Automobile-free Society

Automobile-free Society

Introduction

Automobile industry is the most costly industry in terms of the social, environmental and economic impacts it is delivering to the world. The petrol and diesel cars with their green house emission are up front in the causes of global warming, pollution, environmental degradation, diseases prevailing through the release of carbon monoxide from combustion and many others, the list is endless. It is estimated by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that thousands of people admit into hospital ERs each year for a treatment to toxic Carbon Monoxide poisoning (. Considering the economic impacts, with the rising prices of oil and diesel, it is increasingly becoming a luxury poor people cannot afford. The negatives of the industry far outweigh the positives, but the general perception among people is vice-versa of this statement. It is important to consider automobile-free environment so that people could be made aware of the potential benefits and encouraged to take the right path.

Discussion

Automobiles are in the world we live in since centuries; to be precise, year 1769 marks the start of the automobile industry. This period is huge enough for the benefits to condition people not to question and accept the negatives as it is and consider no other alternative; more so because it is believed that we have reached that point in time when technological advancement is at its peak. But reconsideration is required to change perception and to induce change for the better of the society and its inhabitants.

Social, Cultural and Economic Impact

The social impact would be that people will be unable to maintain healthy relationship with relatives and friends living far off their location. The world will become more of a global village yet the isolated community because though people would be able to interact over the internet, it would require considerable efforts to travel to their friends' home and have hearty talks. It would reduce the propensity of 'Roadkill' and 'Habitat Destruction', to which animals and plants are subjected (Ball, 2009). Over the lifetime of an average automobile, 50,000 sq. m. is estimated as the loss of habitat potential. Similarly, people are also killed during road mishaps including peasants and farmers living in the sprawling communities because they not usually confront cars. Their likelihood to get struck by car is therefore higher with around 1.2 million people becoming subjects of this accident across the world each year (Peden et al., 2004). As a result of auto-mobile free world, this societal fact would most likely be reversed. Variety of diseases as well in case of injuries would decline. The propagation of the automobile use has also contributed to the increase in depletion of Non-renewable fuel as a consequence of which society is impacted in negative way. Therefore, automobile free world would lead sustainable development with the non-renewable resources not used without regard of the future generations. Congestion would also be overcome (Jakle et al., 2004).

It has its negatives though, because of the decrease in police vigilance, it could lead to ...