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Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?
As a dominant form of transportation, the automobile is dead. So is GM, which now stands for Gone Mad.
But the larger picture says that the financial crisis now enveloping
the world is grounded in the transition from the automobile---and the
fossils that fuel it---to a brave renewable world of reborn mass
transit and green power.
If GM lives in any form, it must be owned and operated by its workers and the public.
But the larger transition is epic and global, based on a simple
structural reality: the passenger car is obsolete. Auto sales have
plummeted not merely because of a bad economy, but because the
technology no longer makes sense.
Franklin Roosevelt took GM over in 1943-5 to make the hardware
to beat the Nazis. Barack Obama should now do the same to beat climate
chaos.
Make streetcars, not passenger cars.
Hybrids are too little, too late, with problems of their own.
Solar-powered electric cars will help phase out the gas guzzlers.
But in the long run, the automobile itself needs to be dismantled and re-cycled, not retooled or rebuilt.
Cars still kill 40,000 Americans/year, and thousands more worldwide. No
matter how much less gas each may burn, they all consume unsustainable
resources to manufacture, operate and terminate.
We need to dig up roads, not build more. We need rails and coaches,
bio-diesel buses and self-propelled trolleys, Solartopian super-trains
and in-town people movers, not to mention windmills, solar panels, wave
generators and geothermal piping.
In America's corporate-conceived “love affair with the automobile,” our
first spouse---mass transit---was murdered. Now the unsustainable
obsolescence of the private passenger car is collapsing a global
financial system built on the illusion of its constant growth.
Mother Earth can’t sustain the old four-wheeled carry-one-person-around-the-block paradigm, be it hybrid, electric or otherwise.
If the automobile and its attendant freeways continue to metastasize in
India, China and Africa as they did in the 20th Century United States,
we are doomed.
Our true challenge is to envision, engineer and build a Solartopian
transportation system that moves people and things cleanly around a
crowded planet with diminishing resources and no margin for ecological
error.
For that we need every cent and brain cell devoted to what’s new and works, not what’s failed and could kill us all.
- Posted in
88 Comments so far
Show AllMarshall McLuhan (anyone remember him?) predicted the end of the age of automobiles 40 years ago, yet they're still hear, still stinking up the air, and people are still trying to figure out how to run them without having to buy gobs of foreign oil.
One of these days someone will start up their car and the last bit of carbon dioxide will belch out of its tailpipe and climate change will hit its catastrophic flashpoint, and people will (as they gasp for breath) wonder how the hell that could have possibly happened.
CORRECTION:
FDR did not "take over" GM during WWII. FDRs War Production Board DID dictate exactly what every US manufacturer (not just auto makers)would make for public and private purchasers, until the war ended. The US Government, of course, increased their purchase of manufactured goods significantly during the war.
If you dictate exactly what a manufacturer is going to make, isn't that essentially taking over the business? When you stop making Cadillacs for private sale and turn to making bombers with tax payer dollars, then you've been taken over. And this comment of yours has nothing to do with the previous comment for which you selected to reply to.
remember the joy of functioning flesh and muscle...
any correlation between one's natural ranges of mobility and observation and one's natural limits of emotional and intellectual capacity?
is remote interaction different than local, even if real time?
where do one's responsibilities become physical? when does one's body become, once again, not only the primary mode of one's transportation, but also the primary method of acquiring one's water and food and shelter and pleasure?
the very earth is alive in you ~ shall the favor be returned?
The Amish had the right idea.
Typical rightwing hick response. So how's it going in TN with all that sludge mess? Unless you want to push for legalizing hemp for fuel or even shifting fossil fuel subsidization towards algae for oil and decentralize in both cases, forget it. And you call yourself a "moderate" ?
hemp fuel? fuel for the mind and body, yes...marijuana is wonderful...
You ain't no moderate. Given your pro-guzzler posts, you sound more like a Republican. Most real moderates I met with agreed with the need to fund public transportation and take away those idiotic tax cuts and loopholes for gas guzzlers.
"I accept that it's a good idea to increase the availability of public transportation for the times and the circumstances it makes sense, and to transition to another fuel besides petroleum to fuel the majority of personal vehicles."
Well, now is the time so either you're against yourself or are just another two-faced liar. Why should we damage the environment or go to war with another nation just to snort whatever oil's remaining? I'll bet you're one of those clowns who blindly believed in Dubya's WMD lies when it was all about O-I-L, right?
