Correct me if I'm wrong.

[StMarks]

The simple answer is to ban all cars everywhere and just use taxis.......

I suspect that the direction the market is being steered will see personal vehicle ownership akin to horseriding as a mode of transport.

Like Johnny Cabs (Total Recall) vehicles will be constantly in use with passengers allotted duration of use.
Global Corporations will retain ownership monopolising supply of "approved" transport units. Outright purchase prices will be set so high as to make the concept of ownership not even worthy of consideration.

 

[Darrell]

Sooooo glad to be moving onto our 60ft narrow boat soon, car stored at marina ready for the France trip, and fold up leci bike in the well deck for leisurely rides on the toll path for shopping. Only 20mins to shops by boat (running on red of course) for the big shop.

The length is important is it??

 

[Darrell]

The taxis may be saloons, but, according to the law, they are not cars. They're hackney carriages and the laws are different between Hackney's and cars. The flippant point I was trying to make was ban everybody else but I can still drive as I own a hackney carriage. I know, it was a crap comment......

The Secret Behind Ryanair CEO’s Private Taxi

Call him a publicity monger or trendsetter of bizarre business ideas, Michael O'Leary, one of Ireland’s wealthiest businessmen and CEO of Dublin-based budget airline Ryanair, makes headlines like no one else. Just like his airline, he too has a knack for looking at things unconventionally. The...

officechai.com

 

[Tonye]

The length is important is it??

According to the wife yes, storage space for shoes and handbags.

 

[StMarks]

I am aware that this is a motoring forum, but at the risk of being pelted with eggs, I think that busy city centres should be made less welcoming to private cars, though this must be coupled with an efficient and affordable public transport system.

Here in London, I now travel to the office via the newly opened Elizabeth Line, it's very quick (quicker than driving to the office), clean, quiet, and air-conditioned.

But investing in public transport infrastructure costs billions and takes years - politicians (and often the public as well) prefer quick and cheap solutions.

IMO the real problem is not personal transport.
It is not ICE emissions.
It is not reducing fossil fuel resources.
Nor is the worlds problem Global warming
It isn't deforestation.
It isn't the collapse of the planet's subterranean aquifers.
All of these ^ and much MUCH more are merely symptoms of the true & inescapable problem that our planet is encountering.
In fact, when you look at route causes, pretty much every issue we face comes back to the same underlying cause.
It is continuing to worsen exponentially, & we all know it.

 

[Tonye]

underlying cause.

Which is????

 

[markjay]

The planet has indeed reached its capacity... to support high-density clusters of energy-hungry population.

There is still plenty of space and resources for other types of human settlements.

 

[StMarks]

The planet has indeed reached its capacity... to support high-density clusters of energy-hungry population.

There is still plenty of space and resources for other types of human settlements.

I only wish I could share your perspective mate.
At the same time
I only wish that the worlds societies could take off their blinkers off, and stop distracting serious consideration with the smokescreen of all these dire symptoms we are creating.

Sorry Markjay, you're a smart chap but suggesting that 8 billion can be supported is utter funk. It is the same old argument that is always rolled out by those who prefer to stick their heads in the sand. (Not something that I would associate with your mindful attitude).

The planet has finite resources and ecology has very definite breaking points.
Statistically, yes, it can be proved that we could manage to survive with the current population.
However, do you begrudge the other 80% of the population the quality of life that we enjoy.?
Even with the deprivation & miserable unfulfilled lives already inflicted on great swathes of humanity, our consumption is vastly in excess of the balance points.
If every person on the planet was given the same basics that we take for granted,,,,,:
(i.e. - Clean water, ample healthy food, secure accommodation, protection by the application of justice, developmental education etc )
,,,,,then the impact would be far far greater than it already is.!

Fwiw I believe that everyone in the world should have every advantage that we experience.
The world has ample natural resources, including hydrocarbon fuel for my vehicles. It can cope with regenerating from my annual flight to the snowy Alps. Plastic is not an environmental curse, rather it is an awesome & versatile material.

It seems manifestly selfish of us to allow our population to grow exponentially, knowing full well that inevitably it will result in hundreds of billions living miserable lives of deprivation, desperation & conflict on a dying planet.

It seems preferable that future generations should enjoy the development of humanity & technology with every single one of them afforded the benefits that we enjoy, (and more, much much more ).

That can be achieved, and the planet can cope (assisted by our technological developments), with a human population level of around 2- 2.5 billion individuals. Imho we are just being selfish, wanting to inflict an unsustainable populus on our planet.

