Transport/Travel

Part of shaping a future planet involves thinking about how we move around it.

There are about 540 million cars on the world's roads. If countries like India and China take up the Western world's driving habits this will rise to more like 3 billion.
Despite jams, lack of parking, expensive fuel, high car costs and pollution, advertisers sell us the dream of fast cars swishing along empty roads through unspoilt countryside, and we still buy it.

"Technology is the art of arranging the world so that we don't have to experience it" - Martin Heidegger

The number of flights people take has also increased dramatically, to the point where it is now 'normal', and acceptable, to jet off for the weekend to the destination of your choice. It isn't just that - there are more and cheaper flights worldwide than ever before which is a problem. At about the altitude planes fly, it's thought that exhaust emissions are 4 times more effective in forming greenhouse gases than they are on the ground. It's an irony then that in bolting around the globe in planes, we're threatening the very natural beauty we travel to see.

Transport accounts for around 20% of worldwide energy use, most of which is unsustainable. It's a big issue, and you have a key role in it.

Resources:

Articles:
Amid today’s oil driven economies, can electric cars ever become affordable enough to challenge the supremacy of internal combustion?
Thursday 15 October 2009
Green tourism is under increasing scrutiny. Is it really any good for the environment?
Tuesday 3 November 2009

Videos:

A shared propulsion car, with a top speed of 15km p/h (filmed by Benny Zenga, organiser of the Toronto Bicycle Film Festival - 04.30 mins)

Resources:
Conservation and Tourism: A value chain approach
Rain Forest Alliance: The Cayou District Protects Belizean Trasures
Rain Forest Alliance: Profiles in Sustainable Tourism
Rain Forest Alliance: Searching for the Traesures of Mindo