The guy's from Tennessee and my state of Mississippi is filled with equally egg-brained retards like that fellow. tnmoderate will be forced to come to grips with reality when he finds it more expensive at the pump. I can only imagine the look on his face were gas prices to go beyond $5/gallon. He thinks that oil growth is "perpetual" and probably thinks that public transportation is "unamerican". The petrocollapse is already on its way and tnmoderate will have to learn to ride a horse buggy sooner or later. LOL !!
"Typical rightwing hick response."
"Hick". Typical leftwing racist response. Insensitive as well to people in lower economic situations. Was it really called for, when all he bascially said was that he disagreed with the gist of the article? How enlightened and progressive of you.
"Insensitive as well to people in lower economic situations. "
As if you're any better. And all you ever do is defend the monied goons. I've lived in TN myself and knowing that it's been more of a hick state, I'm afraid JWVerez is correct. Besides, all you ever do is spout out your "well it's your fault, you should learn personal responsibility, blah-blah-blah" and your phoney pie-in-the-sky corporate propaganda bullshit. Traitors such as you and "tnmoderate" are the reason Main Street loses out to Wall Street and gets stuck in these bloody wars for oil. What do you do for a living anyway sonny?
"As if you're any better."
I've never once made a slur about poor people here.
"And all you ever do is defend the monied goons."
Example please.
"I've lived in TN myself and knowing that it's been more of a hick state, I'm afraid JWVerez is correct."
Now *both* of you have shown yourself to be racist and filled with contempt for the economically disadvantaged by using the "hick" slur. How very "progressive" of you
"well it's your fault, you should learn personal responsibility, blah-blah-blah"
Example? Are you saying no one should have to exhibit personal responsibility in how they lead their lives?
"What do you do for a living anyway sonny?"
Why, I'm "paid by The Neocons" to "troll" this group. I get $10,000 per post.
Marlene,
Allow me if I may to warn you and others about this jerk boy jakenewton. If you read his earlier posts on his take on obscene rental fee increases and his enronomics making debt look like a "good" thing, his "defending" tnmoderate on gas guzzling is no exception. See, his definition of "personal responsibility" is "greedy pigs are responsible while the little guy is at fault anyway". He's just some stupid kid who lives in his parent's basement listening to rightwing bullshit with delusions of grandeur. He thinks he's a rich flying pig. The twerp probably never left his rotten basement or he wouldn't be so divorced from reality.
Translation: Let's not take on anything he says directly, we really aren't going to do very well that way. LOL!
"Let's not take on anything he says directly, we really aren't going to do very well that way. LOL!"
Good idea jakenewton. We won't take you seriously from now on ! LOL ! LOL !
"We won't take you seriously from now on ! "
Fine by me, but leaving my arguments, such as the use of racist slurs on a supposedly "progressive" website untouched, could be awkward for you all. And not very enlightened either. You just stay in the conga line with the others, you'll be more comfortable there.
"He thinks he's a rich flying pig. The twerp probably never left his rotten basement or he wouldn't be so divorced from reality."
LOL ! That's jakenewton alright. Trying to reason with that peeface is like trying to train a pig tablemanners ! LOL !!
"Trying to reason with that "
No one *tried" Least of which you. On the table remains my assertion that "hick" is a racist slur against poor white rural dwelling people, among some other points. The fact is that you are incapable of reasoning with me on this point. You prove this by clumsily resorting to:
"peeface"
Name calling.
One word: bicycles.
I'm in the same boat, but the nearest public transportation is 140 miles away.
In fact, in my state (NM), only 3 cities boast public transportation, and there is a commuter-rail tying 2 of those cites. That's it.
City-folk think that the world consists only of big cities. They should get out a little more often.
PS I only shop/do errands twice/month, and only for what I need. Random purchasing does not exist for me.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins - Native American proverb.
Perhaps you could reach out to locals and team up for local public transportation, no?
That's a good suggestion. Alas, my nearest town of 800 (mostly unemployed Native Americans who have nowhere to go anyway) is 5 miles distant and 1,500' lower. I do bicycle to town to give tuition to the local school kids and pick up dietary staples.
This is the same story in a hundred villages in New Mexico, and many thousands of villages throughout the US.
