“Gas prices? What gas prices?”
Even without insane and illegal wars, the thing about any dependency, including car dependency, is that once you’re dependent, they can do whatever they want with the prices.
Real freedom is choices. Better cities create choices. Graphic via the Urban Truth Collective. Check out our website here:
https://www.urbantruthcollective.com/#UrbanTruth
@BrentToderian #AltText4You a group of people cycle cheerfully along a leafy urban street under the strap line "Gas prices? What gas prices?"
Below is the text "Better cities create choices"
This might well be the 'urban truth' - but what about the other half ? - the half of humanity that live in the countryside, villages and small towns ?
Campaigners need a much more realistic focus on people for whom there is no alternative to car dependency - in many cases precisely because of the centralisation of essential services in cities ! - or, of course, because they are elderly, disabled, have lots of small children, need to carry equipment, etc, etc...
Reducing car dependency for many people is a matter not of more bike lanes or better public transport, but vast changes to the physical infrastructure of the developed world - that will take decades. Not recognising this just makes green campaigns seem unrealistic to many, perhaps most people - often to those that would otherwise be most sympathetic to nature conservation - and in this I would include all those who want to travel to very remote countryside locations precisely to experience nature's calm.
For these people EVs are essential, as part of a very long transition away from the way the world is currently built and organised. The campaign focus should therefore not be against EVs, but against the personal car ownership model, and towards the creation of car co-ops in every village and neighbourhood, that can combine the built-in advantages of the car (travel from your home to exactly where you want to go, however lonely or remote) with a massive reduction in car numbers and emissions - and, incidentally, a democratising of car access.
@GeofCox Such ideas are already coming up but as you say, it will take time. On the other side, a change can happen quickly.
Living in very rural France far away of the Paris hype, we can see the difference between far-right mayors and mayors interested in people and environment. The latter achieve good ideas in only some years.
The problem is that nobody counts the disabled, the old: "Let them move into town – they’ll have everything there" seems to be the politics of both ...
@GeofCox @BrentToderian ”people for whom there is no alternative to car dependency”
That is what car dependency is, feeling you have no alternative.
And a lot of that dependency is because of other people’s car use. EVs don’t solve this, less car use does, and most importantly, less prioritisation of cars. Cars need to be removed from the first-class-citizen status that is present in almost every society today. That doesn’t mean cars should be banned, but switch places with people.
I think you've rather missed my point. For some people - for example city-dwellers that are able to walk or cycle or use public transport with little difficulty - reducing car dependency is one set of relatively easily solved problems; but for others the problems around reducing car dependency are much more difficult - and I would say can ONLY be mitigated using electric car co-ops.
Therefore, rather than adopting, and promoting the negative view - 'EVs don't solve it' - environmentalists need to move to the positive: 'setting up EV co-ops is a great solution'.
@GeofCox @BrentToderian I think you missed mine. Car numbers are important to reduce, sure, but if car *use* still remains the same, nothing has been gained in road safety.
Road safety for pedestrians and cyclists is the important factor for reducing car dependency, from urban centres to rural settings. If you are scared for your life when not in a car, you will feel that the car is necessary.
And being scared for your life is not a side effect, it’s the foundation of car society.
You've shifted the discussion from environmental to road safety issues - and I don't agree that 'road safety for pedestrians and cyclists is the important factor for reducing car dependency'. Car dependency is much more structural - it's to do with where people live, where they work, where services are located, where they want to go for leisure pursuits, etc...
I think you're still thinking inside the able-bodied, child-free urbanite framework. We can easily go by bike to all the towns and villages around our home on cycle paths or virtually traffic free roads. That is not the problem. The problem is that we couldn't have done that when we had 4 small children living at home with us - nor will we be able to do it when our health deteriorates (as, in the end, everybody's does). Some services are only in cities - 100km from us; there are indeed services to help people get to things like medical appointments, etc... they use cars.
@BrentToderian the weight of poverty, hunger and suffering.
Of course, we need better cities. And your initiative is great and important!
But as we say it in France: Paris is not the whole country. And gas is not only cars.
@NatureMC @BrentToderian All the more reason for everyone who uses oil to reduce the use to the bare minimum.
And taking a plane or a car because it’s ”more convenient” than using other means does not count as bare minimum.
@ahltorp I’m right on your side when it comes to moving away from fossil fuels.
But in my post, I’m trying to show that being able to do so is also a certain privilege. And that we can’t just snap our fingers and make it happen in the food sector: poor exploited soils need fertilisers.
We all too often forget about poor countries in our own perspective. Or the poor among us (a big part of social housing in trendy Paris consists of poorly insulated holes with gas heating).
@NatureMC @BrentToderian Yes, and we need to use that privilege. It is privileged people who use the most oil. Reducing that would affect prices for others.
The average person in France, even outside Paris, is definitely privileged enough to reduce their use of oil, or at least stop voting for right-wing politicians that want to make petroleum-drinking a mandatory sport.
@ahltorp I fully agree!
Brent Toderian
Alexandre Chailleux
Petra van Cronenburg
Simon Brooke
Grant
GeofCox
Magnus Ahltorp
Mistonas
ĞÖKÜ👻👻™