We Must Imagine a Future Without Cars (AlterNet)

[marmar]

We Must Imagine a Future Without Cars

By James Howard Kunstler, AlterNet. Posted April 4, 2007.



Kunstler argues that the coming age of energy scarcity will change everything about how we live in this country -- most of all our dependency on automobiles.

The following is James Howard Kunstler' recent speech to the Commonwealth Club of California. An audio stream of the speech is available.

Two years ago in my book The Long Emergency I wrote that our nation was sleepwalking into an era of unprecedented hardship and disorder -- largely due to the end of reliably cheap and abundant oil. We're still blindly following that path into a dangerous future, lost in dark raptures of infotainment, diverted by inane preoccupations with sex and celebrity, made frantic by incessant motoring.

The coming age of energy scarcity will change everything about how we live in this country. It will ignite more desperate contests between nations for the remaining oil and natural gas around the world. It will alter the fundamental terms of industrial economies. It will ramify and amplify many of the problems presented by climate change. It will require us to behave differently. But we are not paying attention.

As the American public continues sleepwalking into a future of energy scarcity, climate change, and geopolitical turmoil, we have also continued dreaming. Our collective dream is one of those super-vivid ones people have just before awakening, as the fantastic transports of the unconscious begin to merge with the demands of waking reality. The dream is a particularly American dream on an American theme: how to keep all the cars running by some other means than gasoline. We'll run them on ethanol! We'll run them on biodiesel, on synthesized coal liquids, on hydrogen, on methane gas, on electricity, on used French-fry oil... !

The dream goes around in fevered circles as each gasoline-replacement is examined and found to be inadequate. But the wish to keep the cars going is so powerful that round and round the dream goes. Ethanol! Biodiesel! Coal Liquids. ...

And a harsh reality indeed awaits us as the full scope of the permanent energy crisis unfolds. The global oil production peak is not a cult theory, it's a fact. The earth does not have a creamy nougat center of petroleum. The supply in finite, and we have ample evidence that all-time global production has peaked.
...(snip)

I hope we can overcome our tendencies to try to get something for nothing and to engage in wishful thinking. The subject of hope itself is an interesting one. College kids on the lecture circuit always ask me if I can give them some hope. Apparently, they find this view of the future to be discouraging. It may mean fewer hours playing Grand Theft Auto with a side order of Domino's pepperoni pizza, but there are many positive implications for our lives in the future. We may once again live in places worth caring about, where beauty and grace are considered everybody's birthright. We may work side-by-side with our neighbors, on things that are meaningful. Instead of canned entertainments, we may hear the sounds of our own voices making music, see the works of our own dramatists and dancers.

Hope is something we really have to supply for ourselves. We are our own generators of hope, and we do it by demonstrating to ourselves that we are capable of facing the circumstances of our time, of working competently to meet these challenges, and of learning the difference between wishing and doing. In fact, what we need is not so much hope, but confidence in our inherent abilities and the will to act. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/50049/

[hlthe2b]

1. I'd love to...

yes, I've loved cars in the past, but that is increasingly a fading memory.... While I hope we can still find a way to produce little no emission commuter vehicles, I have long envied the Europeans, the Japanese--with their incredible high speed train systems. Air travel is increasingly becoming an intolerable experience for reasons well beyond its impact on the environment.

Let's move quickly and dramatically forward! It will be painful for a while, but worth it.

[tech3149]

2. I still love cars but I understand what you mean

We need to get the concept of self sufficient and sustainable local economies. Beyond the effective use of resources, it builds a sense of community and shared responsibility. It might be hard to understand, but that simple change can offer an exceptional improvement in the quality of life.

[ramapo]

3. Cars let us do the craziest things

It is difficult to imagine that we could've created a less efficient mechanism of travel or a more wasteful mode of living.

As Kuntsler points out, the automobile has been the great enabler of sprawl. Long gone now is the concept of a town center in which most people live, shop, and perhaps even work. Yes, cities of the past were putrid and unhealthy, forcing people to flee to greener pastures in the surrounding countryside. Here in the Northeast, there was once the concept of a center which enabled each town to function quite well as a livable entity. There was even light rail between centers, until the growing forces behind the bus, and then automobile, had these transportation links dismantled.

Today it is fair to say that we live at the mercy of the automobile. For the vast majority, it is impossible to walk to work or to shop. Few children walk to school, their parents fearful that they may meet some untimely fate or perhaps just succumbing to the laziness of their kids.

But back to the crazy things we do with cars.

We routinely will drive ten, even 20 miles, for a meal. Not even a good meal. Oh, the kids feel like McDonalds. No McDonalds in town, it is six miles away. Gotta go.

Take a trip to the mall, maybe only to window shop. Easily 20 miles round trip even here in North Jersey, shopping mecca of the world.

Want to ride your bike? Hmmm..have to drive ten miles, maybe much more, to the bike path.

Take the kids to school. School is only a mile away, a 20 minute walk at most. Too far for the poor child, or maybe there aren't any sidewalks, or there are just too many crazy drivers who don't honor crosswalks. Gotta drive. Maybe the kids are going to visit a friend who lives a few blocks away. Bet the kid gets a ride.

The list is endless. We have grown lazy, spoiled, and delusional. McMansions sprout like weeds where corn once grew. Distances are even further in the exurbs. We have friends who might drive 20 miles for a gallon of milk.

To add insult to injury, we haven't strived for small, more efficient cars but rather the exact opposite, as if it is everybody's God-given right to consume as much fossil fuel as is humanly possible.

Everybody loves the convenience of their car, so much so that a family needs two, three, four or more. An amazing percentage of disposable income, and your tax dollars, are allocated to the automobile. Keep that in mind when you hear something about the huge costs of mass transit.

We have sacrificed much for this convenience. From the sense of center, our health, perhaps even our national security. Given all that, the thought that someday the car will not, or cannot, be the central factor in our lives, is the farthest thing from most people's mind. What is especially discouraging is that, instead of learning from our situation, countries around the world are racing to emulate us. China, Europe, and India. They all want more cars.

I believe in the long run that Kuntsler's rants will prove to have been quite prophetic. It is only logical that it is impossible to sustain the growth rate of automobile use when it is fueled with a diminishing resource. And no, I don't believe we can grow enough corn to replace all the oil being consumed.

My only question is what will get us first? Will it be the diminishing stocks of fossil fuel or the destruction of our ecosystem. Someday we will have imagine a lifestyle not built upon the car. Too bad we can't start now.

[hunter]

4. I've always hated cars.

Nasty, smelly, expensive things.

I'm looking forward to the end of the automobile age. We can melt them down to make the steel we'll need to build pedestrian friendly cities, public transportation systems, and bicycles.

I'd be very happy if I only drove a car when I wanted to, and not because I had to. Roads and highways are a constraint on me; I enjoy being in the countryside or in the city without a car and not having to worry about where I can go, or where to park.

The "freedom" of the automobile is a terrible illusion. When I'm walking I don't have to stick a license plate on my butt, and I don't have to carry identification. I'm a human being and not a number.