,,,, and breathe,,,,,,, (sorry, rant over).

 

[m80]

That can be achieved, and the planet can cope (assisted by our technological developments), with a human population level of around 2- 2.5 billion individuals. Imho we are just being selfish, wanting to inflict an unsustainable populus on our planet.

I've been bleating for a long while that over population is the root of most of the planets issues.

I go along with the theory that populations should be at a level that the planet can sustain, by natural regeneration and recovery.

Some believe there is space for the human race to expand into. There is, but as you say it causes a reduction in the quality of life for those not as fortunate. Our waste being exported to lesser wealthy nations is a fair example. Our exporting our pollution by buying from lesser affluent nations another.

How you reach a figure of 2 - 2.5 billion for the planet to accommodate would be interesting.
But in truth there is no appetite for Gov't's to even attempt such, by long term population controls rather than genocide of course.
If there were any appetite to achieve such would take many, many generations. And a fly in that ointment is that the old need the young anyway.

 

[Tonye]

it will result in hundreds of billions living miserable lives of deprivation, desperation & conflict on a dying planet.

Those hundreds of billions you talk of are in countries that can afford to arm themselves to the hilt and their leaders live in luxury, not my doing, talking to the 🖐

 

[markjay]

I only wish I could share your perspective mate.
At the same time
I only wish that the worlds societies could take off their blinkers off, and stop distracting serious consideration with the smokescreen of all these dire symptoms we are creating.

Sorry Markjay, you're a smart chap but suggesting that 8 billion can be supported is utter funk. It is the same old argument that is always rolled out by those who prefer to stick their heads in the sand. (Not something that I would associate with your mindful attitude).

The planet has finite resources and ecology has very definite breaking points.
Statistically, yes, it can be proved that we could manage to survive with the current population.
However, do you begrudge the other 80% of the population the quality of life that we enjoy.?
Even with the deprivation & miserable unfulfilled lives already inflicted on great swathes of humanity, our consumption is vastly in excess of the balance points.
If every person on the planet was given the same basics that we take for granted,,,,,:
(i.e. - Clean water, ample healthy food, secure accommodation, protection by the application of justice, developmental education etc )
,,,,,then the impact would be far far greater than it already is.!

Fwiw I believe that everyone in the world should have every advantage that we experience.
The world has ample natural resources, including hydrocarbon fuel for my vehicles. It can cope with regenerating from my annual flight to the snowy Alps. Plastic is not an environmental curse, rather it is an awesome & versatile material.

It seems manifestly selfish of us to allow our population to grow exponentially, knowing full well that inevitably it will result in hundreds of billions living miserable lives of deprivation, desperation & conflict on a dying planet.

It seems preferable that future generations should enjoy the development of humanity & technology with every single one of them afforded the benefits that we enjoy, (and more, much much more ).

That can be achieved, and the planet can cope (assisted by our technological developments), with a human population level of around 2- 2.5 billion individuals. Imho we are just being selfish, wanting to inflict an unsustainable populus on our planet.

,,,, and breathe,,,,,,, (sorry, rant over).

The resources on this planet are indeed finite.

The more resources each person consumes on average, the less people this planet can support, that much is obvious.

If you look at how resource-hungry are modern industrialised Western societies, you will understand that it is simply not possible to let the 80% of the world's population that the non-Western economies consist of, to have the same access to resources as us 20% in West.

Something to think about, when we say that we absolutely need our cars and must use them to go everywhere, there's just no other way.

This article is from 3 years ago, BTW:

It’s time to ban cars from Manhattan

If we want to alleviate NYC’s traffic woes, we need to start with Manhattan; and instead of small steps we need to take one big leap: ban cars.

ny.curbed.com

 

[StMarks]

Those hundreds of billions you talk of are in countries that can afford to arm themselves to the hilt and their leaders live in luxury, not my doing, talking to the 🖐

It seems you may be missing the point Tonye.?
The fact that armaments proliferate, and a tiny percentage of a population can enjoy decadent lifestyles is pretty much irrelevant.
If there was no corruption, everything was fairly distributed & all monies wasted on arms were instead spent on sustenance, the underlying Global problem would not be improved whatsoever would it.?

How you reach a figure of 2 - 2.5 billion .

