Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
area-wide impacts. Even the classic good practice city examples often fall down in the suburbs
and in the urban sprawl on the edge of the metropolitan area, where the car becomes the major
mode of choice. The increasing price of fuel, together with the apparent reducing availability
of conventional oil supplies, have all acted as a focus for debate, but even here the addiction
to oil is difficult to break. The evidence suggests that more, not less, oil is being used in
transport globally. The large potential volume of unconventional oil resources, in oil sands
and shale, provides a resource for future mobility growth, but this is hugely problematic in
terms of the potential CO2 emissions this implies.
The substantial growth in traffic volumes has had an enormous impact on the city and city
life, over only a very limited time period. This speed of change has been underestimated and
many cities seem to be 'sleepwalking' into the high energy, carbon dependence of mass car
ownership and usage. It is easy to think that the car and its associated systems and infrastructure
have been around for centuries because of its dominance in the urban environment and because
of its centrality to many people's life. A walk through almost all of the cities in the world
quickly demonstrates its dominance. The motor car, usually with an internal combustion engine
and powered by petrol or diesel, has became the core technology for mobility; it has become
a central part of modern life and often facilitates the activities undertaken (Urry, 2007).
However, as a counter, the unsustainability of the increased motorisation trend is also
remarkable. The world received its billionth car in 2011, and is on the pathway to 2 billion
cars by 2020 (Sperling and Gordon, 2009; Schäfer et al., 2009). The reality or even hyperreality
of the current situation has formed a central theme within this topic. We have sought to
understand the car in its use value and in motorisation as a symbol of modernity and success.
This draws on the thoughts of Mannheim (1936, p. 74):
an ideology that cannot, in the long run, continue its upward trend. We anticipate that its
expansion and diffusion will lead to a juncture at which it is no longer possible for the
trend to be justified and maintained. Inadvertently, we will move to a new stage in the
analysis of thought.
Hence our transport systems may be entering this transition stage, where the key actors -
governments at various levels, civil society, the motor industry, the wider supporting
auto-industrial complex and the public - start to confront the problem of the inherent instability
of the current system and seek new directions for the future. As noted above, although there
is good practice emerging in sustainable transport, the scale and speed of action is not sufficient
to respond to the requirements for global reductions in carbon emissions and more resource
efficiency in transport. There is too much inertia in the system, too much caution in ways of
thinking about the problems being faced, and too much convention in the nature of investment
decisions. There is a tendency to think that good practice will snowball and a sufficient
momentum for change will happen organically, but this is likely to be wishful thinking. The
reality is that there is no global, concerted action to address the problems, and many national
governments are not committed to carbon reduction targets or resource efficiency, and it is
clear that markets have not worked for carbon or energy. The question here is that thinking
needs to go beyond the art of the possible to thinking about the impossible. Again, the world
of Borges offers inspiration, perhaps illuminating the unreality of our present situation, the
changes that are possible in our understanding (and travel behaviours) if sustainable travel is
to be developed in the mainstream:
