> Furthermore, I'm not really sure what the author thinks we should do? How can we maintain modern civilisation without factories etc.? Reverting to some primitive state seems neither realistic nor desirable.
We could probably revert back to a 1920-1930 level of car without being in a "primitive" state.
That means less individual car ownership, and more bicycles, public transportation and more local factories/shops.
(But that was already 25 millions of car sold in the decade for about 100 millions inhabitant in the US, so it does not mean no car at all)
The most limiting factor is that since the 1930s all our infrastructure or civilization organization is based on having cheap oil and cars, so even if technically feasible, the path to get there is not so easy...
> We could probably revert back to a 1920-1930 level of car without being in a "primitive" state.
Reducing urban car ownership rates is a good thing, if nothing else it'll result in cleaner city air.
It becomes more complicated when it comes to the modern forestry and agricultural industries, not to mention mining and a lot of other raw material extraction, which are all completely dependant on fossil fuel for powering machinery, bulk transports, backup power and so on. Replacing all that equipment will take many decades no matter how it's done, and we need to start looking at stuff like ethanol/bio-fuels/E-diesel and such right away.
That would solve a large part of the problem the author describes as well -- it would be a nice interim solution while we renew the existing infrastructure.
We could probably revert back to a 1920-1930 level of car without being in a "primitive" state.
That means less individual car ownership, and more bicycles, public transportation and more local factories/shops.
(But that was already 25 millions of car sold in the decade for about 100 millions inhabitant in the US, so it does not mean no car at all)
The most limiting factor is that since the 1930s all our infrastructure or civilization organization is based on having cheap oil and cars, so even if technically feasible, the path to get there is not so easy...