Do you know what? Those whacko greenies were right all along, although possibly not for the reasons they thought. The issue is not about saving the Earth, it’s about saving humanity, and ‘sustainability’ is actually about sustaining our happiness.
While we’re all getting exercised about the proposed ban on petrol and diesel cars, it might be worth considering that this is something of a specific. So internal combustion will fade away, but so what? Future generations will lament its demise no more than I lament the end of bear-baiting.
Our worry about the acceptability of the car is merely one way of expressing a more general concern about our continued contentment. There is a bigger picture, so here’s the usual one (cliché alert).
The World - it's work in progress.
Human happiness, according to my mate Dan, is about ‘a nice life full of stuff that works’. He may be on to something, and I think will come down to three things: the provision of ample food, recyclability, and abundant, harmless energy.
I’m going to put the food bit to one side, like an overdone sprout, because I don’t know anything about that. But here goes with everything else.
As humans, we like to create and produce. Doesn’t matter whether it’s growing some roses or designing and manufacturing a new computer. It makes us happy, and gives us gainful employment. We also like to consume, because it incrementally improves our lives. But at the same time, we worry that in doing these things we are filling the world with crap.
But if everything is totally and infinitely recyclable, this doesn’t matter, because your car or your phone or your floral sports jacket are merely the current hosts of materials that will soon become something else, and then something else after that. All our industrious urges met, without filling the sea with polythene.
This, however, demands limitless energy, which means all efforts towards renewables, nuclear fusion, anti-matter and dilithium are wholly commendable. One of these energy sources will find its way into your car, probably in the form of electricity, but where it’s actually come from, who knows? Let’s not get bogged down in whether or not a plug-in rechargeable BMW or a fuel-cell Honda is actually ‘green’, it’s all just part of the investigation into a more complete solution.
So, there you go. Everything sorted. If cars are your particular thing, then you will have a new one more often, and it will be better than the last one while relieving you of guilt. Indeed, you will have a nice life full of stuff that works.
Off we go.
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Comments (281)
My answer would be to make all public transport free & more reliable. That would cut a lot of journeys down & then those who wish to drive for a hobby fair enough make people pay whatever tax for the pleasure. I bet if my idea of free public transport was put in place tomorrow you would soon see a big number of cars off the road.
I agree with you when it concerns big cities, you often do not need a car if public transport is well organized but in small towns and villages and just rural areas people will still need personal transport
We could start with the cities & then look at Rural areas but it would be a start
We all have to go electric – so what?
The attitude towards the car has already started to change anyway. In the big cities (where public transport is working well) the number of young people who pass a driving licence has been going down for years now. And why would they bother to drive if they have to spend so much time on searching for some place to park that costs considerably more than a bus ticket?
For those who still have to drive to work every day (where public transport does not meet their needs), it will rather be a boring necessity than a fun experience. Why would they bother if their boring car is run by boring little electric goblins or little fuel drinking ones? If an error message comes up, it has to be corrected by Dr. Mabuse BCar, because the average user/driver will know as much about the car as he/she knows about computer engineering.
No doubt there will always be car enthusiasts, but just have a look at James May: the average life span of his cars is nowhere near the one of his jumpers or shirts. Why would he not want to drive the latest fully electric Ferghini or McLamborari in 2040? Or the latest Porsche which will probably still look the same and still be a 911.
And for those who really cannot live without petrol fumes, there will still be track days and special events, when the automotive remains of today will be presented with special permissions. Because they cannot take away our Chirons, Aventadors and R8s …. that would be like banning Van Gogh´s paintings from the museums because the paints he used might cause cancer.
Absolutely and precisely correct.
This is a refreshingly not miserable take on something that has been received with vocal misery.
Good luck finding a tree to hug when the countryside is just solar farms and wind turbines...
As we can see from the Tesla's and the Rimac (before Hammond burnt it) electric will and is becoming more desirable because it will work better than a technology from the begining of the last century. We will miss the (tuned exhaust) noise from V8's etc but won't miss the fact these will be slower to the 60mph dash or the fact many things that can fail in them ( electric motors have 1 moving part). Biggest problwm at the moment is the infastructure to power these vehicles but new super conductors and batteries are on the way.
DON'T PANIC!
hope for the best
what's your view on fuel cell