A critical eco-issue that nobody appears to know how to solve is Mad Cars Disease.  Every DAY 200,000 of these machines, which only get used (i.e., driven) for less than one hour a day, are churned out of the worlds factories. They then spend most of their lives idle in car parks, contaminating the environment in every imaginable way – even visually, when they are lined up on roadsides as far as the eye can see.

An Inconvenient Truth?

On concluding his 2007 movie Al Gore listed “10 things you can do to help save the environment”, one of which was “use your car less”.  Which is laughable since the average car sits idle for 96% of its life.  To be consistent with his own films message, he should have said “if you want to help save the planet you must give up your cars..!”

I have always believed that we would never be able to substantially reduce our carbon emissions – and solve our environmental problems generally – whilst our cities, our economies, and our entire culture revolve around car ownership.   Even eco-warriors like George Monbiot (“Heat”) seem to believe we cannot do without them.  Almost nobody wants to believe that good lifestyles and strong economies can survive in a car-free environment.   

Hybrid and electric and driverless cars –  here and here – will only marginally reduce motor vehicle pollution.  Electric vehicles may not emit carbon (as long as we ignore the manufacturing process) but carbon is just one of many vehicle emissions.  Electric vehicles will produce piles of expired batteries, tyre dust, oil leaks, acid leaks, burning brake and clutch linings releasing highly toxic fumes, plastic, and many other bits and pieces falling off as they age and deteriorate.   

 Rather than endlessly waffling on about “improving public transport” if the greens were to focus their energies into solving the problem of how to live a comfortable life without cars, they might realise that Oasis-Cities is that solution.