Re:
I do wonder if the numbers stack up for plug in electric vehicles.
Wind energy at the cost of dumping thousands of tons of highly contaminating concrete into fragile habitats, shipping turbines across the oceans in boats manufactured in highly polluting shipyards in the east. The manufacture of the turbines themselves. Nuclear energy with its massive long term expense and complication, feeding into the grid to compensate for all the unreliable wind allocation. The coal stations kept ticking over to cover the unreliable wind. The gas stations providing most of the energy, ramped up when the wind drops.
The dream that all these cars are somehow running on 'clean' energy is just that. It is merely displaced pollution.
If we want to get serious about reducing pollution we ought to make driving more expensive mile for mile.
Taking the car to the shops instead of getting on a bike with a trailer should be counter intuitive.
We fool ourselves that driving to a supermarket saves us money, when we could walk to the corner shop and take the higher prices, yet be better off if we calculated the true cost of driving, never mind the health benefits.
Of course driving 'cleaner' cars is a good idea, where we aren't replacing decent cars merely for the sake of it.
Thing is, the real message coming from the government ought to be 'stop driving'. Full stop.
I have reduced my annual mileage to less than ten thousand miles, and am using trains and buses more often. I rarely drive a vehicle without some passengers.
We could all do that to some extent, and it would make a genuine difference.
Retrobike is a great site to promote cycling, as many people we need to get back to cycling would be encouraged by the bikes they loved in their youth.
Cycling is cool again. Thanks to sites like this, and our success in the sport.
Necessity plays its part, but it doesn't mean cycling has to be as grey and dull as the idea of utilitarian transport might sound as a concept.
Look at all those cool cargo bikes. What is an everyday part of life in parts of Asia and such is rendered an uber cool novelty here.
Yet the numbers are growing, and there will be a point where jumping on such a bike to hit the shops will be much preferable to ordering online or driving out to some satellite shopping centre, for all of us, not just the hipsters with their waxed beards.