I'm guessing here (I welcome anyone to provide data for a more realistic estimate) and suggest that at least 40% of Americans do not have an access node to public transport within 10 miles of their house and/or work place. I include in that number the many people who are not capable of providing human-powered transport (walking, bicycling, etc) due to disability, age, level of fitness, etc. This is something largely ignored by city-dwellers who take so much for granted.
I'd like to suggest that the carbon footprint for a city dweller is higher than their rural cousins (despite the latter's higher dependence on vehicular travel), largely because city dwellers are significantly greater consumers (of foreign-made goods), and subscribe to a lot of services (such as trash collection, street-cleaning, gardeners, after-school activities, etc) that do not exist in smaller towns. In addition, rural populations tend to reuse a lot more stuff, including automobiles, rather than city populations which tend to consume newly-manufactured stuff. Rural folk also tend to live in smaller homes, with their concomitant smaller environmental footprint.
I contend that despite rural population's arguably greater reliance on fossil fuels for personal transport, that in the larger picture, rural people may have a smaller environmental impact than their city-dwelling cousins.
This assessment is just a back-of-the-envelope calculation. I'd appreciate seeing hard data that either shows I am correct, or blowing hot air.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins - Native American proverb.
My, tnmoderate, you're a sweet person (not). In fact, my response would be that 8 miles on a bicycle is not a big deal, and lots of people commute 35 miles each way on bikes. Weather is not a problem either; I commute every workday year-round in New England. Of course, it IS more convenient to live closer to your job and shopping.
You are unwilling to recognize that your choice of lifestyle is about to be pulled out from under you, no matter how unready you are to give it up.
And why don't you like to live in a city? Probably because of the noise and pollution. And why is there noise and pollution - because of the cars!
Or is it the black people?
The car-optional urban neighborhood I lived in until recently was actually quieter -and even more child-friendly than a suburban area. But you will have to go above the Mason Dixon line to see such places - southern cities are crap.
And I bet you lifestyle will change if it gets expensive enough...
---USAn---
"so at 35 miles that's almost 2 hours each way for my commute (as compared to current 40 minutes). No thanks."
Nowadays with higher volume traffic thanks to artificially "low" gas prices, the time it takes to get to work 20 miles away is going up as high as 1.5 hours as reported by people from various places. It's already coming to the point that driving by car is taking just as long to get to work as is riding a bike. That alone should tell you something. And as oil supplies get tighter and the real prices come back, you'll be singing a different toon. The so-called "American lifestyle" which I'm ashamed to call it is about to come to an end whether you like it or not. If by then you can afford to pay 10-15 bucks a gallon at the pump, fine but screw you amoral bigots who dragged our sons and daughters into these bloody wars for oil !
And that's when people call for more roads. Blah.
"to which I would respond, screw you."
To which I would respond: Pay for your own damn wars and stop endangering my kids lives and taking money out of my paycheck to pay for your choices.
amen.
"Pay for your own damn wars and stop endangering my kids lives and taking money out of my paycheck to pay for your choices."
What's your best evidence to support that any of these "points" even exist?
Damn sonny. It seems to me you never paid attention to what's been going on. Why don't you go and serve in Iraq and then come back when you're done in a year? America's going down the toilet because of careless fools like you sonny !
"It seems to me you never paid attention to what's been going on. "
Why don't *you* pay attention to the thread you decided to participate in? tmmoderate's choice of living in rural Tennessee is the subject we are discussing, and has nothing to do with any war. If you are going to claim it does, show your work.
Are you seriously suggesting that the U.S. military involvement in the Persian Gulf over the last several decades has nothing to do with securing the oil supply? I am going to assume that you aren't so delusional as to suggest such a thing. In which case the subject of tnmoderate's lifestyle choice is very relevant to the subject of war.
After all, Jimmy Carter declared the Persian Gulf oil fields to be "vital to our national interests" in his 1980 State of the Union address and vowed to protect the oil supply with force of arms. The USS Vincennes blew a commercial airliner full of innocent civilians out of the air in 1988 while patrolling the Persian Gulf to protect oil tankers. Secretary of State James Baker said Gulf War I was about "Jobs, jobs, jobs." Nowadays nobody -- except maybe you -- takes the government's pro forma denials of oil as a motivation for the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf seriously.
"Are you seriously suggesting that the U.S. military involvement in the Persian Gulf over the last several decades has nothing to do with securing the oil supply?"
