Why We Need a World Without Cars
Hiya!
Hope your week is going well! This month I decided to dive into the world of transportation. I’ve done a couple of videos on electric cars and the exploitative supply chain that undergirds them, but for this video, I wanted to look at what an alternative might look like. Yes, I still talk a lot about how cars suck, but I also explore what the world might look like with a more just, more sustainable, more human-centered transportation network. It was a lot of fun to make this video, I hope you enjoy. Also, as always, below you can find three quotes and three links I found illuminating during the research process.
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Three Quotes:
“The automobile is the paradoxical example of a luxury object that has been devalued by its own spread. But this practical devaluation has not yet been followed by an ideological devaluation. The myth of the pleasure and benefit of the car persists, though if mass transportation were widespread, its superiority would be striking.”
— Andre Gorz
“The upward redistribution machine that is imperial capitalism has meant that elites and upper segments of the middle classes increasingly live in protected financial districts, gentrified central city areas, office parks and gated communities. They are connected to each other by means of transportation that allow them to bypass the ‘squalor’ of shantytowns or segregated districts: highway overpasses, regional commuter trains and rapid inter-city links.”
— Stefan Kipfer
“Transport was the fourth largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, accounting for around 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions, the report says. Road transport drove 69% of these emissions, while shipping and aviation were responsible for 9% and 7%, respectively.”
— Carbon Brief
Three Links:
Ecosocialism and the fight for free public transit (Climate & Capitalism)
Racism has shaped public transit, and it’s riddled with inequities (Kinder Institute for Urban Research)
An Update on Public Transportation's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Jen Mcgraw et al.)
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Hope you have a wonderful weekend,
Charlie