The earth is turning into a greenhouse. The fist signs a global
climate change are already evident today. The main reason for
the artificial warming up of the planet is the massive increase
in so-called greenhouse gases caused by human beings. These gases
prevent heat in the atmosphere from being radiated back into space,
with the result that heat builds up as if it were under a gigantic
greenhouse roof. Droughts, cyclones and flooding on a catastrophic
scale are the dire consequences. More than 50 per cent of the
artificial greenhouse effect can be blamed on the greenhouse gas
carbon dioxide (CO2).
The car - a nail in the climate's coffin
Cars - together with power stations- are the main producers of
CO2. Today 500 million cars world-wide emit four billion tonnes
of CO2 into the atmosphere - around 20 per cent of the total quantity
produced by mankind. And the number of cars on the road is growing
rapidly - currently twice as fast as the world's population. Forecasts
assume that this number will reach 2 billion world-wide by the
year 2030. This will mean that petrol consumption will grow to
an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes by 2030. CO2 emissions from traffic
would then increase to more than 7.5 billion tonnes.
The car as a waster of raw materials
It is not only the steady growth of CO2 emissions which make the
car environment problem number one. Petrol and diesel are based
on oil. Cars consume more than half of all the crude oil produced
world-wide: whereas 28 per cent of the oil flowed into the petrol
tanks of cars in 1970, this figure has since grown to almost 60
per cent.
Every day 80 billion litres of oil are shipped across the world's
oceans and serious accidents involving tankers hit the headlines
again and again - oil spills such as with the "Exxon Valdez"
off Alaska in 1985 or the "Sea Empress" off the coast
of Wales in 1996. Cars are ultimately responsible for these ecological
catastrophes as the more petrol they consume, the more has to
be transported. On top of this, on-shore and off-shore oil production
is a permanent source of severe environmental pollution: accidents
on drilling rigs, wastewater from oil refineries, leaks in storage
tanks and pipelines. The contamination of the Ogoni land in Nigeria
is only one example of the disastrous effects of oil production.
The car's ecobalance: devastating
Automobile production also requires huge quantities of oil and
other valuable raw materials. Countless tonnes of metals such
as steel, aluminium and copper as well as plastics are used in
the construction of bodies for 35 million new cars every year.
The recycling of used cars is to date insufficiently developed.
Many of the materials still end up as waste on landfills or are
incinerated.
The list of damage caused to people and the environment by cars can be further added to:
Policies with no concepts for the future
But in spite of this long list of negative consequences there
is no sign of a change in thinking taking place. Politicians still
encourage more car traffic instead of supporting alternative,
forward-looking concepts. The car industry is only too ready to
see mobility in terms of "automobility" even though
the car has long ceased to guarantee mobility due to increasing
congestion on the roads. Transport policy, with its decade-long
emphasis on the automobile, has set a disastrous spiral in motion:
road-building on a massive scale leads to more cars on the road,
and high traffic density in turn provides an argument for building
yet more roads. At the same time, the public transport network
has been criminally neglected. Today's railway network in Europe,
for example, has existed since before the 2nd World War and has
not been significantly extended since then.
Anyone who is in favour of an ecological transport policy which
caters to the needs of the climate must start with the car: avoiding
the incidence of traffic and shifting traffic away from the roads
are the two central aspects of intelligent and environment-friendly
mobility.
Avoiding traffic
The most important long-term task of transport policy is to prevent
the incidence of superfluous traffic from the outset. Traffic
avoidance must have top priority at all levels of action, such
as city and regional planning, fiscal and subsidy policy. A city
with "short routes" is an effective means of avoiding
traffic. Living, shopping, working and leisure must be brought
back closer together. This presupposes city development concepts
which retain the liveliness and variety of each district so that
people can find every thing they need for their daily life there.
Experts estimate that in Germany every car owner would have to
pay at least an additional DM 2,000 per annum in order to cover
all the costs caused by his car. Tax "rewards" for car
driving must be abolished and instead of these financial incentives
created in favour of more environmentally friendly means of transport.
Shifting traffic
The second central principle must be traffic shifting: to environment-friendly
(foot, bicycle) or as far as possible ecologically compatible
means of transport (bus, rail). The watchword here: the use of
the car must be restricted to just a few functions and otherwise
it must be replaced by environment-friendly systems. This presupposes
an improvement in the supply of railway and tram services, bus
lines, cycle paths and foot paths. The major part of future investments
in the transport infrastructure must go towards these transport
ways - and no longer towards the building of roads and car parks.
Studies show that it is indeed possible to bring about changes
in behaviour if investments are made in alternatives to the car:
in many Dutch municipalities bicycles are used three to four times
more frequently than is usual in other European cities. In Zurich
people use the tram twice as often as in comparable German cities.
The city of Schwerin, as Greenpeace has shown, offers a good example
of the possibilities already available to us today. The study
entitled "Vision of a car-free city" offers a concrete
concept - transferable to many other cities. Amongst other things,
it describes how public transport could be optimised to make it
the main means of transport.
For freight transport too, framework conditions are needed which
encourage a shift in traffic - away from the roads and onto waterways
and rail. Transport by road must be made more expensive. It is
not acceptable that road building is financed from federal and
regional government funds, i.e., from tax revenue, whereas investments
in railway lines have to be covered by higher freight transport
costs and fares.
SmILE: First aid for the climate
The first, and indispensable, step towards effective protection
of the environment, however, is also a drastic reduction in petrol
consumption by the cars on the road. And the Greenpeace "SmILE"
concept has shown that at least a halving of consumption by cars
is possible immediately. SmILE stands for Small, Intelligent,
Light, Efficient and describes what the series car of the future
must offer: they have to be light, as compact as possible, efficient
and intelligently built.
The automobile industry is called upon to take this long overdue
technological leap forward instead of repeating the misguided
developments of the past in new markets. At present, for example,
car manufacturers are launching massive campaigns in the countries
of Asia in order to sell their western-style petrol-guzzling dinosaurs
there - which, in view of the threat of climatic collapse, is
irresponsible, if not downright unscrupulous. The SmILE, a Twingo
converted by Greenpeace, proves that halving petrol consumption
is feasible immediately. However, this fact does not mean that
as a product the car is clean, healthy or environmentally compatible.
In the long term the number of cars on the road and the number
of kilometres driven must be significantly reduced world-wide.
What is needed is a new understanding of mobility - without the
automobile.
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