Me reach the figure.? -Not a chance, I'm nowhere near smart enough to even begin to know how to calculate such a value. I have spent a lot of time researching global challenges, and have come across a great many proposed figures arrived at by numerous different learned associations. The lowest figure of a credible source that I recall was 1.5 billion, and 3 billion seems to be the upper limit. Most come up with a figure somewhere around 2-2.5 billion.
That is the Population level the world had in the 1950-60

Hth

 

[190]

The solution to world population growth is simply a matter of time. The vast majority of prosperous nations have a fertility rate below the population self sustaining figure of 2.1 in many cases well below. The only reason their population is sustained or increased is immigration. It's the 3rd world that is creating the population and immigration problems. When these countries become prosperous enough, their birth rate will fall, so in time the world population will begin to fall. It's not going to happen in my life time but our children will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Fertility rate could even solve political problems given enough time. Imagine being a country extremely unattractive to immigration with sectors of the population that would queue to get out if they could.

Russia 1.5 and falling

North Korea 1.9 and falling

They seem to me figures to celebrate.

 

[StMarks]

The more resources each person consumes on average, the less people this planet can support, that much is obvious.

Are we not being utterly selfish to our successors, by following the current ideology.?

The accepted approach is for the most fulfilled of us to dramatically reduce our individual impact. Whilst that is to be applauded in itself, inevitably what we are imposing on future generations is dramatically reduced expectation for the most fortunate, and just as unfulfilling a life for the rest as is already endured my the greatest proportion of the global population.
Imho that may "only" simply seem an unpalatable cost if it were going to work. However (blinkers off) we know it simply isn't going to, is it?

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT some advocate. I would dearly love to be presented with a constructive and accurate explanation enlightening me that my concerns are unfounded, which is why I am such a sponge for all information around the subject.
However in the 30+ years that this has been my quiet preoccupation, all I see is either reinforcement or pipe dreams.

 

[Tonye]

the underlying Global problem would not be improved whatsoever would it.?

Might be less poverty and corruption. The country's might even prosper and contribute to the world.

When these countries become prosperous enough, their birth rate will fall, so in time the world population will begin to fal

Well said that man.

 

[StMarks]

Those hundreds of billions you talk of are in countries that can afford to arm themselves to the hilt and their leaders live in luxury,

Might be less poverty and corruption. The country's might even prosper and contribute to the world.

Wouldn't that be great Tonye.
However perversely,,, if there wasn't such proliferation of armaments in developing countries, and their wealth wasn't so unfairly apportioned, the population would not be subject to the same constraints from conflict & famine that they currently have to endure. What effect would that have on the exponential increase.?

The solution to world population growth is simply a matter of time. The vast majority of prosperous nations have a fertility rate below the population self sustaining figure of 2.1 in many cases well below. The only reason their population is sustained or increased is immigration. It's the 3rd world that is creating the population and immigration problems. When these countries become prosperous enough, their birth rate will fall, so in time the world population will begin to fall. It's not going to happen in my life time but our children will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Fertility rate could even solve political problems given enough time. Imagine being a country extremely unattractive to immigration with sectors of the population that would queue to get out if they could.

Totally agree 190, education has to be the most powerful factor that can influence our future.
Also I concur that the reduced increases could be considered by some "figures to celebrate". However (& despite any short term personal inconveniences it may inflict on the most fortunate societies) don't those figures suggest that it is nowhere near enough to rectify the situation soon enough.?

But if education is to be a saviour, do we not also need to educate our own societies with the truth.?
All the "educated world's" attention being made to focus on the many worthy attempts to counter the symptoms our overpopulation has created, would seem to be mainly serving as distractions. Aren't they simply enabling us to "not look up", so to speak ?

 

[190]

don't those figures suggest that it is nowhere near enough to rectify the situation soon enough.?

What we need is for the whole world to get their fertility rates below 2.1. How long that will take is the question. The big player in population forecast field is the UN and they are also the most pessimistic as they forecast that it will be the end of the century before world population levels out and starts to fall. But there are other forecasts that typically say this will happen by 2060-2070 and even one outlier that suggests 2040. The one thing they all agree on is that population will eventually peak and then fall. It's not as if anyone thinks world population is going to double. Depending on who you believe the world will have to cope with a population increase of 20 -30%. Given the steady reduction in emissions that technology is bringing, that doesn't sound like a disaster scenario to me.

 

[Tonye]

What effect would that have on the exponential increase.?

Oooòoh so let them starve is the answer, we need more weapons, that will keep the population down.

 

[Tonye]

Wouldn't that be great Tonye

Yes, it would, but try sending that message to the developed world. STOP THE GREED is the answer.

 

[StMarks]

Oooòoh so let them starve is the answer, we need more weapons, that will keep the population down.

All I can say is that you obviously have an entirely opposing viewpoint to mine.