Down with the Cities Part 2

The egotism of the city is more than apparent in its method of obtaining electricity and water. We all remember when Tokyoites insisted that, in order that they could live a convenient, pleasant life, it was only natural that the village of Okawachi sink beneath the waters of a dam reservoir. In this way the farmers of the village were turned out of the place that had been their home for generations, while the citizens of Tokyo, in their pursuit of convenience, extravagance, and ease (not to mention money-making), never even looked back. And the tragedy of such obscure villages is just like that of the villages ruined by nuclear power. Why don't the cities build their nuclear reactors right in the middle of the cities? Why don't they build them in one of their seaside industrial zones? If city residents do not have enough water for their flush toilets or electricity for their automatic doors (though I would expect they too have hands with which to open doors), they should leave the cities.

The Evils of Urban Wastes

The preceding nine sections are an outline of the plundering, destructive acts that the cities must perpetrate in order to maintain themselves.

Now, having consumed all of these plundered resources, the cities are left with wastes -- both industrial and human -- and they then proceed to dump them on others, all the while thinking it a perfectly natural thing to do. No matter that the cities have been so devilishly clever in devising a civilization built on all manner of amazing apparatuses -- the law of conservation of matter guarantees that they cannot do away with their garbage by sleight of hand.

Let us now list and examine the various evils of the cities as represented by their wastes.

1. Carbon Dioxide

The first of the wastes is the excessive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The result of robbing great amounts of oxygen and consuming it is the production of similarly great amounts of carbon dioxide. Trees would be expected to consume this carbon dioxide and deliver oxygen to us, but since the cities are also destroying the trees, this conversion process cannot keep up; if there were no cities in the world, we could expect the consumption and production of oxygen to be in balance.

Thus the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere steadily increases, and it is said that by the years 2025-2050, there will by twice as much in the atmosphere as there was before industrialization. Because of the greenhouse effect the temperature at the surface of the Earth will rise two or three degrees, the glaciers will melt, and the surface of the oceans will rise five meters above their present levels. Most of the big cities of the world will then be flooded. They shall reap as the have sown.

2. Atmospheric Pollution by Exhaust

The second is the production of particulate matter and exhaust gases. Prodigious amounts of poisonous gases and particulate matter pour from the smokestacks of the cities' innumerable factories, from the throngs of automobiles crowding their streets, and from the swarms of jets in the skies (and even a little from all the cigarettes; I will answer later to the charge that we have cigarettes and cars in the country, too). Not only does all this pollute the atmosphere, it is also said that the particulate matter blocks the light of the sun, thus causing a drop in the temperature on the Earth. There is no reason to believe that this will be balanced off satisfactorily by the greenhouse effect. The increase in carbon dioxide, poisonous gases, and particulate matter in the atmosphere threatens the lives of all living things on our Earth.

3. Depletion of the Ozone Layer

The third is the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer.

Those ever-so-convenient city inventions the jet plane and the aerosol spray, and the nitrogen fertilizer that the city invented to dominate the farming villages, are the instruments by which the city is destroying the ozone layer.

The effects of the exhaust gases and nitrogen oxides released in the stratosphere by jet planes will, in the final estimation, reduce the ozone by 6.5 percent. And it is thought that the CFCs used in aerosol sprays, which rise to high alt.i.tudes upon their release, will, even if their use continues at the 1974 rate, cause a 14 percent loss of the ozone over the next 50 years. The nitrogen suboxide released when the nitrogen fixed in chemical nitrogen fertilizers is denitrified will, it is estimated, cause a future 3.5 percent reduction of ozone.

A 1 percent reduction in ozone translates to a 2 percent increase in ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's surface, and an increase in ultraviolet radiation is a threat to all living things on Earth; it is said that, if nothing is done about this -- if the ozone layer continues to be destroyed -- certain species will be faced with extinction. Since all species in their interactions work to maintain the ecosystem, the loss of even one could signify grave consequences for the ecosystem as a whole. As for human beings, should there be a 10 percent reduction in ozone, it is thought that cases of skin cancer could increase 20 to 30 percent.

The cities steal nitrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere, they rob metals and petroleum from the earth, and their wonderful scientific achievement is to put us and the entire ecosystem in mortal danger by means of the production and use of their inventions.

4. Sewage

Fourth is the dumping of sewage into the ocean.

In order to maintain convenience, extravagance, and ease, the city must somehow dispose of the great amounts of water it converts into sewage, and that sewage always ends up in the ocean. The amount of sewage produced is about equal to the amount of water consumed.

