[sustran] Anti-car propaganda that is blindly accepted as truth

ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr
Mon Sep 13 18:34:10 JST 2004


Source: http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1070172004, Sun 12 Sep
2004

 

Dear Friends,

 

Not that there is anything new in this, but I do think it is salutary
from time to time to lend a patient ear to other views and voices. This
is a bit overheated, but part of our job is to listen and figure out how
to handle the entire ball of wax and not just our favored part of it.

 

Eric 

 

The New Mobility Agenda at http://newmobility.org 

 

 

 

Anti-car propaganda that is blindly accepted as truth 

DR DAN Barlow, the head of research for Friends of the Earth and a
member of the Forthright Alliance, used "sustainable" seven times in 300
words about a new Forth bridge. Sustainable alternatives, least
sustainable, sustainable option, sustainable transport, sustainable
transport planning, sustainable transport alternatives, neither
sustainable nor supportable... He was against a new bridge. 

"Sustainable" means a lot to environmental lobbyists. It is like
perpetual motion or alchemy - a chimera that takes scant account of
reality or practicality. It has been endowed with a mystic quality, such
as "renewable" or "consultation", and become an ingredient in roundhead
collectivist jargon. 

Dr Barlow went through the entire lexicon when The Scotsman gallantly
provided him with space to make the case against a new Forth crossing:
entirely premature; bring forward; relevant authorities; current
consultation; further undermine public transport network; wholly
unconvincing; smokescreen; entirely possible; using existing rail
infrastructure; grandiose mega-project; increase city traffic congestion
and greenhouse gas emissions; worsen air pollution; environmentally
destructive; entirely unacceptable; stop promoting new road-building. 

The collapse of his argument was entirely his own fault. Argot of the
centre left (or left left for all I know) like this bears out Dr
Goebbels' propaganda principle that if a lie is big enough and repeated
often enough, it will come to be the truth. 

Nothing has been more sustainable, in the truest sense of the word, than
John Fowler and Benjamin Baker's masterpiece the Forth Bridge. Here is a
symbol of sustainability, reliability, strength, integrity and
solidarity - there every day since 1890, not merely sustainable but in
human terms virtually everlasting. Enduring, unremitting, continuous,
perpetual, the Forth Bridge has never failed us. What a contrast to
'sustainables' or 'renewables' like wind power. 

The Forth Road Bridge was the railway bridge's logical companion. It has
been there 40 years and the facts are plain. In 1964, four million
vehicles used it; now 24 million do. These are not all frivolous
tourists. They are going to work; their bridge allows them to live in
the country or by the sea instead of living in the city. 

Some people have a preference for the city, but quite a lot do not, and
they deserve a choice. Cars provide a choice that the roundheads would
deny them. 

What myths and delusions have been peddled in the guise of
environmentalism. One is that more roads generate more traffic. But
there is nothing sinful about traffic. It means activity, freedom,
visits to elderly relatives, more goods brought to more people by more
lorries. 

Trying to make the world feel guilty about more roads and more journeys
is a new sort of Nimbyism, on behalf of tax-obsessed social engineers
and dirigistes, to whom curtailing travel is more important than
encouraging it. 

In the recent 'The Future of Transport' White Paper, Tony Blair says:
"We recognise that we cannot simply build our way out of the problems we
face." Alistair Darling, the transport secretary, contributes the
foreword. "We cannot build our way out of the problems we face," he
repeats. The report prattles on gormlessly: "We cannot build our way out
of the problems we face on our road networks." 

Perhaps the same person wrote it all. Even Dr Goebbels employed decent
sub-editors. Heigh-ho, repeat a falsehood often enough and it will come
to be the truth. Even the Tories believe building more roads is
mistaken. They have swallowed the soothsayers' bait. The RAC and the AA
are not much better. How astonishing that they all fall for the
roundheads' mantra about balancing the need for travel and sustaining
the quality of life. 

There is no contradiction. Quality of life includes being able to move
around the country. It includes travelling by car or train or aeroplane
when you want to, when you need to, without an Orwellian authority
saying you mustn't. 

Cromwell, Knox and the Puritan Fathers would rejoice over Dr Barlow and
his Friends prophesying doom for us all because we want to build more
roads and use our cars. If democracy has any meaning, it is agreeing
what most people want, and there is not much doubt that most people want
to travel by car. 

Not everybody has a car. Roundheads enjoy making the point. But who
amongst us has never travelled in one? Cars, ambulances, vans, lorries
are all traffic. People support roads, although the environment industry
tries to make them feel bad about it: the favourite sword of Damocles is
global warming and the greenhouse effect. 

But let us remember there is a body of opinion that blames cars, another
that blames aeroplanes, another that blames chopping down the
rainforests, and another that blames the burgeoning industrialisation of
China and India and Saddam Hussein's arson of the oil wells. 

There is a body of opinion that says global warming is merely the sun
getting hotter, while others say it is cyclical and the Ice Age will
return. The roundheads say cars are to blame and we should feel guilty
about them. Victor Meldrew, for once, was right: "I don't believe it!"

 

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