Viewpoint: It’s time to end our love affair with cars
ANDREW SIMMS, AUTHOR & CO-DIRECTOR, NEW WEATHER INSTITUTE
I think cars should come with health warnings like cigarettes. Why? Consider this… What cigarette do you smoke doctor? It might sound incredible now, but there was a time when doctors appeared in adverts encouraging us to smoke. You could smoke in restaurants and pubs, buses and planes. Now, cigarette packets come with stark and graphic warnings about the impact of smoking on your health – and on those around you.
I think we need to reassess our relationship -you could call it a love affair – with the car. What’s interesting about our response to the threats from both smoking and the pandemic, is how we acted and changed our behaviour to help protect each other’s health. We don’t blow cigarette smoke in each other’s faces anymore. Or light up inside. With the coronavirus, we quickly learned to give each other space, wear masks, wash our hands – and we got used to all the signs reminding us to do so. It’s normal where there’s a threat to life for us to change our behaviour and do whatever it takes to protect friends, family and other people. So why do we put up with the air pollution pandemic, when there’s something we can do about it? Why don’t we have reminders on cars about the consequences of street level pollution, and encourage us to walk or cycle more?
Studies have shown air pollution – much of which comes from cars – contributes to the premature deaths of almost half a million people in Europe every year.
Since 2010, SUVs have been the second biggest source of rising carbon emissions. If SUV drivers were a nation, they’d be the world’s 7th biggest carbon polluter.
Putting health warnings on cars would be a stark and clear visual reminder to all of us about the devastating impact on people and the planet. And it might just help shift our attitude to cars once and for all.
