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r AFTER THE CAR Copyright© Kingsley Dennis and John Urry 2009 The right of Kingsley Dennis and John Urry to be identified as Authors of this ·work has been assened in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2009 by Polity Press Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 I UR, UK. Polity Press 350 Main Street Maiden, MA 02148, USA. All rights resen·ed. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, eleco·onic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or othenvise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4421-9 JSBN-13: 978-0-7456-4422-6 (pb) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in 10.75 on 14 pt in Adobe Sabon by Sen,is Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire Printed and bound by The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate. £yery effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.polity.co.uk C O N TE N TS P1'efoce VI 1 Changing Climates 2 The Century of the Car 27 3 Systems 47 4 Technologies 62 5 Organizations 93 6 Models 109 7 Scenarios 131 Notes 165 Index 203 PREFAC E \Ne are very grateful to the following colleagues, mostly at Lancaster, with whom we have discussed these various post car futures: Monika Btischer, Noel Cass, Tim Dant, Sergio Fava, Drew Hemment, Michael Hulme, Bob Jessop, John Law, \.Vill Medd, Tom Roberts, Daniela Sangiorgi, Andrew Sayer, Dan Shapiro, Mimi Sheller, Elizabeth Shove, Bron Szerszynski, David Tyfield, Sylvia Walby, Laura \.Vatts, James Wilsdon and Brian Wynne. John Urry is grateful for his involvement in the DTi Foresight discussions on Intelligent Information Systems in 2005-6, as well as recent research funding from the Department for Transport, ESRC and the EPSRC. We also wish to acknowledge the research opportuni ties afforded to us by the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster. This Centre has stimulated much debate on the issues presented in this book. V/e are especially grateful to Pennie Drinkall for all her hard work for CeMoRe. Many similar issues to those discussed in this book are debated on CeMoRe's blog at www.new-mobilities.co.uk. Lancaster, September 2008 .\FTEH TilE G.-\R and especially not by public bus and train. So what could we be saying here if we claim that the end might be in sight for the extraordinary car system that has so far 'driven' out all its many competitors? \iVhen we talk of 'after the car,' we are suggesting that the car as a complete system may be surpassed. The current car system involves a number of key features: cars are made of steel, mostly powered by petrol (or 'gasoline' in the US), each can seat four people, they are personally owned, and each is driven independently of others, although certain rules do need to be followed and enforced. Our argument in this book is that some very powerful forces around the world are undermining this car system and will usher in a new system at some point in this century. The car system is based upon nineteenth-century technologies, of steel bodies and internal combustion engines, inciden tally showing how old technologies can remarkably endure. \Ve believe that this mass system of individualized, flexible mobility will be 'redesigned' and 're-engineered' before the end of this century. This book argues that a new system is coming into being. It is a bit like the period around 1900 when the current car system was being formed: it was emer gent, although no one at the time could imagine exactly what it was going to be like. So, similarly, we hold that a wide array of changes are occurring across the world - changes of technology, policy, economy and society, which are all elements of this new system that is as yet nowhere actually in place. And it will be through the dynamic interdependence of the various parts that will bring into being this new system that is 'after the car'. This book thus explores a new 'socio-technical' system that we believe is in the making. In this chapter, we consider various dynamic changes 'in the climate' within which travel and transportation are being CJL\=-G- J=-G- CLI�l.\ TES :) organized and implemented in the twenty-first century. If these changes converge and impact upon each other, they may generate shifts beyond the car that would involve a low carbon economy and society. \Ve begin with an analysis of climate pe1· se. This is followed by an analysis of the appar ent peaking of the supply of oil around the world. \Ve then examine some of the changes in the nature of the virtual world, of computers, software and security, before consider ing the growth of population and especially of mega-cities in the contemporary world. This chapter thus examines the changing climates of change surrounding transport and energy and how they may be engendering a new system that will be 'after the car' and hence could entail a lower carbon future society, albeit one which is by no means a simply positive future. We will exam ine various futures and see that all possess a dark side due to the constrained choices that the high carbon twentieth cen tury provided as a legacy going into the new century. CLIMATE CHA 1GE We begin by paying especial attention to global climate change, reflected in 2006 in Al Gore's surprising PowerP oint hit An Inconvenient T1"Uth and his subsequent No bel prize. 2 This film brought home to the world the fact that global temperatures have risen over the past century (by at least 0.74·q and this seems to be the consequence of higher levels of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere. Even the Pentagon announced that climate change will result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natu ral disasters. And they state that the threat to global stability far eclipses that of terrorism. 3 Greenhouse gases trap the sun's rays. As a result of this 'greenhouse' effect the earth warms. Such greenhouse gas .-\FTEH TilE G.\H levels and world temperatures will apparently increase sig nificantly over the next few decades. Such warming will change patterns of temperatures worldwide and result in a greatly increased frequency of extreme weather events.4 Such climate change resulting from increasing greenhouse gas emissions constitutes the world's major threat to human life and social organization. The scientific evidence for climate change is now less uncertain compared with the time when the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report appeared in 1990. The 2007 Report makes a number of sep arate claims. First, in the 2007 Report the IPCC declared that the warming of the world's climate is now 'unequivocal'. This claim is based upon extensive observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, the widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea levels. Second, the 2007 Report shows that carbon dioxide is the most important of the human-produced or anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Its concentration levels exceed by far the natural range identified over the past 650,000 years. Its high and rising levels must thus stem, it is concluded, from 'non natural' causes. Third, there is very high confidence amongst the thou sands of scientists involved in the IPCC that such global warming is the effect of human activities that, in many dif ferent ways, have resulted in dramatically raised levels of carbon emissions. And fourth, there are many different physical conse quences of global warming: increase in arctic temperatures, reduced size of icebergs, melting of ice-caps and glaciers, reduced permafrost, changes in rainfall patterns, new wind formations, droughts, heat waves, tropical cyclones and other extreme weather events.5 The IPCC projects increased risks of flooding for tens of millions of people due to storms and CIJ.-\:-:GJ�G CLI.'l.\TES sea-level rises, especially in the poor south of the globe, in particular Bangladesh. In addition to increased fresh water scarcity, there may also be sudden rises in new vector-borne diseases (malaria, dengue fever) and water-borne disease (cholera). The \-\l'orld Health Organization calculated as early as 2000 that over 150,000 deaths are caused each year by cli mate change, such changes being global, cross-generational and highly unequal around the world. Moreover, these IPCC Reports are based on reaching scientific and political consensus. They tend to the more cautious interpretation of the scientific evidence and do not factor in all the feedback effects that are occurring and may develop over the next few decades.6 Levels of greenhouse gases and world temperatures will significantly increase over these decades, but these increases will almost certainly trig ger jurtbe1· temperature increases through what are known as positive feedbacks (see chapter 3 below). Negative feed back would restore the earth's equilibrium, while positive feedbacks will move any system away from equilibrium. And according to James Lovelock 'there is no large negative feed back that would countervail temperature rise'. 7 The most dramatic of these positive feed backs would be the melting of Greenland's ice-cap, which would change sea and land temperatures worldwide, including the possible turning off or modification of the Gulf Stream. A series of diverse yet interconnected changes within the earth's environmental systems could create a vicious circle of accumulative disrup tion occurring, as Fred Pearce expresses it, 'with speed and violence'. Indeed the melting of the �Test Antarctic ice sheet may happen very rapidly (and may already have started). The ice-cap will disintegrate from above and from below and this non-linear change further reduces the rate at which heat gets reflected back to the sun. The historic record shows that these ice-caps have historically formed and disappeared with
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