Letter: Cut down on cars
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: James Cadle (Letters, 22 November) is wrong to suggest that cars are not a principal element of the environmental crisis, at least as far as Britain is concerned. He makes the common mistake of assuming that the crisis is one of pollution. Certainly, pollution and health issues have been used to dramatise the problem, but they are secondary issues.
A primary issue is the unsustainable consumption of fossil fuels and the resulting global warming. Only cars that run on renewable energy would contribute to the avoidance of that problem.
Second, cars are such inefficient users of space that, to accommodate them and the spread-out development pattern which they lead to, we have wrecked a great deal of the countryside and allowed the destruction of our towns and cities through congestion. Bus services have been rendered inefficient and walking has been made unpleasant and dangerous.
No modifications to car technology can address these problems, and so our objective should be to reduce car usage.
ALAN TAYLOR
London SE24
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments