this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
456 points (97.9% liked)
Climate
8948 readers
492 users here now
Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
People really gotta start saying what they mean by "density", because I've had 4 people in 700sqft, and cannot imagine people actually want to live like that.
When people complain about lack of density they’re complaining about 2 people living in a 4500+ sq ft suburban house with an even larger yard.
Are they? I've heard that 100sqft is ideal for a single person, but I can't see how.
Lol. 100 sqft is the legal limit under which you cannot rent a place in France.
It is the size of the worst rooms in student dormitory. Those have "extra" space that are shared for shower, toilet and kitchen. They barely exist today.
Not even the cheapest hotel rent that. No sound people wish that.
I've lived in very small sized appartement and would estimated that ideal to be around 430 sqft (40 m²). Even with a poor laid out place a single person doesn't need more that 590 sqft (55 m²).
Really? The legal limit in the US is 70sqft.
This is why I get so confused whenever people bring up increasing density without specifying. Like, we just had a local legal initiative about homeless housing where people were arguing that 8x10 units were acceptable for families to live in.
8x10 ft? That's crazy.
Well... The thing is even with 590 sqft per person you could stack them of top of each other and have a low rise appartement building which only used on average 148 sqrt of land per person. Si even with enough space per person and without building new skyline better density can be achived in many spaces.
It was getting couched as an "it's an emergency measure" and a "if it's uncomfortable, they'll work harder to be less homeless" thing that we love to do over here, to my eternal frustration. Back when I worked at a low-cost hotel, we'd get migrant farm worker companies rolling through town, and they'd get a tiny room with two queen beds and have four workers split it for a couple months at a time, so it's not even a particularly unusual arrangement either.