William Ruckelshaus once said and I quote-"Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites." Since times immemorial, man's activities have been incessantly degrading the environment that we live in. The insatiable nature of man's wants, coupled with limited availability of resources, has led to this pitiful present day scenario. Man exploits resources in an injudicious manner, thereby debilitating the environment.
Back in the day, the surrounding countryside was preserved for farming or natural open spaces such as wood lots and forests (Newman and Kenworthy, 1999). However, the present picture is drastically different. Bridges and highways have replaced farmland and forests. The high growth rate of population has led to deforestation in order to accommodate more automobiles. Deforestation in turn leads to climatic change causing Global Warming. The picture above portrays the practice of indiscriminate felling of trees.
The Chinese city is changing dramatically from a walking and cycling environment to one which is conducive to automobiles. This has severely disrupted the environment for pedestrians and cyclists (Kenworthy and Hu, 2002; Kenworthy and Townsend,2002). Moreover, people find themselves locationally disadvantaged in a transport sense and they are compelled to purchase cars in order to traverse the realms of this 'Automobile city'. In this process, the rights of cyclists and pedestrians have been trampled (Kenworthy, 1997).
The automobile facilitated the uninhibited outward expansion of the city because people and businesses were no longer constrained to the fixed-track public transport systems or walking-scale environments of earlier times. Thus, cities encroached upon farmland and waterways and other natural spaces. This process, known as Urbanization, has grave impacts upon the environment.
Automobiles release toxic fumes into the environment, which leads to air pollution. Moreover, they also contribute to other forms of pollution such as noise pollution. The automobile culture also leads to 'time pollution'-the ways in which excessive mobility robs people of valuable time in a variety of insidious ways (Whitelegg, 1993, 1997). Automobiles run on fossil fuels, which are non-renewable sources of energy. The petroleum supplies are rapidly diminishing. It is estimated that at the present rate of consumption of fossil fuels, we will be extinguished of our fossil fuel supplies in about 50 years!
Researcher Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy analyzed the relationship between urban form, infrastructure and auto-mobility (Newman and Kenworthy, 1989, 1999), and found that the more that cities attempted to accommodate auto-mobility through road expansion and a variety of traffic engineering gimmicks oriented to keeping traffic flowing freely, the more congestion, sprawl and pollution they created. Because we must drive, we are oblivious to the realities of cars as agents of pollution and environmental degradation.
The media is often termed as a 'Watchdog of Society'. However, I beg to differ. This is because the media often misleads the people into believing what is wrong. In a way, the media promotes the car culture instead of highlighting its negative impacts. The same argument applies to Cinema, Television and Radio. Some advertising aims to create a feeling of satisfaction among consumers that they have been smart in their choices-even after learning that they have purchased a product that is defective, dangerous or environmentally harmful. Radio traffic rappers encourage orinduce unnecessary driving when they pronounce a freeway to be 'wide open' or promote a 'good time to drive.'
We also see the reshaping of architecture and urban design for automobile cities. This is evident in Atlanta itself. The Dutch architect, Koolhaas, referred to Atlanta as a 'splintered, sprawling, fragmented region.'
Man and nature should live in communion with each other. We must devise ways and means to reduce the burden on the environment. The following are some examples of ways and organizations which help in reducing the impact upon the environment: -
The Georgia Conservancy is an NGO, which works towards the protection of the environment. It promotes sustainable growth and good urbanism. Moreover, the Atlanta Beltline integrates land use and transportation. It helps in the revitalization of the environment. By creating connectivity and density, people are given the options that may include a car but could also include transit, biking and walking. This ensures environmental sustainability.
WORKS CITED:
1) Meyer, Michael. Lecture. ENGL 1101: Rhetoric of Mass Transportation. Georgia Institute of Technology, 30 Sept. 2011.
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFjxvt_834g&feature=player_embedded
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0ZbaQ7M8-4&feature=related
5) Scheller, Preston, Eric C. Bruun, and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy. Introduction to Sustainable Transportation: Policy, Planning and Implementation. London: Earthscan, 2010.
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