Pasted below my signature is a little essay I have written for the next
issue of my newsletter.
:)
Bob
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Dr Bob Rich bobrich@...
http://bobswriting.com
http://anxietyanddepression-help.com
http://mudsmith.net
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Australia has the second worst record on climate change action, after
the United States. It is therefore a major achievement that the Minister for
Environment has finally made a public statement, drawing attention to the
consequences of generating greenhouse gases. Good morning, Mr Campbell! Glad
you have awoken at last.

The three highest generators of greenhouse emissions are private
transport (cars), air travel (jet planes) and road haulage (trucks). It is
quite possible to design a world that hugely reduces these activities, but
changing to such a world would mean huge losses for a great many large and
profitable businesses, as well as to millions of small businesses and
hundreds of millions of individuals. This is why there has been so much
resistance to change.

The fact is, either we have a planned transformation of society, or
there is an unplanned, catastrophic transformation. Which is worse? There is
simply NOTHING that can replace fossil hydrocarbons to allow business as
until now, but with lower greenhouse emissions. In fact, there is nothing
that can replace fossil hydrocarbons as energy source for cars, planes and
trucks.

Petrol, dieseline, and aviation fuel are now rapidly rising in price.
They will continue to do so, faster and faster, and this is good. It
provides motivation for changes that, if implemented rapidly enough, may
allow humanity to survive.



What does a low-emission society need to be like?
Very different.



Forget helicopters (extremely hungry), jet planes and even
propeller-driven planes. Air travel is still possible, using helium
balloons. These can be powered by solar energy. Of course, they will be very
much slower. Going from Australia to Europe will again be about six weeks,
as it used to be in the age of cruise ships, instead of two or three days.
The payload of even the largest helium balloon is tiny compared to a jumbo
jet, so air travel becomes very expensive. In the post-petroleum age, you
stay where you are instead of flitting around the globe.



Forget the motor car. Only a hundred years ago, the car was an oddity.
Since then, it has transformed society. Human settlements are now organised
around it, especially in the overdeveloped world. Fortunately, many cities
in Europe and America were built largely before the car, and so they have
the potential to return to a car-free mode. However, Australian cities
evolved with private motor transport. Lacking a car when you live in
Melbourne or Brisbane is a form of deprivation. You become isolated, and
suffer financially because many resources are very difficult to access.

We need a new design for the city. Many thinkers have come up with
designs that are remarkably similar to each other. One example is the work
of Ted Trainer of the University of New South Wales.

A sustainable city is a mosaic or network of individually sustainable
villages. Each settlement is able to produce all the essential goods and
services for its inhabitants. In addition, it produces specialties that
serve a larger population base. For example, each village has a general
hospital that can deal with most common health problems. Each hospital also
has a specialisation: one may have a burns unit, another a brain damage
clinic, and so on.

There is a highly efficient mass transit system joining villages. This
is ultimately powered by solar energy. So, movement within the city is
possible, but of course nowhere near as fast or convenient as the private
car allows.

Each village is surrounded by farming land, and again, there is a
combination of self-sufficiency and trade goods. However, distance costs.
Locally grown food is cheap, but bananas are expensive in Melbourne, apples
in Brisbane.



Trucks and buses are out. Transport between distant places will need to
rely on ships (high-efficiency sailing ships, supplemented by solar power),
helium balloons and electric (solar powered) mass transit. These simply
cannot replace the capacity of current road transport, and therefore the
movement of goods over long distances becomes a luxury.



There are huge social implications.

Petroleum has made us into a highly mobile society. People move from
place to place. Families scatter, in the full expectation of being able to
flit around and maintain occasional contact. It is nothing for a person to
commute hours to and from work. All this has to change.

You live where you live, and that's where your personal contacts are,
for better or worse. If you move, you expect to move for good. You work
where you live. If you change your job, you change your residence, trade in
one entire community for another. Once more, as for most of human history,
you need to become an organic part of the community you live in.



In many ways, this model of society is attractive. The major problem is,
how can we go from here to there?