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efficient and sustainable.” Adequate modern technology is available to a large
extent; more and more effective equipment and appliances are developed. What
remains to be done is to replace the earlier, unsustainable energy sources and
technologies with them. In the view of Emett and Nye, the reduction of energy
consumption is primarily no longer a technical, but a cultural and political issue,
and it is one of the tasks of EH to explore and understand the potential cultural
motives behind this inevitable process. It is self-evident that EH rejects the thesis
of the greater the energy consumption, the more advanced the culture, that it
regards high energy consumption as a problem, and that it declares a smaller carbon
footprint as its goal.
The authors take a close look at the food issue as well. They point out that
before the Industrial Revolution, cities were smaller and city-dwellers were provided
with the necessary fresh food by the surrounding villages. Townhouses also generally
had gardens and backyards for small livestock (poultry). Fresh food was available
nearby. Industrialization changed all this radically: the fridge, deep-freezer, canned
food, and long-distance transport possibilities (railways and steam ships) made it
possible to transport food from faraway places and store it longer.’ All this entailed
larger energy consumption. Monocultures evolved and specializations took off.
This resulted in economically more efficient production. Today we know how all
this affected the landscape, the species, and the natural environment, as well as
human health. EH also joins the critique of contemporary consumption and offers
useful approaches and interpretations. Moderate consumption, the use of locally
produced food, and short supply chains are among the possible options (on this
topic, see the chapter, Food Supply as a Global Challenge). Emett and Nye also
emphasize that eating locally produced food is not only about the economy or
energy, but also about the restoration of the sense of responsibility for one’s own
place. A manifestation of this will be that inhabitants will look upon their city as
an ecosystem and will frequent restaurants that rely on nearby food producers.
(Emett — Nye 2017: 64).
Treating a city as an ecosystem is of special importance — as Emett and Nye
(among many others) are convinced — for their transformation into liveable and
sustainable settlements (Emett — Nye 2017).
Cities offer several possibilities, even in their current state: ecological studies
and experiments are carried out there and they are the starting points of
environmental activism. Some cities have entered the course of step-by-step or
major, systematic changes (Ljubljana, Vienna, Frankfurt, Energy Cities), other
cities are venues for grassroots initiatives (inner city ecovillages, community gardens,
urban permaculture, climate-friendly settlements, Transition Towns, etc.). EH
The tenet, “more energy consumption = more advanced society” has been disproven with examples
such as East and West Germany: East Germany consumed more energy than West Germany, yet
still the West German standard of living was higher; what is more, far more contamination was
found in the Eastern part (Emett — Nye 2017: 48). Owing to forced industrialization, this was
typical of the entire former socialist region (for Hungarian examples, see, among others, Borvendég
— Palasik 2015; Pal 2017; Szirmai 1999).
> Tt must be added that all this had a significant social impact. Thanks to the fridge and kitchen¬
ready food, women could take on jobs, which entailed a growing demand for creches and
kindergartens, not to speak of the changes in social roles and dietary habits. (On this, see Schadt
2003; Zimmermann 2012)