Fueled by Fossils, Fueled By Extinction

One day, it may be necessary to eliminate cars. Stop everything, recycle the parts and start over. This would certainly encourage more people to get moving, get walking, get riding bicycles and so on. It would encourage people to become more intimate with their immediate environment, more physically active and engaged, healthier, vibrant. Slowly, surely and accordingly, city planning, architecture, services and lifestyles would emerge and adapt to thrive in this setting.

Perhaps we keep and improve public transit systems and emergency vehicles. Perhaps some specialized transport vehicles would remain, slowly changing as virtual and local ways of living grew prominent. We could cover dozens of desolate streets in grasses and flowers, pathways and trees. Perhaps this scenario is serious smokestack-tailpipe-dreaming. Perhaps it is the only way. By and large, cars have turned people into slothy, snail-like jabbas scurrying thither and yon or, into out-of-time, seared with rage, pedal to the metal meat. Amputated from themselves and from the earth.

However, alternatives to the grotesque guzzling are now becoming available:

Consider the algae-filled algae-filled Hummer from GM. This futuristic concept includes an algae-filled body shell that creates oxygen, and opens up like a flower to catch sunlight while parked. The HUMMER 02 promotes the production of oxygen by a two-way valve system in the corner of each panel. The sophisticated devices control and monitor the amount of carbon dioxide and source nutrition needed for the algae cultivation while optimizing oxygen production and distribution.

Another car to consider is The Eclectic Solar, a solar, wind and electrically-powered vehicle from Venturi, which they describe as "a modern, autonomous and intelligent automobile. The energy that drives it exists all around it : it simply has to deploy its wind turbine, expose its solar cells or, if necessary, find a simple electric plug." Limited editions of 200 Eclectics will be available in June 2007.

Then there's Tesla Motors one-hundred percent electric model that goes from 0-60mph in about 4seconds. Tesla Motors recently received a grant from the California Air Resources Board to develop public charging stations for electric cars.