For most of us we think of gentrification as middle class and wealthy developers coming into our communities and buying homes, neighborhoods and entire communities from under residents who resided there for multiple years, sometimes even decades.
We seldom think of gentrification and the effects on the atmosphere, environment or even the planet.
In the long run there is an effect or multiple effects on the planet and most of them are negative. From the destruction of rain forest so that wood can be used to build expensive furniture and hard wood floors to the multiple chemicals used in modern construction and even the fuel used for heavy lifting and building equipment.
Here in the Bay Area in general, but more specifically San Francisco, the technology industries are the major culprits in the current gentrification process.
In the bigger picture however, those who own and operate the fossil fuel industries that not only power the big machinery for building but also the big moving vans and vehicles that all these new people are driving as well as trucks to bring goods to stock the stores to feed their expensive taste.
We have all heard and read about climate change but often don’t think of these things as causing it.
Sadly enough the fossil fuel industries are the main culprits in destroying our planet, and as if they already didn’t have too much, they want even more. New methods of extracting crude oil and other fossil fuels such as fracking use inconceivable amounts of water while contaminating fresh water in the process.
The billionaire Koch bothers who own a combined income of over $100 billion want to build the world's largest oil pipeline known as Keystone XL stretching from Canada through parts of the U.S..to be sold to China, a nation that has even fewer environmental concerns than the current U.S. government.