Automobilitis?! The planetary inflamation caused by cars.

I haven't been a'bloggin in some time due to travels and lots of things that keep me busy, such as finishing my book (Ecocities, Second Edition) and visiting New Orleans to see what cars hath wrought in climate change and pumped up storms. I can report it's mind boggling, staggering.

But the impetus for writing now is a mailer just arrived from the Union of Concerned Scientists saying, "Your support as a member now will help UCS mount an effective campaign to get cleaner and more fuel-efficient cars, minivans, SUVs and pickups onto our highways sooner rather than later."

Great!

So I wrote the following:

Kevin Knobloch 3/14/06
President
Union of Concerned Scientists
Two Brattle Square
Cambridge, MA 02238-9105

Dear Mr. Knobloch,

I can’t believe the scientific community still can’t figure this thing out about energy efficient cars: that they create the energy inefficient city. It amazes me your organization remains so recalcitrantly unscientific. (I’ve written before and so have others and you have refused to acknowledge and maybe as far as I know, even think about this.)
The less it costs to drive, the farther people do drive and the worse for sprawl. The more you promote “better� cars the worse you make the situation, specifically, the more you promote all the disasters of cars from death on the highways, wasted money and time and local pollution to climate change, paving agricultural land and extinction of species on an epic scale.
Maybe it’s a bit subtle, but it hasn’t escaped the attention of ecologists. But then maybe that’s why ecology is sometimes called the subversive science in its habit of looking at whole systems. But really, you should catch on too. We are dealing with a whole system here.
The car is part of a whole system that is our built infrastructure. That it moves about does not mean that it isn’t. That whole system is the car/sprawl development/massive paving in roads and freeways/cheap energy infrastructure. You are promoting its perpetuation because all the parts are intimately connected and co-dependent – improve one part and you keep the destructive infrastructure going longer. And you are encouraging people to feel good about this disastrous stalling in dangerous times.
The solution to the problems you are actually promoting by encouraging more and supposed better cars is the city built for people, not cars.
If you are interested in thinking this one through, I’d be happy to lead you to many resources so you could STOP DAMAGING THE PLANET WITH THIS EXTRAORDINARILY SHORT SIGHTED APPROACH.

Please wake up. We are running out of time,

Richard Register
Author, Ecocities – Building Cities in Balance with Nature
President, Ecocity Builders
Founder, the International Ecocity Conferences