Experts: Car travel must be cut 80 percent
By 2050, automobile travel would need to be cut (slashed, reduced, curtailed) by 80 percent. This is the finding in an upcoming paper to be published in the scholarly journal, Energy Policy. The authors claim that the drastic reduction will be needed to meet the emissions levels recommended by economist Ross Garnaut in an interim report for the government of Australia. Those levels are the target in order to avoid the worst of what upcoming climate change has to offer the vulnerable land down under, according to an article appearing on news.com.au.As if to rub salt in the wound, Associate Professor Damon Honnery, of Monash University said, "The car is doomed. People are going to have to fundamentally change the way they think about travel and make much more use of non-motorised travel such as cycling and walking." Cycling and walking? Ah, but what of hybrids, electric cars and ethanol and such? "Our calculations show that not even the best combination of fuel efficiency, hybrid and electric cars, alternative fuels and car pooling could provide the reductions needed to meet the 2050 targets for avoiding dangerous climatic change," he continued, dashing all hopes of avoiding sacrifice.
Not to be outdone, co-author Dr. Patrick Moriarty put the kibosh on air travel as well. "An overseas trip might become a once-in-a-lifetime experience rather than an annual event." Wow. Remind me not to invite these guys to my next party.
So do they offer up any transportation alternatives besides walking and cycling? You bet. Public transport. Guess we better get working on that railroad.
[Source: news.com.au]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Z 11:00AM (3/03/2008)
"An overseas trip might become a once-in-a-lifetime experience rather than an annual event."
With talk like this, maybe we should start looking at whether the benefits of travel outweigh the effects of global warming.
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MikeW 11:36AM (3/03/2008)
Why won't this AGW hoax just die already?
It is getting really annoying.
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jake 1:03PM (3/03/2008)
Wow that's pretty extreme, but I'm not sure travel actually plays that much into the whole global warming equation. What about power plants and such. Unless Australia has already reduced much of it's sources to renewable energy I would say that is a bigger problem. But it's not bad to switch to walking and cycling and public transport if the cities can adapt.
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rgseidl 1:05PM (3/03/2008)
An 80% reduction in automotive traffic would sharply lower long-distance trade and hence, GDP. It's far more likely that global warming effects - if they really materialize - will be addressed with a combination of measures covering all sectors of the economy. The driving force will be neither scientific warnings nor government regulation but simply the cost of fossil energy - including that of defending access to sources by military force. Additional measures will be aimed at coping with whatever climate change does happen.
The transportation sector's share of net CO2 emissions will continue grow but that is irrelevant - the only thing that matters for global warming are absolute aggregate emissions.
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Steve 2:13PM (3/03/2008)
It's high time that America fell back in love with trains. The problem right now is that trains are too expensive and too inconvenient. What we need are trains running directly above every interstate in the country, at high speed and in very short time intervals. Anything less and people will just stick with cars, no matter how much gas costs. Solar air travel seems to be promising, and wind power can help to increase the efficiency of ships (old-school style). Once we achieve viable fusion power, electric power generation will become carbon-neutral, and so long as we combine that with significant reforestation efforts, we should be OK. It's likely, however, that coastal areas will suffer significant flooding nevertheless, so global warming will indeed be a major crisis. I don't really see that there's much way to prevent it at this point, so damage control is priority one at this point in my view.
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Throwback 2:42PM (3/03/2008)
Bring back the horse, wood burning stoves and smoke signals. Non polluting smoke signals of course. I am suprised they have not suggested selectively culling the population. Perhaps we start with the scientists then the lawyers.
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A.Brien 3:52PM (3/03/2008)
No no no, this guy is betting on guilt to be interresting. Future personnal transportation will
increase 2x or more per citizens and reach every third country citizen as well except hawaii where you can stay in honolulu for mounths. Car will be flying with computer aids eliminating costly and overcrowded highways and will be powered by compact
watered hydrogen fuelcell with water re-circulation. Energy densities and lowcost of operation will permit to invest in flying autonomous high expetation cars and some rv-house too. Boeing, raython, general electric, mcdonnald douglass and old brandname like Gm or Toyota will joint new start-up compagnies in general cars manufacturings
markets. We will be buying or leasing these cars by betting lower then the asking detail price on the internet. Once bought the car will land at your parking lot.
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Der_Alte 7:47PM (3/03/2008)
I don't see the public ever embracing such extreme measures as these unless energy becomes very, very, very expensive and expensive across all forms of energy. The world economy is simply not going to grind to a halt and throw itself back into the stone ages just because somebody says it must. Global warming will affect our environment, but the world isn't exactly going turn into a big ball of fire or anything. Humanity will have to change their behaviour to a certain degree to be more respectful of the environment, and we'll also have to cope with a warmer world to some degree. Unfortunately the poorest in the world will get the shortest end of the stick, but humanity is not going to willingly throw itself back into the stone ages unless nuclear weapons start getting chucked around, at which point global warming would be the least of anyone's worries.
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GenWaylaid 12:41AM (3/04/2008)
Guess I'm walking to Hawaii for my next vacation.
Why not go up to Canada, grab some caribou, and ride them around? They're going to owe it to us for saving them from global warming-induced extinction. I'm gonna get one of those armored polar bears for towing.
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jim 8:51AM (3/04/2008)
Assuming this report is correct, it would be logical but morally questionable to say the heck with reducing green house gases, let's work at limiting the growth and deal with the fall out of global warming.
Reducing automotive travel 80% isn't going to happen.
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dean 9:04AM (3/04/2008)
Good luck there. Here in Washington, it tends to rain often. How am I supposed to bike around during the winter...and spring...and parts of fall? I'd love to see a bike with a canopy that isn't $2000, but until then, I have to use my car.
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lodel 6:56PM (3/04/2008)
So ride your bike on the nice days and take transit and an umbrella on the not so nice days. Riding in the rain isn't so bad so long as you're dressed for it and you have fenders.
Cities need to become tighter and our intercity transit and long distance train system needs a complete overhaul. All the in-between (burbs) need to be turned back into farms. Sprawl killed livability decades ago.
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Kell 9:05AM (3/06/2008)
This will totally destroy world industry, if fully implemented, and by default the world economy. Our economy is so integrated in transportation. Few people realize how many companies depend on the aerospace and auto industries directly or indirectly. The results of this would be economically catastrophic. It will make this sub prime mortgage thing look like a picnic in the park.
Furthermore, since the driver of so much new technology in every field (including electronics) is the auto and aerospace sector, it will totally stifle new technologies that could make transportation much more efficient in the future. And you might as well kiss any human space travel goodbye. So many companies will have to close the doors.
Basically what we are talking about here is living like your great, great grandfather lived in the later 1800s; think Little House on the Prairie, with a few left over techno gadgets from today’s world – like the sounds of this?? And all for a THEORY (not fact) on what might be happening.
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