Calgary has approximately the same population density as Boise, Idaho. That just doesn’t scale. Nobody wants to turn Calgary into New York City – that density would drive most Canadians insane – but approaching Vancouver’s density wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, if done properly.

As a SUV-driving suburban dweller, I’m as much a part of the problem as anyone. My footprint is much smaller than many others, though (my SUV is really just a big station wagon, built on the Camry chassis rather than a Big Heavy Truck frame, and my suburban home is a decidedly modest one, with 1,400 square feet and a lot that is only ~36 feet wide).

But, the design of my suburban community could be much better. The commercial services are all aggregated in the exact centre of the community, meaning those living toward the edges are much more likely to drive to the corner store (it’s a 15 minute walk from my house – one we don’t take often enough).

One thing in our favour is the public transportation system. Although it’s far from perfect, I do get almost door-to-door service between my house and the University via bus. And the LRT is coming closer, meaning the schlubs that have to commute downtown will have an easier time leaving their H2s at home.

Update: The comparison between Calgary and Orange County was unbelievably inaccurate. Calgary is much smaller than Orange County, and actually has a higher population density, according to Wikipedia.

In 1865, Englishman William Stanley Jevons, one of the greatest social scientists of his day, wrote an exhaustive study titled “The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of our Coal Mines.” Jevons’ argument was that England was about to exhaust all available coal resources, which inevitably would mean the collapse of the industrial enterprise upon which Great Britain’s mighty empire depended. He wrote:

It will appear that there is no reasonable prospect of any relief from a future want of the main agent of industry (namely, coal).

And:
We cannot long continue our present rate of progress. The first check for our growing prosperity, however, must render our population excessive.

So, we’ve been through “peaks” in critical resources before, only to be saved by the magical discovery of a new, “inexhaustable, for real this time, no – seriously!” resource. In the case of Peak Coal, it was oil that rescued civilization from having to deal with sustainability. Perhaps it’s nuclear (or, for Shrub: nuke-u-lar) or some other yet-unknown magical resource.

Well, actually, the article goes on to say that in response to threatening shortages of coal, enterprising companies figured out better ways of extracting what was left, and the supplies lasted much longer than expected. This is extrapolated to oil, which, in theory, could last for quite some time if we just try harder to suck every last drop out of the planet.

We could just burn off the oil in our gas tanks, party like it’s 1999, and cross whatever is crossable in hopes that The One True Energy Resource is discovered in time. It’s happened before…

10 centimeter windmills may be the answer for wireless networks in the middle of nowhere… nature. These windmills are super efficient and could free scientist of batteries or huge cables for their equipment.

A possible solution for Post Peak Oil? Why not have small scale windfarms all over the place. Combine that with solar paint, etc… hmmm….

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