@babypanda

I have good news for you. Nature will do that smart monkeys can't by themselves :-)

sorry, not sure what you mean exactly.... and feel free to elaborate on your thoughts about this topic... would love to hear them.

Just read the blog, you'll find all about nature and oil here. And also can find my posts about cars.

If one lives in an area of mainly large to medium cities, all packed close together, one might make some sense of this argument. Of course, it assumes that individual choice should be subjugated to the Group ... the committee, or perhaps, the Commissar? I'll skip that for now.

When one lives in an area of small towns of a hundred or so "clear" up to 40,000 in a few widely-spaced places, the author's expectation would mean that one would simply stay at home quite often. As there IS no public transit that could at all affordably cover the thousands of miles of County roads in my county often enough to get anyone to doctors, schools, work, any place they needed to be ... short of spending perhaps a couple days a week in a motel room in a town or something.

And compared to many counties in my home state of Oregon alone ... my county is somewhat "populous". And btw ... we have accommodation for many thousands along the coast of our state, including several thousand private houses ... that people of middle-income to quite modest actually buy and live in, or rent out for 'holiday' use at quite reasonable rates. So ... though this is a nice bit of ideological verbiage, it doesn't seem to fit the real world I live in at all.

I do have acquaintances in say New York City who, as a "poster" up above notes, haven't had a car in years. Great for them, they live in such close (and dense) proximity with several million other people that such things as subways and buses and walking to get things works very, very well.

I live two kilometers outside of a small town. I have several acres to care for, including 5 that we mow, many trees to manage, all that sort of thing. I need a vehicle that can carry rough and dirty things about ... so we have a pickup. We also have a nicer car, a 2-year old Kia Sorrento, so that we can get the three of us (or 6 if older son+wife and older daughter are home) can go someplace together and also so that we have a decent vehicle for our professional needs. We also have a "beater" old big van, used very little, but capable of carrying the large items we need to move now and then with our property. We have a doctor within a couple kilometers (but again, no public transportation) ... but all other doctors and facilities such as hospitals and radiology ... and most of our clients ... are between 20 and 70 kilometers away. Again, with no transit options available.

And I can't imagine how one could expect to schedule things with our clients (which we often do either at their place or parks or elsewhere) using public transportation if such was to at least some extent available.

This isn't at all the 'life' shown in the pictures of the blog itself, nor is the vast majority of our country anywhere near like that street-view. For us, that argument that starts this off is simply irrelevant.

Neil

"Change zoning approaches and kill public transport" ... as a 60-yr old who's lived here for all of it, that's ... well, perhaps more a ideological notion than one of reality. Banks and manufacturers worked to kill public transport? Banks doing ANYTHING about zoning? Gotta wonder what some people do for a living.

Property zoning in the US has become more restrictive of building residential buildings outside of population centers in the last 60 years. Oregon more so than most, to be sure ... thanks largely to my father-in-law who wrote the legislation that completely changed the focus of land use planning here back in the '73 legislative session (he was a state Senator at the time). The effort has been to push people onto smaller lots if in "single family" houses, and into apartments/row-houses and such to get higher density population/acre figures.

My father-in-law, who was a dairy farmer by profession (college educated, and decorated officer in the US Army Air Corp in WWll), was somewhat critical of the miles we put on our vehicles when our older two kids were school-age. Yet was thrilled to go the to concerts of the girls choir Anna was in, and the boy's choir Nels was in. There are nowhere NEAR enough kids to have had such programs here in our town, so the 30km one way trip to Salem twice a week for practices was necessary. Sometimes, between the 4-6 local kids involved, I'd make three round-trips a day. Following your post, none of that would have been possible. The practices were late-afternoon after school ... 30-45 minutes each way depending on traffic ... and in separate areas of Salem. Our kids also frequently had school or other events in the evening. By the time one could have got from school to one of the few places one could use as a bus-stop, waited for the next bus to Salem, then transfer once or twice in Salem (which contrary to your thesis does have bus service) and then walked from the nearest bus stop to rehearsal location ... the rehearsals would have been over by the time they arrived. And by the time they got home, they would be late for any school evening activity also.

So ... suggesting that everyone should stop driving cars means YOU suggest that we who don't live in a crowded city need to simply accept a very simple life. Be happy being a peasant with dreams of the outside world or something? :)

That doesn't seem quite sensible to me. And I'm not one to like some Commissar or Committee determining my life choices either. Different strokes for different folks, of course. Some of my friends go way past your comments. I would note, however, that most of them clearly do NOT think their ideas should pertain to themselves. As Al Gore flies around the world in his private and very polluting jet to tell others to live a simple lifestyle. My. :)

Neil

There are too many people on the planet for individual car ownership to be sustainable. I don't have the solution, but a better system needs to be devised - possibly a combination of a much more extensive and comfortable public transport system along with car sharing or some sort.

Well, that's a good point to some extent. But many people are so dependent on cars that they'll pay just about anything for oil and gas. As a previous poster pointed out, some people really have no choice but to own cars because of the way cities are designed. So the problem is complex. Maybe European cities were designed before cars, but North American cities were not.

yeah, but in some places you have to drive 10 miles just to get food. the world needs to be redesigned around small farming communities.

In other words, does it exist human dignity, which is an other name for freedom?

I have stupid question. What about dignity for the other 80% of humanity? As if you want dignity it must be same, I guess. But it'll mean instant collapse (due to resource and fuel supply) of your own habitat. Interesting consequence, isn't it? May be it is why rich and well fed like to talk about dignity but never do anything actual :-)

Volkswagen made an internal study what would happen if one would allow no more private cars in Berlin, but have Taxis running all over the city for free. Traffic, pollution and power consumption would be reduced massively, far less accidents happen and everybody would be paying less taxes for that service than paying now in taxes on their cars (in Germany you're paying massive taxes for your registration plus every tank filling).

Plus, it would create thousands of new jobs – but not at the Volkswagen plant. Consequently, they never published the results.

And, remember, even a car just standing waiting at your home has already put a massive load on resources consumption and pollution.

Sorry, Nino_Ilacqua, your idea of "freedom" is a very cynical one.

I hope that every individual in the other 80% of humanity can chose by himself/herself what to do and not to ask permission to some bureaucrat closed in an office. Who by the way would answer: "Sorry, unfortunately we have only three cars, one of them is for me, I have to go to my lover in my mountain house and the other two cars are necessary for the other two lovers of me who will join us on new year's day"

(Sorry for you guys, but it's what happens when you let apparatchik decide of people's life ).

As for my being "very cynical" for having a car, ok, let's invoke some God's punishment or its more modern alternative, the Nature :)

I hope that every individual in the other 80% of humanity can chose by himself/herself what to do and not to ask permission to some bureaucrat closed in an office. Who by the way would answer: "Sorry, unfortunately we have only three cars, one of them is for me, I have to go to my lover in my mountain house and the other two cars are necessary for the other two lovers of me who will join us on new year's day"

Btw, owners nation decided by themselves that they can have "freedom" and others must work and keep finding food each day, without any committee. They did not even asked and did not openly told the decision, it was just obvious :-)

Do you know it takes 6-12 months before the average Chinese decides what kind of car he wants to buy? One issue is cost of course, but the other larger issue is 'face'. Surface value far outweighs MPG :-). Even some guys can't get married or even dates without owning a car.

Chinese car market will be next horrible thing. Not only coal based pollution is bad, but they produce huge amount of cars and grow as mad.