Considered one of America’s most well-respected environmentalists displays on how automobile dependency impacts our planet and our species.

This text was initially revealed on Streetsblog.

By Kea Wilson

For the reason that publication of his seminal 1989 e-book, The Finish of Nature, activist and creator Invoice McKibben has change into one of the vital revered voices on local weather and the surroundings on the earth — and within the course of, he’s additionally quietly change into one of the vital distinguished critics of America’s car-dependent improvement sample and its impression on our planet.

That’s a part of why he’s supporting America Walks’ first nationwide Week With out Driving marketing campaign (Oct. 2-8), which challenges U.S. residents to aim to navigate their cities for seven days with out an car, mirror on the obstacles they face, and demand systemic modifications that make energetic and shared transportation higher for all of us.

Because the problem wraps up its remaining days, we sat down with McKibben to speak not nearly what every week with out driving means for our local weather targets, however what it means for our humanity, and maintain the momentum going lengthy after the problem is completed.

This dialog has been edited for readability and size; an extended audio model can be made out there afterward our podcast, The Brake.

Kea Wilson: We’re right here immediately to speak in regards to the Week With out Driving problem and what not driving can do for the local weather disaster. However earlier than we get into that, I wished to ask you a extra common query, which stems from one thing you wrote in a latest overview of two books that query the impression of cars in human and animal life. Inform me: why is it essential that we attempt to, as you place it, “finish the reign of the automobile”?

Invoice McKibben: Effectively, the unfettered reign of the automobile has been an issue in so some ways. It’s distorted the whole lot from what our communities appear like, to how we relate to one another to, after all, the carbon content material of the ambiance. And it stays the only largest method that Individuals warmth up the planet.

Now, there’s clearly a lot of essential and attention-grabbing stuff happening [in the transportation sector] proper now. The rise of the EV, as an illustration, is a giant, massive enchancment over an inside combustion automobile — if it’s essential drive a automobile, then that’s what you ought to be driving. However simply swapping one out for the opposite can be lacking actual alternatives.

My final e-book was so much in regards to the rise of the suburb and what that meant [for our country. Our biggest job since the end of World War II — the thing we spent the most of our money —on was the project of building bigger houses farther apart from each other. That was completely made possible by the rise of the automobile. … And with that, everything shifted in our culture. So I don’t think we can or should end cars. But I do think we should end planning all public policy with them as the most important thing in mind.

KW: Great. So let’s get back to the Week Without Driving Campaign. I know that you’ve been supportive of America Walks in launching this campaign, the goal of which is, first, to get Americans that least try a week without driving, and second to get them to report back to their policymakers about what barriers they encounter when they do. Why are you on board with this effort? And what message do you hope it will send to policymakers all over the country?

BM: Well, I have it very easy in this regard, because I live deep in the woods, and I love to walk. The places I go and the things I most need to do all have to do with getting out of my head and away from screens, and walking is the perfect way to accomplish that. My watch tells me how many steps I take a day, and it tells me yesterday I took 25,000. The fall foliage is at its peak here, and I got to look at a lot of it.

But most Americans aren’t so lucky. Most of our environments aren’t really built very well for walking at all. It can be dangerous, not just because you might get run over, but because you have to breathe the endless exhaust of everything going by.

I’ve always been impressed with what happens when even a part of a city gets turned over to pedestrians; that changes everything. I did a long piece once for the New Yorker about a city in Brazil called Curitiba, [editors note: that article isn’t available online, but you can read some of Bill’s other reporting on Curitiba in Mother Jones, or in his book, “Hope, Human and Wild”]. Forty-five years in the past now, it declared its downtown off limits to the car. And this was very, very progressive and strange factor to do. … The mayor had learn Jane Jacobs, the good pioneering voice of benevolent urbanism, and determined that his metropolis wouldn’t be turned over to the automobile anymore.

He knew he’d face opposition. So he had the town’s public works division and lecturers and everyone else collect and over the course of 1 weekend, they usually tore up the pavement from a couple of 20-block space and put down cobblestones. And when individuals got here to work on Monday, at first there was outrage from the retailers; the place would individuals park? However by the center of the day, they’d seen such a rise in foot visitors and folks down there having fun with themselves that the retailers from surrounding streets have been demanding that their streets to be torn up so that folks may stroll to them.

I did that reporting 30 some years in the past, however it’s all the time caught in my thoughts. Our unstated assumption on this nation that automobiles are the norm is a very silly assumption. And if we didn’t make that the norm — if we use the automobile for the issues that it’s good at, maybe lengthy distance journey in rural areas, or transferring heavy objects about, or one thing like that — we’d be capable to construct cities, cities, suburbs that work for everyone, a lot, significantly better than they do now.

