When all the car have died.....

[Corduroyboy]

when the oil drys up....

By 'oil' you are all talking about what the oil industry calls 'dino oil' - oil from organic matter that has decayed and been compressed in the earth's crust over many millennia into oil. Actual 'oil' will never dry up as long as there are plants from which we can refine it. Diesel cars and lorries will be run on biodiesel and petrol cars on bioethanol. Like it or not, the car is simply not going to die......

 

[typhoon]

:? Yeah...but my point was that soon...v.soon, maybe sooner than we like to think..there will be NO OIL...NO PETROL..and transport will resemble nothing like we are currently used to...and bikes and boats( not engined powered!!) will be the favoured tools. So keep on cherishing those bikes, no matter their age...but the simpler the better as regards maintenance and longevity..because one day it will be all you have ...unless you have a yaught(?..how do you spell that..?)

 

[Corduroyboy]

Yacht.

 

[ashes_mtb]

The car is still the best form of transport.

Simply wrong.

Agreed.

From a social point of view, cars are incredibly inequitable. Where a City's transport system is primarily based around the car (like Perth is), it just goes to further exacerbate social disadvantage as you need to be able to afford to buy and run a car, be old enough to drive on, be physically and mentally able to drive one etc.

Environmentally they're not great either. Even if we're all running electric cars charged by solar panels or something else non-polluting, public transport (and bikes for that manner) are far more efficient in their use of energy and resources for their construction.

Cars are great though for those who are lucky enough to have access and who's conscience can live with the environmental impact. I'm not on a high horse by the way, I mainly fit into this later segment - just thought I'd add to the discussion

 

[tintin40]

It's the human race that cause pollution. By making things such as cars & planes. Planes are public transport. Buses cause pollution. The dinosaur didn't have cars and still died out.
The human race does not control the planet the planet controls us. flood earthquake so on will happen even the car was never invented

 

[ededwards]

Ask the Cambodians about year 0 and pol pot trying to turn the clock back.

I'm taking it out of context but a fanstastic quote on 'Retro MTB Chat'!

 

[ashes_mtb]

It's the human race that cause pollution. By making things such as cars & planes. Planes are public transport. Buses cause pollution. The dinosaur didn't have cars and still died out.
The human race does not control the planet the planet controls us. flood earthquake so on will happen even the car was never invented

Yeah, can't do much about floods/earthquakes/ice ages etc, but the human race can still **** the planet up in many ways.

Depends on what side of the philosophical fence you sit on I guess. Some would argue we need to change what we do now to make society sustainable - some would argue that society as we know it can't be made sustainable and we might as well let things go pear-shaped.

 

[tintin40]

Ask the Cambodians about year 0 and pol pot trying to turn the clock back.

I'm taking it out of context but a fanstastic quote on 'Retro MTB Chat'!

Thanks ed. And what did the world do?? F**k all :twisted: It was the Vietnamese to kick his as and the world still let pol pot sit in the UN for Cambodia :twisted:

 

[Stick Legs]

Interesting debate, slightly 'oroboros-y' but interesting.

I am not a 'beliver' when it comes to global warming, and please no one try to shout me down, I just think there is more to it, you are welcome to your opinion, as I am to mine.

I am however a huge fan of RESOURCE CONSERVATION. Anything new, regardless of it's efficiency is always blighted by its construction and distribution costs. I hate waste, on the subject of cars, imagine how much greener the world would be if everyone kept their car for 10 years and maintained it properly, rather than buying a new one every 3 years or so. That would save a lot of 'non combustion' emmisions from the motoring sector. I could have bought a new BMW 130i, in fact I nearly did. Instead, because it is also a passion of mine, I have bought a 1986 BMW 528i. This car could have been scrapped. Very little of it is recyclable due to the nature of it's construction.
It runs on normal Unleaded petrol. It returns 29mpg (Guildford to Taunton to Canvey Island on one tank) and it already exists.

Before people try to chastise the motorist they must think, when did I last change something before it was worn out (and I don't meant a little problem that could be overcome) I mean worn out.

I buy quality goods, my Sony TV was ex demo, 7 years ago, it still works, the speakers were a bit crackly so I went to a TV reapir shop, they had some out of a broken Sony. I fitted them and it works. The TV is not worn out.

Carbon off setting (awful phrase but I thought I'd capture the Zeitgeist) means more than just 'buying trees'. It means if I want to drive my 528i rather than take the train then I will put up with a fridge freezer with the door handle super glued on rather than replace it. The fridge freezer gives me a lot of miles driving in terms of 'eco credits'.

Food for though?

Thanks for listening to my $0.02.

 

[No Longer Registered]

I love the hypercritical new Polo advert.. the blue motion thing.. does 70mpg and apprently if you use it for a year it will save the equiverlent energy that it takes to make so many million plastic bags.
Nice theory, but when you look at the bigger picture and take into the consideration the energy used to draw the raw material from the ground, make the material (plastics, metals, rubber etc), manufature the car, deliver the car etc.. You would have to wait 20 years before you actually started to save energy if you take into consideration the debt of energy owed from making the car. So therefore better for the planet to carry on using my girlfriends 28 year old polo and does 30 mpg as it will have less of an impact overall than the need to manufature a new car.