A Couple of Thoughts on Transportation and Climate Change

I urge readers to check out today’s issue of “The Writer’s Almanac,” in particular the article on the anniversary of the first street car in New York City (in 1832). To me, it calls upon two important ideas, the first, obviously, is the concept of mass transit, and how important it has been to local residents and visitors, even in the early 19th Century. Why anyone in “The City” would want to own a car is beyond me.  

The other point is that by 1870, New Yorkers made 100 million trips a year in horse-drawn street cars and that, by 1880, there were at least 150,000 horses in the city, each of which was producing 22 lbs. of manure each day, producing an incredible stench, and causing one writer to guess that by 1930, the manure would reach the third story of Manhattan’s buildings.  Of course, no one knew that the advent of the electric motor and the internal combustion engine would soon put an immediate and permanent end to this problem.

Some say that our current situation with global climate change is similar; it’s possible that new technology, probably fusion, will come along and save us all. I’m not saying that this is impossible, or even that it’s unlikely, but I am saying relying on such a last-minute miracle to save humankind from the catastrophic effect of climate change (and ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, skyrocketing rates of lung disease, etc.) is irresponsible in the extreme.