Walking, bikes, trains and other public transportation. Maybe carpooling.
But in countries built around roads and cheap oil such as the U.S. the consequences of those choices will be harsher. Specially as the people in charge know of this but did and still do nothing to address the issue.
I live in a country where public transportation is excellent and car sharing exists. I lived 2 months without a car and just could not stand it any longer after that. Now I just do a mix of driving my own car + taking public transportation. If you only live in a big city and only want to do things there, then public transportation is ok.
I live in a country with a good public transportation network. It takes takes 1.5 - 2x more time to get around, at only a slim financial difference. I used it primarily for a couple of years, but it was only viable because I was lucky to live in cycling or walking distance of a train station. Right now it's just not viable anymore; my commute would be 2 hours instead of <1 if I were to try it with public transit, and would involve two buses, two trains, and a lot of waiting in between.
We'll find a way though, after some pain. Maybe we'll just become less mobile, and be okay with that. Denser housing and more distributed community hubs seem the obvious solution.
The harder question is how would you get from here to a world without cars in the first place. There are some pretty massive political and social hurdles to overcome. I don't think this will happen until we basically run out of fuel, unfortunately.
> Maybe we'll just become less mobile, and be okay with that.
This is bizarre. Is there any other technology, any other quality-of-life issue, in which people would advocate or settle for regression? Technology is advancing faster than ever before, the pace is still increasing--yet people are saying that we should go back to not having personal vehicles, not travelling much...
Most discussions centered on environmental concerns boil down to accepting a massive quality of life reduction for most of the world's population. It is usually colored by someone who thinks it wouldn't impact themselves much and that the world would be better if more people just lived like them i.e. in dense urban environments. This argument at least is not predicated on the need to kill a bunch of people such as you commonly hear in biotech or agriculture discussions.
But most urbanists and community groups aren’t interested in the big-picture finances. They’re concerned with on-the-ground experience, and the personal car is not essential to it. Technology is providing car sharing and ride sharing for short distances, and airplanes for long distances. Just-in-time global supply chains that make tropical fruit affordable in the neighborhood grocery store, also provide anything else in the world to my doorstep. Emission control technology and tree plantings make urban life sometimes less polluted than rural life.
We live great lives without personal cars, and we don’t want to be forced into legacy environments that require cars.
> It is not a regression if that way of life was not sustainable.
Yes it is. It's literally a regression. The reason for the regression is orthogonal to the fact that it is a regression.
> They’re concerned with on-the-ground experience, and the personal car is not essential to it.
This is a generalization that does not account for the way of life of most of the population.
> Technology is providing car sharing and ride sharing for short distances, and airplanes for long distances. Just-in-time global supply chains that make tropical fruit affordable in the neighborhood grocery store, also provide anything else in the world to my doorstep. Emission control technology and tree plantings make urban life sometimes less polluted than rural life.
None of that helps a family of four cart their kids around town. Or anyone who lives outside of an urban area. Or anyone who likes to have room to carry anything around, go on weekend trips, etc.
> Emission control technology and tree plantings make urban life sometimes less polluted than rural life.
A vague generalization, and generally unlikely.
> We live great lives without personal cars, and we don’t want to be forced into legacy environments that require cars.
This is also bizarre. It's especially so when you look at the bigger picture, in which cars are an evolution of the horse-drawn carriage. Imagine telling a family 150 years ago that their horse is not sustainable, so they have to give it up. Imagine telling them that you live a great life without a horse, and you don't want to be forced into a legacy environment that requires horses, so they should get used to life without a horse.
> > It is not a regression if that way of life was not sustainable.
> Yes it is. It's literally a regression.
It’s not a regression. It’s an advance in way of life. In the past, if you wanted to move fast, you had to own the car. Now you don’t need to own it, and can use the space for something else. Now you don’t need to drive it, and can have your hands free while someone else drives the car.
> > Just-in-time global supply chains that make tropical fruit affordable in the neighborhood grocery store, also provide anything else in the world to my doorstep.
> None of that helps a family of four cart their kids around town. Or anyone who lives outside of an urban area. Or anyone who likes to have room to carry anything around, go on weekend trips, etc.
Owning a car is not freedom. Owning a car is being separated from friends and family, because the car is literally, physically, coming between you. Owning a car is being stuck in traffic. Owning a car is being a slave to the DMV, the gas station, and the repair shop.