This sewage is treated and divided into water and sludge; the sludge is used for landfills, and the water goes to the sea via the sewage system. However, since this treatment is not perfect the water flowing into the ocean contains, depending upon the substance, 10-60 percent of what it originally contained. In addition, most cities have a sewage system in which rain water is collected along with the sewage, so that on a rainy day the treatment plants cannot handle the volume, and the result is that some of it goes to the sea just as it is. Thus the ocean has become a cesspool.

Washing one's hands means that one must dirty some water. And doing the laundry means that one pollutes the ocean by cleaning one's clothes. Flush toilets are no different. As long as I can live under sanitary conditions, it doesn't matter if the ocean becomes polluted -- this is the egotism that the city is built upon.

5. Mountains of Garbage and Wastes

The fifth is landfills of garbage and sludge. No matter what kind of garbage one has, it is quite impossible, even if one changes its form or appearance, to make it disappear. Unburnable solid trash goes without saying, but burnable trash is no different: even after burning, the gaseous part disperses in the atmosphere, and the ashes still remain. And there is no proof that these are harmless. Even if the city had the technology to make them harmless, these great amounts of waste (ashes) must still be put somewhere, and that will cause problems for someone.

The cunning, arrogant city is able to maintain the pleasantness of its own environment by shoving its tons of garbage off on the country, or by dumping it in the ocean. But do we tolerate it when someone dumps his garbage in his neighbor's house in order to keep his own clean? The beautiful cities and spic-and-span factories which receive awards from the Environment Agency are showing us that they are shoving more garbage off on others than are other cities and factories.

Of all the kinds of trash brought out of the cities the most voluminous is demolition wastes. It is said that this makes up one-third of the waste from the big cities. Whenever they begin some new enterprise, they remove the old buildings since they are now just in the way. And the place they discard this waste is (take for example Nagoya) farmland purchased for the purpose.

Every bit of junk that the city produces in order to achieve even greater benefit and extravagance (even the wastes produced in one day could not be kept in the city) are taken to the country and forced off on us. If the people in the country bought some land in the city and began to haul things like straw, wood chips, and rocks to the city and dumped them there, would the city stand by silently and allow this?

Second to demolition wastes, the wastes of greatest volume are those created by the manufacturing and processing industries.

Next come domestic wastes, and then those produced by the services (included are of course such poisonous substances as mercury, PCBs, and ABS). These wastes are disposed of, along with the sludge from sewage treatment plants, on land or in landfills near the ocean. [7]

6. The Flood of Merchandise

The sixth is the flood of products (merchandise).

I have already written about how, in its activities of manufacturing and processing, the city robs and wastes resources; how it spreads pollution everywhere; how it shoves its garbage off on others. But these are not the only evils inherent in the city's industries.

The city produces vast quant.i.ties of products (merchandise), piles them high everywhere, and threatens the very future of human society with this flood. [8] Look at the packs of automobiles crowding the roads. Look at the great quant.i.ties of agricultural chemicals in use. Look at the mountains of medicine and food additives being shoved down our throats. It is the same for the worthless cigarettes produced in mountainous quant.i.ties; for the oceans of alcohol meant to help city people forget that there is no longer any meaning in their lives; for the heaps of records and tapes, which, like sonic narcotics, produce noise and dementia; for the weekly magazines and comic books that overflow with idiotic stories and pictures -- one could go on without limit. It would not be an overstatement to say that all merchandise produced by the city is the same. And just as I mentioned before with jet planes and aerosols, they produce pollution not only when they are used, but, as outlined in section five, become pollution themselves after use, thus causing the utmost trouble for people in other places. No matter what product, it cannot stand up to use indefinitely; sooner or later it becomes trash and the city must dispose of it somehow (these days we see many products that were made purposely to last only a short time). [9] Everywhere we look we see discarded junk like televisions, washing machines, and automobiles (strangely enough, these were supposed to be the very symbols of prosperity) -- does it not make one feel the desolation foretelling the end of an age? When a tiger dies it leaves its hide, but when city merchandise dies, it leaves more evil. [10]

Will human beings in the end be crushed under the load of their merchandise and trash? [11]

7. Excessive Services Forced onto Us

The seventh is how the city forces excessive services off on us.

Take, for example, public employees. It is said that the number of public employees increases at a fixed rate. Even that ill.u.s.trious, tyrannical dictator Hitler met with defeat when, in an effort to streamline the government, he ran up against the firm resistance of the bureaucrats, so there is no reason to believe that today's pusillanimous cabinet members or boneheaded Government Reorganization Committee members would be able to change anything no matter how many handstands they perform.

The overpaid bureaucrats, in order to increase their staff and expand their territory, are continually planning new "services"

and getting their politico friends to appropriate money for them.

It is the citizens who have to put up with these nuisances. Fill out this form, cooperate in this survey -- there is no end to their worthless, time-consuming services.