No. Although I would be very interested in how you define "securing the oil supply". It's a fact that *everything* that goes on in the ME has to do with oil at least indirectly. The fallacy is in thinking this is the *only* factor concerning things that go on there.
"In which case the subject of tnmoderate's lifestyle choice is very relevant to the subject of war."
In which case you have to actually make the argument that choosing to live in the rural US is "very relevant to the subject of war". Before trying, I would remind you that all oil from the ME is bought with cash, we never had to go to war to buy it, and that the US doesn't use all much of oil from there anyway.
"After all, Jimmy Carter declared"
It doesn't matter what he or anyone else said. They are politicians, and they all talk smack all the time.
On what roads? If we haven't noticed yet roads everywhere are going to hell and that goes double for rural areas. Light rail track for trolleys is much cheaper to maintain than roads as it doesn't heave and pothole.
The current, every American has a car, system is dependent upon continuous manufacture of millions of cars that are disposed of in ten to fifteen years. The energy resources to manufacture those cars cheaply are going bye-bye. They simply won't exist in twenty years and the roads will revert to gravel.
People will travel by train by preference and switch to taxis in cities or whatever kludged up transport can be had in rural areas. The car as a dominant cultural item is dead. It only survives right now due to massive subsidy.
I share your feelings, but the automobile is not dead.... there will always be demand for personal transportation.
A more proper goal might be of integrating the two (auto and mass transit)... going something like (from my imagination)
-electric cars
-that can be powered from home
-that can drive onto a train
-and that train can be maglev, going down exsistng interstate and highway medians
Just imagine.... better urban planning would eliminate a lot of travel, and when you had to travel, public trasit might be faster in some cases, meaning you would have a better choice than your car, but you could drive your car onto an interstate train for non-daily travel.
You will always have people who want to drive alone... but increasing options is a good thing. there are just too many of us, and I do know people who have a car, but take public transit because they don't want to deal with traffic, parking, driving. Interstate transit is dominated by trucking and airlines- both would be better (for me) to be switched to trains.
A computer controlled system of traffic, meaning direct central control of vehicles, would be most efficient...but yeah, don't count on car owners going for that.
dust:
nice image
floating down the freeway
like the ride from england
to france on a hovercraft
ken
Senior adviser to Greenpeace? That explains a lot...
Logical contradiction:
"Hybrids are too little, too late, with problems of their own. Solar-powered electric cars will help phase out the gas guzzlers. But in the long run, the automobile itself needs to be dismantled and re-cycled, not retooled or rebuilt."
"Cars still kill 40,000 Americans/year, and thousands more worldwide. No matter how much less gas each may burn, they all consume unsustainable resources to manufacture, operate and terminate."
"We need to dig up roads, not build more. We need rails and coaches, bio-diesel buses..."
I mean, is this meant to be deliberately obtuse? What will the bio-diesel buses drive on? Dirt roads? Or is this just indicative of the PR mindset in place at Greenpeace - what was their last big initiative? E-waste certification programs for computer companies? Voluntary initiatives under the self-regulated free-market model that works so well in finance? Joyful cooperation with industry as we march together into a brave new future... gack.
Well... I guess Greenpeace doesn't want to be branded as an "eco-terrorist" organization. If we see a big Greenpeace presence on top of some West Virginia mountaintops, I'll admit I'm wrong...
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=120480
Five More Arrested Protesting West Virginia Coal Mining
Source: Copyright 2009, Environment News Service
Date: March 5, 2009
"Five people were arrested today while they were protesting blasting near Schumate dam on the Edwight mountaintop removal site operated by Massey Energy. These are the latest arrests in a wave of demonstrations against coal mining that is conducted by blasting off the tops of Appalachian mountains and dumping the rock waste into valley streams below."
"The demonstrators said they believe it is urgently necessary to protect the children at Marsh Fork Elementary from the pending danger of a massive dam failure of the Schumate sludge impoundment on the hillside above the school in Sundial, West Virginia."
It's not the end of the Age of the Automobile - it is the end of the Age of Fossil Fuels - which will not end due to a lack of fossil fuels to burn - just as the Stone Age did not end due to a shortage of stones. Renewables just work better and the fuel is sunlight and wind, which are free.
"but because the technology no longer makes sense". And that is because....? I haven't seen anything to reaplace cars as personal means of transportation in the near future.
