The title is from "What Then Must We Do?" Tolstoy's 1886 book. It was used in Peter Weir's film The Year of Living Dangerously by the character Billy Kwan. It's also the title of the book I am reading "What Then Must We do?: Straight Talk about the next American Revolution" by Gar Alperovitz.
The question really is, now that we know what is wrong, what is killing the planet and putting living creatures on a path towards extinction, what are we going to do about? We need to take action. Historically, marches and demonstrations have worked, even in dictatorships, because they make governments and policy-makers pay attention. The Climate March will inform them that this issue of Climate Change/Global Warming is very important to us.
Let's consider one of the big three sources of GHG, that is transportation at 28%..
cars at 59%.
It looks like we in the rich countries are already doing something about climate chaos by driving less. According to some reports the decline in driving automobiles began at the turn of this century while other reports pin it on economic decline. It's the results that count and if that means less GHG that's good news.
In my city, the Transportation Engineer told us 5 years ago that our city "could not take one more car." So he put forward a Future Transportation Plan which pushes cars aside in favor of buses and bikes. It's working quite well in spite of vociferous opposition in the beginning.
Are we reaching 'peak car'?
Experts say our love affair with the automobile is ending, and that could change much more than how we get around – it presents both an opportunity and an imperative to rethink how we build cities, how governments budget and even the contours of the political landscape.
'Peak Car' is upon us
Pollution and gridlock are putting a damper on driving in the globe's growing megacities. More young North Americans are opting for public transport, bikes and vehicle-sharing. Cars on the road are lasting longer than ever.
All of that may herald a new era for an auto industry weaned on a century of global growth.
Peak Car is at odds with the ambitious expansion plans of global automakers, which IHS says are gearing up to produce more than 120 million vehicles by 2016 -- almost 50 per cent more than last year's worldwide sales mark of 82 million.
Driving this upheaval is a rapidly emerging reality: The vehicle that ushered in an unparalleled era of personal mobility in the last century is, in many cases, no longer the most convenient conveyance, particularly as more of the world's population migrates to big cities.
The most detailed picture of the trend comes from the United States, where the distance driven by Americans per capita each year flatlined at the turn of the century and has been dropping for six years. By last spring, Americans were driving the same distance as they had in 1998. [This article is from 2011, updated in 2012]
Has the U.S. Passed Peak Car?
The decline of car ownership might well turn out to be a long-term trend with cultural and demographic roots. But if so, the housing bust and recession still seem to have been the tipping point.
Cities that have reached Peak Car, where "there isn't room for one more car."
What do NYC, DC, Boston, and Philadelphia have in common? For one, they're old, crowded cities with good (okay, decent) public transit. “The five cities with the highest proportions of households without a vehicle were all among the top five cities in a recent ranking of the quality of public transportation," Michael Sivak, director of Sustainable Worldwide Transportation at Michigan, told WSJ.
Collision course from whitehouse.gov:
Chart of the Week: Auto Production at Its Highest Rate Since 2002
According to The Economist:
Some niche and luxury brands are thriving and are likely to keep doing so. But manufacturers know that the developing world is the future—sales in China overtook those in America between 2010 and 2011 and rose by 2.6%; those in Indonesia, a younger market, jumped by 17%.
Therefore we expect much of the auto production is going abroad. Let's hope we get global attention on the Climate March.
The UN Climate Summit is a stepping stone to the upcoming Global Climate Conferences.
1 - 12 December 2014 Climate Conference in Lima, Peru (COP 20)
30 November - 11 December 2015 Climate Conference in Paris, France (COP 21)
Marchons! 48 Hour People's Climate March Recruitment Storm:
Thursday August 21st at 12 Noon through Saturday the 23rd at 12 Noon
We are one month out from the historic People's Climate March. The September 21 March is being held two days before the UN Climate Summit, where government and corporate leaders will convene to discuss taking action to address climate change.
Tens of thousands are expected to march in New York City.
Join in the 48 hour Recruitment Storm by registering and inviting friends to participate. Our goal is to add 10,000 new marchers by the end of the day Friday. Let's make September a game-changer for the climate movement.
Sign up here!!! --> People's Climate March