Notes from a Big Country

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1. superasnJun 2021
   You're definitely right about the overconsumption lifestyle. This is a quote from a Bill Bryson book I was just reading called Notes from a Big country:

   What is saddest about all this is that a good part of these goals to cut greenhouse emissions could be met without any cost at all if we merely modified our extravagance. It has been estimated that the nation as a whole wastes about $300 billion of energy a year. We are not talking here about energy that could be saved by investing in new technologies. We are talking about energy that could be saved just by switching things off or turning things down.

   Take hot water. Nearly every household in Europe has a timer device on its hot water system. Since people clearly don't need hot water when they are at work or fast asleep, there isn't any need to keep the tank heated, so the system shuts down. Here in America I don't know how to switch off my hot water tank. I don't know that it is possible. There is piping hot water in our house twenty-four hours a day, even when we are far away on vacation. Doesn't seem to make much sense.

   According to U. S. News World Report, the United States must maintain the equivalent of five nuclear power plants just to power equipment and appliances that are on but not being used-lights burning in rooms that are unoccupied, computers left on when people go to lunch or home for the night, all those mute, wall-mounted TVs that flicker unwatched in the corners of bars.

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2. SymbioteApr 2018
   I read 'Notes from a Big Country' by Bill Bryson during my second visit and first road trip in America as a child.

   I could entirely believe what he wrote on this topic, which fortunately is extracted here [1]. We covered a huge distance, so understandably my dad didn't really want to drive any further once we had arrived at each day's motel. However, there was rarely any alternative.

   There were a couple of occasions where American tourists were part-impressed, part-worried to see children walking. (There's a well-known metamorphosis stage in American teenagers; at 15 they grow legs ready for learning to drive.)

   [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/brysons-ame...

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3. superananas2Apr 2015
   Notes from a big country, Bill Bryson, is an controversial view on the USA from an Englisch man who moved to Amerika.
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4. nraynaudOct 2013
   I have a very good relevant citation (that ironically I can't copy/paste because it's a kindle book): "You find it at Disneyland, where people flock to stroll up and down a Main Street just like the ones they abandoned wholesale in the 1950s for shopping malls. It happens at restored colonial villages like Williamsburg, Virginia, or Mystic, Connecticut, where visitors pay good money to savour the sort of tranquil village atmosphere that they long ago fled for the happy sprawl of suburbs. You find it at Disneyland, where people flock to stroll up and down a Main Street just like the ones they abandoned wholesale in the 1950s for shopping malls. It happens at restored colonial villages like Williamsburg, Virginia, or Mystic, Connecticut, where visitors pay good money to savour the sort of tranquil village atmosphere that they long ago fled for the happy sprawl of suburbs." Bill Bryson, Notes from a big country.

   In France we are trying to manage those shops and this heritage. I don't say that we succeed (because now those shops are mostly franchises form mains brands, banks, assurances ans real estates, who price out independent shops), but at least we try something. We have a big problem: we know what we don't want but we have to invent what we want and the route there.

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