in suburbs of individual houses with gardens or in five stories apartment buildings withing walkable cities with public transportation.
About the benefits of the gardening activities, cities also offer shared gardening spaces, so people who actually want to garden can do it.
The issue is not gardening, it is taking more land from nature. That’s actually the first reason for biodiversity loss way before any kind of pollution we may produce. So the smallest is the ground footprint of your place the less you play a role in that, hence why an apartment in a tall building is best on that matter. Extended suburbs with gardens are the worst on that matter.
well i might be wrong about this but last time i checked all infrastructure of modern society (and i assume that includes houses and cities) takes up about 3% of our land. That is not so much, if you compare it to agriculture which takes up much more (i forgot the exact number). So i would argue that gardens aren’t the biggest problem.
Frankly, if you have ten billion people on a planet, of course it’s gonna impact the environment. There is no way to avoid that. I wouldn’t start nitpicking with whether people can have a garden or not, though. A garden can help people with a fresh source of vegetables which can improve health and wellbeing, and strengthen independence and community-building, maybe, if the garden is shared or vegetables are distributed among neighbours. It also reduces the transport distance for vegetables which saves on emissions. So, a garden can be a meaningful part of human life, i’d argue.
We need to rationalize land usage to succeed in the environmental transition. Producing food is definitely a good reason. If one uses its garden as well as a farmer would to produce food, then that would not be a problem. But I think the vast majority of garden owners don’t, so it would be more reasonable to give back this land for farming or leave it to nature.
Yes, 10 billion people are going to have an impact, but the impact on land usage is not the same if they live in suburbs of individual houses with gardens or in five stories apartment buildings withing walkable cities with public transportation.
About the benefits of the gardening activities, cities also offer shared gardening spaces, so people who actually want to garden can do it.