Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Do Humans dream of Electric Cars
Your journey to sustainable travels
by Sustrans with a foreword by Adam Hart Davis, Writer, Broadcaster
& traveler by bike and train
Published byAlastair Sawday's Fragile Earth series on 25 June
for Sustrans
ISBN 978-1-906136-28-4
110mm x 180mm paperback with about 96 pages
Price £4.99 from Sustrans and good bookshops
Written in an extremely easy understandable and even funny way using illustration all the way this book makes the point for a more or less car-less society and a point for walking or cycling as a primary mode of transport and one that I, most certainly, can subscribe to.
Easy, someone may say, you don't drive. No, but I will defend your right to do so to the end. But that is not the point and I digressed.
The book, however, makes a number of great points for getting “on yer bike” instead of using the car, even if it is an electric one.
Cycling and walking could reduce a lot of the obesity that is being suffered by so many nowadays, including and especially children.
Electric cars are not, in my opinion, the answer. Even if all cars would b e replaced by electric ones would it make less of an impact as far as CO2 emissions and such like goes?
Probably not for while electric cars themselves are emissions free the electricity required to charge the battery with is not.
Therefore electric cars are not the answer and neither, I should say, are hydrogen fuel cell ones or cars powered with what-have-you else.
This is why we must look at the options put forward in this book a lot more closely and consider other options, such as cycling, as advocated by Sustrans.
Other countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, etc. can do it so why not the UK and the USA.
The style of this book with the great use of cartoon-style illustrations will make it appealing for all ages, from grade schoolers to pensioners.
The information is detailed enough to be of use but not too much to overburden someone.
This is a real nice little book and all I can say is let's go and read the book and then act upon the suggestions and idea.
© 2009
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Do Humans dream of Electric Cars – Book Review