"If GM lives in any form, it must be owned and operated by its workers and the public". Really, so I'm gonna pay taxes to run somebankrupt company. Not that it's not happening right now. Let it die and bury it.
Good ol Harvey taking a break from nuke bashing. This article does not make any sense at all.
chameleon, gunboatdiplomat, dustinchicago, tnmoderate,
The most pig-ignorant set of posts I've ever seen in response to a commondreams article. If the automobile's not dead, we are.
The resources don't exist to allow most of the world to adopt this lifestyle. Who are we to tell them they can't live like we do? We are already killing each other over these resources.
Every time you step on the gas peddle imagine yourself stepping on the throat of an Iraqi child. The relationship is that direct. Better yet, imagime yourself stepping on your own children's throats. That's the kind of world you're condemning them to live in.
Yes Tommy, good luck with the Armageddon.
My car does not have a "peddle" it has a pedal. Also, I ride a scooter (70mpg) about 40% of the 9000mi i do every year. Don't have kids so I can't really step on their throats.
That being said, how about telling me why you and Harvey think the car technology is obsolete? Got anything else in mind for personal transportation? Or what the benefit to the taxpayer would be to buy out GM?
Also, let's try not to call each other names.
Sorry about the name-calling and the misspelling.
As for alternatives, I've been a bicycle commuter for 35 years and completely carfree for 14. Bicycles, walking and busses are adequate for most needs.
As I said in my original post, the requirement for more and more warfare is my main complaint about cars. That and all of the concrete. Huge tracts of land have been buried under concrete for cars in my city. Also, all of the automobile traffic makes life dangerous for people who don't want to drive. How many feet can you walk from your home before you come to a place where anyone with a drivers license can legally kill you just for being there? Then there is the air pollution and climate change ...
I ride an electric motor scooter - recently upgraded to lithium cells. Range 35 miles, energy-equivalent fuel economy 390 mpg.
I agree that personal cars and light truck use trucks will continues to be needed in rural areas. But cities could be car-free, and if they were, they would be wonderful, quiet, vibrant places that people would be much more inclined to live in - especially if USAns would stop being so hostile to culture, arts and good food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_carfree_places
Suburbia and the whole sprawling sun-belt pattern of develpemnt should simply be abolished.
---USAn---
Please give us more information about your scooter.
I bet it wouldn't carry my fat ass, even though I'd only need 8 miles in a day for work.
You can try here:
www.e-motosport.com/products_g3000x.html
Note that the 28 mph advertized speed is the restricted speed so that they qualify as "mopeds" in California. If the restriction is removed, the 48 volt scooters will go about 35 mph and 60 volt scooters will go 45 mph.
If you need to go faster or need something bigger, go here:
www.rmartinbikes.com/evd-electric-motorcycle.html
or here:
www.x-tremescooters.com/electric_mopeds/xm-5000li/xm-5000li.html
Note that "moped" is a misnomer - these are legal motorcycles in most US states.
While their quality is improving, owing to their Chinese origin and the fact that you will likely have to mail-order the scooter, It is recommended that you have some mechanical and electrical/electronic skills before you buy one.
In particular, none of the lithium powered models (highly recommended) come with a proper battery pack mangement system, but a do-it-yourself kit version is avaialable here:
www.tppacks.com/products.asp?cat=26
But if you have about $10,000 to spend, the top of the line model, built in Europe, is the MiMH powered Vectrix, as shown here:
www.vectrixusa.com/
---USAn---
Two good forums where e-cycles of various types are discussed are the "voltage forum" and the more tychnical "endless sphere" forum. (google them)
There are many electric car home-builder fora as well. Do a search.
---USAn---
Thanks for the info!
The culprit, is not the automobile, it is the speed at which we use it. At a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour, it would become a tool using a lot less resources and also would be a lot less dangerous.
Anyway, right now if we add the time we work to pay for a vehicule, to the time we spend in it, and divide it by the distance covered by that vehicule; the average speed is probably already 20 miles per hour.
I've never driven...26 years old, never even wanted to get a driver's license. I get to and from work just fine on the bus, only a 20-30 minute ride (depending on traffic from all the bloody cars)...and now I'm thinking of walking to and from work, I need the exercise and it's only 4 miles each way. I wonder how many car owners would seriously consider walking to work daily if they lived so close to it.