Are Electric Cars an Answer to Global Warming? A Return to Village Life Might Help More

 Are Electric Cars an Answer to Global Warming?

If you factor in the environmental costs of manufacturing batteries, electric cars are not such a great investment in the environment. Also it perpetuates the need for a cultural lifestyle dependent on cars, a lifestyle that we need to diversify.

Let's look at a move to village living again, riding bikes or taking buses or vans to feeder lines to commute by rail to the nearest city.

Now building transport systems that make it viable for people to live in the country without a car makes all the sense in the world. Break up our large cities.

Not everyone living in a village would need a car or even to commute to work in a nearby city. Many could work from home or work on projects for the benefit of the community.

There might be car sharing and cooperative ownership of a fleet of various vehicles and ways to get around: trucks, golf carts, motorcycles, electric bikes and bicycles.

Energy could be sourced locally from photovoltaic cell clusters. There could be a town hall to discuss political and community concerns, provide a music and arts rehearsal and performance center for concerts, dancing and parties.

Community gardens and orchards could provide some of the food for villagers. A broad based of trade and exchange with surrounding villages could share the abundance of a variety of food that is grown. There could be a baking collective and a wide range of cooperative food preparation and meal sharing from weekly potlucks at the community center, to breakfast clubs, etc.

The village would need a good, reliable source of water. Perhaps a ring of wells strategically placed could provide an independent source of water. We know how to build up the aquifer below the land today.

A ring of trees could provide an outdoor ceremonial site for weddings and funerals, parties and harvest feasts. Hickory, walnut, and pecan trees could also be a source of food for everyone.

A return to village life could meet many social needs for belonging, a sense of mission and purpose, connection with the land and other people that is so often missing in modern life. It would not be the remote and isolated village life of the past, but one of connection through the Internet that provides a good quality of life.

However, if the grid should fail, if the Internet were to crash permanently, life would go on, and it would be a good life, as it would be possible to become more or less self sufficient.