The Need for a BIG Idea

The ideas that (a) climate change is happening and (b) we are perhaps past or certainly close to the peak of our ability to dig fossil fuels out of the ground are now pretty clear and well accepted.The less than happy state of the earth can be summed up as follows.

• There are finite resources of materials on this planet – and we’re already using them up too fast
• As countries develop, they require more goods and energy per head
• The population of the planet is still growing – so there will be more heads to use the limited pool of resources.
• The way we convert some of those resources (such as fossil fuels) into energy is leading to climate change.

This book is not going to try and convince you of the above. There are plenty of other sources for that. Here, we will take it as a given, that we must change the way we treat the planet. The above leads to some unavoidable conclusions.

• We need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and get more energy from renewable sources.
• We need to slow down climate change by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.
• We need to make all resources (including energy) go further – by using less in the first place and by reusing rather than throwing away.

Huge programmes are being funded to promote alternative energy sources and to “clean up” fossil fuel burning. On the third point, however, we see a myriad of incremental improvements: better insulation; more efficient petrol engines; better recycling facilities and so on.

Incremental changes are typically considered and justified in isolation. We’re used to hearing statements like “Spending an extra $1000 on insulating a new house will save that $1000 in X years of heating and air conditioning bills.” We also know, if we're honest with ourselves, that the incremental improvements will struggle to keep us where we are in terms of energy and resource use and emissions. Population growth and the rise in standard of living in the developing world are driving our consumption in the opposite direction and probably at a faster rate.

We really need to do something serious and far-reaching. The politicians understand this - and some may even believe that technology can deliver the level of change that is needed. However, I haven’t seen a practical proposal for a transport strategy that comes anywhere near a global step change in resource and energy usage. The public, I think, is worried that sooner or later they’re going to be forced to give up things they really, really like – such as cheap and unfettered use of their cars – in order to make a real difference to the situation.

Transport of ourselves and our stuff around the planet is one of the biggest contributors to global warming and fossil fuel use. The quality of our transport infrastructure is hugely important to our way of life. A sophisticated transport network is actually a key enabler and differentiator of what we regard as a “developed” country when compared with a “developing” one.

In 1998, the British Labour party tasked John Prescott with formulating and driving forward an “Integrated Transport Strategy”. Ten years on, this has not been a marked success! Yes, everyone accepts that we should all use public transport more and our own cars less. The marginal improvements proposed in the frequency and quality of trains or buses are not going to have a significant impact on our behaviour.

We need to take a logical approach to improving transport. Let's start by considering the major reasons we and/or our goods are transported; what actually needs to travel and what else travels with it and why the travel is needed in the first place. We'll put bulk transport of goods between businesses to one side as this has undergone a huge change in the last 30 years with the introduction of containerised shipping and computerised systems that have enabled “Just in Time” manufacturing to thrive. Not only is transport more efficient, the waste and cost of unused inventory lying around has largely been taken out of the system.

The table below sets out the main categories of transport we will consider: