The fundamental question is whether subversive marketing and business tactics are the cause or just a symptom of a much deeper issue. The CEO of the car company and the customer who buys the cars are both just people who are driven by narrow self interest and as human beings, thinking in terms of our own immediate vested interests comes very naturally to us. The real change in an idealistic sense will come when values change and people become so emotionally connected to their communities that they prioritize the long term well being of the community over selfish desires and perceived needs.

Even the somewhat heightened sensitivity to environmental issues nowadays is because people believe that the problem will reach catastrophic proportions in their own lifetimes and even then they mostly only contribute in ways that don’t threaten their current lifestyles.

The only way to control the growth of ‘car culture’ is to educate people on the real and present dangers of such unprecedented growth and to provoke a popular consensus on the need to limit the use of cars. This will then have to be backed up by effectively enforced government regulation which is fair and uniformly applied in both rich and poor/emerging economies. Educating the community and getting the community to act will take time and highly innovative communication since we would be seeking a fundamental change that goes against centuries of conditioning. This leads us to the question of who will do the educating. Here the answer might be NGOs but they seem to be in short supply and many don’t focus on the need for effective communication. In fact I would say that communication is the most important enabler in this movement since ultimately it’s about an internal transformation at an individual level. However most NGOs only focus on the issues they address and generally interpret communication as advocacy or activism. We need NGOs that are innovative and relentless in their focus on taking the message to the people in order to precipitate what can only be described as a cultural and spiritual revolution.

The best answer so far comes from the UK Sustainable Development Commission in the report Prosperity Without Growth
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/redefining-prosperity.html

We have to make big changes, and enhance social justice at the same time. That is what the climate justice movement is about. e.g. http://canadians.org/events/dig.html

PS. Great article Rex!

Two commercial systems are being buit. All of the problems you mentioned in this article CAN BE SOLVED by PRT, and “MISTER” is only one of a handful, which reached physical implementation. Visit our website, http://www.mist-er.com, where you will also find links to the whole PRT world.

PRT can move the same number of people in the city as subway but costs 10 to 30 times less to build and in a few years will be energy self sufficient !

It requires under 2 KW power to move 4 people at 30 mph, and extra 4 kW for aircon. Still, much less than car and less than even subway.

Vehicles wight 300 kg (~600 lb), stops are offline, travel is safe, on demand, 24×7, without stopping from start to destination. Infrastructure weighs some 200 lb (100 kg) per meter/yard. It can be built quickly and easily without affecting existing city structures. Stops can be on the ground or inside buildings. Every stop and every vehicle is accesible to wheelchairs and push chairs + bicycles. Average occupancy is like that for cars, and the system is anti vandal proof.

Ticket costs are like bus rides, except that systems are profitable!

best regards – Ollie Mikosza

To create a real future, free of inhumane, and ecologically destructive wars, and global warming we must all do our part. No one is asking anyone else to do any favors, do the right thing for yourself.

The next great illusion is the battery operated car which is currently causing further exploitation of people in the form of war in Afghanistan. Consider this article in the New York times which clearly hopes that Afghanistan will now allow itself to be plundered for lithium, among other resources. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?no_interstitial Obviously, this is the plundering of a resource not our own for unsustainable ends.

As someone who has had access to good public transportation, and for this reason has never purchased a car, I have saved tens of thousands of dollars over the last decade which have lead to a decent standard of living for myself, so it benefits individuals as well as the world. Car corporations know this and work to thwart citizens in creating decent public transit for themselves. In reality, it is cyclists and transit users who see their tax dollars simply turned into more roads for cars rather than into something that would benefit them.

Consider Albert Koehl’s article on the realities versus the myths of bicycle use:

http://ditchyourfridge.blogspot.com/2010/05/albert-koehl-joys-and-sorrows-of.html

To a world without cars, where people take responsibility for their own part in maintaining the planet!

To think that public transit and bikes will solve everything is childish and naive. What about the millions of auto factory workers who would be out of a job? The people who depend on work trucks for a living? Or the people like me who just really like to drive?

Rex Weyler: All good points. Perhaps as human society moves away from cars, factory workers will build public transport, and people will discover entertainment that doesn’t burn hydrocarbons.