Update Nov 2023. I just learned the idea below, in milder form, is quite common with town planners around the world, often called the "15 minutes city" meaning 15 minutes walk to most necessary things. Carlos Mereno has been credited with this idea. An excellent introduction:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018913522/convenient-cities-become-conspiracy-targets
"research argued that to replace the total energy (not just electricity) use of the UK with the best available mix of wind, solar and hydroelectricity would require the entire landmass of the country. To do it for Singapore would require the area of 60 Singapores." (Ref :https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/300319513/idea-of-green-growth-is-flawed-we-must-find-ways-of-using-and-wasting-less-energy)
It is worth noting the UK are putting wind farms out at sea, so do not have to use the "entire landmass", but still, it appears there may not be enough room in the world to fit enough renewables to power our current energy usage. So a sustainable society may require not only a transition to (mostly) renewables, we will also apparently need to transition to much more modest, less grandiose and addictive, power consumption.
To be "transport-free" might have to become the new ideal, as opposed to the current "transport is freedom."
We may have little choice but to drastically reduce (not but eliminate) dependence on transportation of goods and people through maximizing small or "human" scale local self-reliance advocated since the 1970's by the likes of E F Schumacher, Kirkpatrick Sale and many others*, with work, rest, play and even politics close together, ideally within walking distance. The more frequently something is needed the nearer by it should be. This is how most of humanity lived before the environmental crisis, surely we can do it again but better with modern technology and science.
This is the opposite of the current effort to find alternative "green" technology to do the same job as cars, such as expecting people to ride bicycles which are usually completely inadequate for the distances, loads and schedules created by a society built entirely around the car, not to mention difficult hills and weather. E-scooters are much the same, except for hills, are dangerous and reportedly currently mainly replace walking not driving so actually add to carbon emissions. Electric cars may not be much better, manufacture, use and disposal of electric cars still produces a lot of carbon, between 37 and 83 % as much as petrol cars in one analysis. ** This alone is not enough, especially if poorer populations become rich enough to start buying cars and/or the population increases. EVs are also currently dependent on rare earth which China has a near monopoly on. Public transport is clearly part of the solution, but it also reportedly only reduces emissions by about half, it is also often slower, infrequent, inflexible, overcrowded and not good for out of the way places or transporting goods.
It does seem a bit ridiculous that most people spend most of their transport time basically going around in circles, using finite expensive polluting resources to repeat exactly the same lengthy dangerous commute over and over for most of their lives and they love it.
Love of the car is like a form of the Stockholm syndrome, when people held hostage decide they love their captors because they are totally dependent on them and completely under their power. Where society is designed entirely around cars people are essentially held hostage by them.
Escaping this would require:
1. Local renewable energy production
2. Near self-sufficiency in organic products like food, maybe clothes, building material and firewood. Bare essentials mostly produced (voluntarily) within households less frequent needs within local communities. Distance to travel for very rare needs like surgery might not change.
3. Recycling everything non-organic that comes into a community, metals and plastics, even many pharmaceuticals may be retrievable from sewerage.
4. Adaptable factory-workshops that can produce or at least repair almost anything, say computers one week, clothes or solar panels the next. This would be the opposite of industrialism- one factory making the same thing over and over, often suppling the entire world. This would be a factory-workshop that makes a few or even just one of many different things for local needs. I don't know how possible this is, it is just an idea. People might also have to become more well rounded, have multiple professions and/or skills.
5. It would also probably require frugality and austerity, doing without frivolities. There is evidence our addiction to consumerism is making us unhappy aside from destroying the planet. According to neuroscience indulging in too much pleasure backfires, though this is very difficult to recognize, we will usually escalate consumption to try to regain pleasure. We are happier relying on more modest "simple pleasures"*** like our own creativity and activity, things like community dance for instance used to be almost universal.
Some things would best remain global, like telecommunications, mineral distribution and disaster relief.
Private cars would not need to be banned, they would just loose their widespread monopoly over satisfying peoples' needs.
The possible resulting rebirth of local social community, which transportation and other technology has largely eradicated, might be a plus for many isolated people, assuming we can re-invent the social skills required. I would say most of us have become too focused on ourselves or our faction to function constructively in a genuine community but that could perhaps change with help from recent social science like mentalization based therapy which can supposedly treat narcissism, I don't know about treating an entire society, just one person sounds hard enough. The narcissism epidemic**** may also just be an understandable way of surviving in the absence of real community. It would also be nice to think anthropological studies of far more socially inclusive societies could be useful. The extreme ethnic and cultural diversification of many areas due to the globalization of labor may pose similar problems requiring similar solutions but could potentially mean much richer sociality. Or this may be too hard or even undesirable, socializing might have to continue to mainly consist of small groups oblivious or antagonistic to each other.
My suggestions here are abstract, easy to say on paper, it is unclear how far local self-reliance can be taken in practice. It would be interesting to see what eventuated if all the experts and inventors in the world currently working to serve global empires focused on maximizing local self-reliance rather than mass dependence. Increased local political participation would also allow everyone to help shape their community and technology, people often have more nuanced insight into their unique needs and solutions than experts.
It is admittedly unclear if we can consciously and deliberately make such a fundamental change to social structure, we are good at adopting (addictive) new technology but not new social systems. How we "organize" society may be largely unconscious and immune to rational arguments especially arguments that go against the instinct for maximizing power or dominance, even if our survival is at stake.
Unless renewables become much more efficient it appears we could only continue our high transportation power usage by replacing fossils fuels with nuclear power (powering electric transportation), which has problems, or the exciting but uncertain possible development of other high energy sources such as clean nuclear fusion some time in the future ( https://www.lowimpact.org/why-brian-cox-is-wrong-about-nuclear-fusion/ . )
However even if we do find a green way to continue our energy intensive lifestyle a largely transport-free community may be a more meaningful and beautiful place to live.
* e.g., authors like Hazel Henderson, Ivan Illich, Wendell Berry and Murray Bookchin. Human Scale by Kirkpatrick Sale is the best introduction to this kind of thinking I know of. More recently Transition writers too. It seems to me there is not much to add to what these authors said years ago, practical action/research is needed now (and no one reads anything of any length anymore).
** How clean are Electric Cars?
crhttps://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/how-clean-are-electric-cars/#:~:text=Tonnes%20of%20CO2%20emitted%20over%20the%20lifetime&text=In%20the%20worst%20case%20scenario,emit%2083%25%20less%20than%20petrol.
*** Dopamine Nation. Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. Anna Lembke MD. 2021.
+ more succinct interview with the author:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018812004/how-our-smartphones-are-turning-us-into-dopamine-junkies
(don't be put off by the interviewers focus on smart phones, the interviewees concerns are much broader).
**** The Narcissism Epidemic. Living in the Age of Entitlement. J Twenge, W. Keith Campbell. 2009.
