April 2019 Climate Change Part 3: How Will We Get Around In The Future?

from by Kimwei

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To get involved in creating a sustainable future, see the Extinction Rebellion Homepage rebellion.earth

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TRANSCRIPTION: How Will We Get Around In The Future?

“What would you invent if you could invent anything at all?”, I asked my friends down the pub one evening.
“Some kind of teleporter,” said Paul, “like in Star Trek but not for beaming up, just for beaming around the city. Maybe even for getting from the living room to the bathroom, if I was really lazy.”
“I’d prefer a flying car, like in Back To The Future,” Steve countered, “It’d have silver doors that open upwards instead of sideways and run on banana skins and old tin cans and bolts of lightening. Have you seen the price of diesel these days? And what’s more, you won’t want all those car fumes going up into the sky if that’s where you’re going too!”
At first I thought it was just those two going on about science fiction again and screaming “where’s my hoover board”, but the more people I asked the more I got the same kind of responses - a bullet train that could cross the ocean with no friction and no fuel. A car that could leapfrog, to avoid congestion on the M5. All my friends dreamt of better, faster, cleaner, cheaper, modes of transport.
When it comes to a sustainable future, requiring lower emissions and less pollution, transport is a major consideration. We have a society built on travelling un-walkable, un-bike-able distances every day, often at 60miles an hour. But as Einstein said “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” We need radical new thinking. Perhaps not as radical as my friend Chris’ suggestion that the ultimate all weather mode of transport for Devon would be open toed wellies. But perhaps we need to stop asking how we can get further, faster. Perhaps we need stronger local communities, so we travel less far, work nearer home, meet online where we can, and travel sustainably. Perhaps we need to stop trying to get further, faster and start coming home.

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from Pause For Thought: BBC Radio Devon, released January 30, 2017

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