KW: As I hear you speaking bout Curitiba, I simply must ask: why ought to we put our give attention to constructing locations like that — locations the place driving is elective — moderately than simply solely driving electrical? Why do we’d like a Week With out Driving problem moderately than a Week With out Gasoline problem? Do you suppose the environmentalist neighborhood is speaking sufficient about mode shift and ending automobile dependency? Or is the dialog about electrical automobiles sucking the air out of the room?

BM: We’re not going to alter the whole lot that we’ve constructed on this nation because the Fifties in a single day. Having a automobile isn’t just a comfort, however a necessity for an terrible lot of individuals. So given the unbelievable pressures that local weather change presents — September was essentially the most anomalously heat month we’ve ever measured on this planet, and we broke by the 1.5-degree Celsius barrier that we pledged to keep away from within the Paris negotiations — the electrical automobile is an efficient and helpful factor.

Nevertheless it’s simply as helpful because the e-bike. It’s simply as helpful as a pair of ft. And people issues change into extra helpful when you begin prioritizing them. … The factor to keep away from I believe, is constant to make all our selections about how we construction the bodily areas of our lives with the automobile in thoughts. As a result of that’s what we’ve finished for a really very long time. I imply, suburban cul de sac developments are constructed across the turning radius of an car.

And it’s not solely hasn’t proved ruinous for the surroundings. It’s additionally proved, I believe, fairly ruinous for our peace of thoughts. There’s an attention-grabbing set of survey information the place the pollsters have requested Individuals, yearly, whether or not or not they’re proud of their lives. And the share of Individuals who say they’re very proud of their lives peaks someday within the Fifties, and it goes downhill since — despite the fact that we’re far richer than we have been within the Fifties.

I believe the explanation, above all, is that we’ve lowered contact with different individuals. If you construct larger homes additional aside from one another, mathematically, you run into one another so much much less. If you, as an alternative, construct communities which are denser, the place individuals can take pleasure in strolling to and from the issues they want in the midst of a day, you’re going to stumble upon one another extra typically. And that’s what we have been constructed for.

The common American [today] has half as many shut pals as the common American of the Fifties. That’s a giant loss for a socially advanced primate. And the two,500-pound metal shell during which we encase ourselves for giant durations of time has to have one thing to do with that more and more hermit-like existence.

KW: I’m so glad you introduced that up, as a result of as I’ve been going over the responses on social media to the Week With out Driving marketing campaign, numerous it’s not centered on that pleasure and connection you’re speaking about proper now. It’s centered on how not driving feels harmful, or what number of indignities individuals face on the highway outdoors a automobile. How can we discuss to policymakers in regards to the joyfulness that’s doable from selecting a life with out driving, notably if we facilitate a life with out driving by nice coverage?

BM: I believe a technique to consider it’s that it’s a good suggestion to do a Week With out Driving, and it’s an equally good concept to do a Week With a Lot of Strolling. What does that find yourself being like? As a result of that, for me, is the pleasure of all this.

As I stated earlier than, I wish to stroll; I like seeing individuals; I like seeing the pure world. I identical to the pendulum-like movement of my legs in motion, carrying me hither and yon. And there’s a protracted and well-developed literature on the pleasures of strolling, going again, not less than, to Henry David Thoreau’s well-known essay. I consider nice writers of the current second, like Rebecca Solnit, who’ve produced unbelievable odes to the thrill of strolling. So I believe I’d name in some writers and poets and artists and issues — and possibly a health care provider or two alongside the way in which. I imply, I’m not a health care provider. Nevertheless it strikes me as possible that it’s fairly good so that you can to be strolling round as an alternative of simply sitting on a settee, or miserable your ankle 1 / 4 of an inch with the intention to speed up your automobile.

KW: What would you say to individuals who have accomplished the Week With out Driving, and need to maintain the momentum going? What problem would you place to them? Possibly a yr with out driving?

BM: Effectively, I might say a yr with as a lot bodily pleasure and bodily engagement as doable! Now we have this outstanding factor that we’ve been given: a physique. And typically, it truly is fairly good at transferring us about. It’s solely within the final 40 or 50 years that we’ve even begun to get away from that. We advanced to stroll an terrible lot of the time, if we’re capable of do it. And so I believe that’d be my problem: have as a lot enjoyable out on two ft as you probably can.

Kea Wilson has greater than a dozen years expertise as a author telling emotional, pressing and actionable tales that encourage common Individuals to get entangled in making their cities higher locations. She can be a novelist, bicycle owner, and inexpensive housing advocate. She beforehand labored at Robust Cities, and at the moment lives in St. Louis, MO. Kea could be reached at kea@streetsblog.org or on Twitter @streetsblogkea. Please attain out to her with suggestions and submissions.