Living without a car is not giving up mobility. It’s living in a place where the car is just one option, and not necessarily the best option. Growing up, my family of five carted around town via public transit. We couldn’t afford to own a car, so living in a place built around car ownership would have meant living in isolation. Requiring a car is not sustainable.
> > Emission control technology and tree plantings make urban life sometimes less polluted than rural life.
Intensive agriculture has helped make food incredibly cheap, but the concentrated chemicals do not seem healthy to be near.
> > We live great lives without personal cars, and we don’t want to be forced into legacy environments that require cars.
> This is also bizarre. It's especially so when you look at the bigger picture, in which cars are an evolution of the horse-drawn carriage.
Not everybody owned the horse-drawn carriage. And people did give up the horse, sometimes reluctantly, because they could not afford to keep it. Fortunately, they lived in places where the horse was just one option, and not necessarily the best option.
Disappointing but unsurprising that you would downvote instead of replying. I encourage you to contemplate your processes of reasoning. If you can't refute my points, you are a captive of what you currently think.
> It’s not a regression. It’s an advance in way of life.
You're framing, and in a very intellectually dishonest way.
> In the past, if you wanted to move fast, you had to own the car. Now you don’t need to own it, and can use the space for something else. Now you don’t need to drive it, and can have your hands free while someone else drives the car.
That's not true. Taxis have been around longer than cars have. Why did you ignore this?
> Owning a car is not freedom.
It certainly is, just as owning a bicycle or having legs and feet that work are.
> Owning a car is being separated from friends and family, because the car is literally, physically, coming between you.
You're being bizarre here. According to you, my car separates me from my family that lives hundreds of miles away, because the metal and glass physically separate us while I'm in the car driving to see them? Are you being serious, or is this an elaborate trolling?
> Owning a car is being stuck in traffic.
Depends on where you live. Many millions of people live where traffic is not an issue. And when the alternative to being stuck in traffic for a few minutes is spending 5x that long walking or riding a bike, it's a net savings of time.
> Owning a car is being a slave to the DMV, the gas station, and the repair shop.
By that logic, walking is being a slave to the shoe company and the supermarket. Again, are you being serious? Do you actually think this way?
> Living without a car is not giving up mobility. It’s living in a place where the car is just one option, and not necessarily the best option. Growing up, my family of five carted around town via public transit. We couldn’t afford to own a car, so living in a place built around car ownership would have meant living in isolation.
Do you actually believe these kinds of blanket statements? Have you ever met anyone who has trouble walking but can drive a car? Have you ever met anyone who needs to transport a walker or a scooter so they can get around after they get out of their car? I guess you would expect them to wait for the city's "old folks bus" to come along and scoop them up--if there even is one where they live. For all your talk about people living in isolation, you are incredibly narrow-minded and inconsiderate of those less fortunate than yourself.
> Requiring a car is not sustainable.
It certainly is. We've been using them for over 100 years and show no signs of slowing down. Cars are as sustainable as any other human activity, which is to say, as sustainable as we want it to be. Of course, there are people, such as yourself, who do not want it to be, therefore you claim that it is not, to convince people to stop, for reasons you would rather not admit to.
> Intensive agriculture has helped make food incredibly cheap, but the concentrated chemicals do not seem healthy to be near.
For you to make such a statement, implying that to live outside of urban areas is unhealthy, is beyond bizarre.
> Not everybody owned the horse-drawn carriage. And people did give up the horse, sometimes reluctantly, because they could not afford to keep it. Fortunately, they lived in places where the horse was just one option, and not necessarily the best option.
Not everyone did everything. Some people did somethings. Some people lived in some places, and some in others. From that, you would derive conclusions about what we should be allowed to do today. Amazing.
I concur, the push for mass adoption when the tech behind the electric cars are in such an infant stage makes me nervous. On top of that it won't be any better for the environment in countries which still have majorly coal-based power plants.
That's true in the short term, but one of them has to be the first to move. Shifting from coal to renewables does nothing for the environmental impact of cars in an all-ICE system. If we get a larger percentage of electric cars, the impact of switching to renewables will also increase.
The western market doesn't work like that. It's not a single budget controlled by a single entity, and as such it cannot shift focus in the way you are asking.
Once you realise this, you can see electric cars for what they are: An improvement to personal safety (not explosive, no human exposure to toxic fluids, bigger crumble zone).
It's already happening in Germany and E.U. IIRC Germany set 2030 for getting rid of all vehicles with combustion motor and E.U. set the date around 2050.
