“Vice President [Al] Gore is wrong to call for the elimination of the internal combustion engine, and wrong again to call ‘absurd’ our current reliance on cars and trucks. Mobility is an essential and inseparable part of almost all that we value—from close-knit families to rewarding careers, quality educations, and fulfilling recreation. Mobility truly is what makes our autonomy possible. And cars, trucks, and the internal combustion engine are worth keeping because they make automobility itself increasingly sustainable.”
– Joseph Bast and Jay Lehr, “The Increasing Sustainability of Cars, Trucks, and the Internal Combustion Engine,” Heartland Institute Policy Study No. 95, June 2000, p. 54.
Part I of this two-part series described the primitive, messy, inefficient prehistory of the mechanized transportation. Today’s post provides quotations form different scholars that describe the great advances provided by carbon-based energy transportation.
Transportation Benefits
“Not only was the motorcar considered cleaner, safer, more reliable, and more economical than the horse, but it promised to be vastly improved and lowered in price in the near future, whereas the expense and liabilities of the horse seemed unalterable. . . . [Moreover] the general adoption of the automobile by farmers promised to break down the isolation of rural life, lighten farm labor, and reduce significantly the cost of transporting farm products to market, thereby raising the farmers’ profits while lowering food prices paid by city consumers.”
– James Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993), pp. 138-39.
“Mass personal automobility appears to have a new lease on life. In contrast with the disappointing past, disillusioning present, and clouded future of mass transit in the United States, the renaissance in automotive technology is making cars safer, less polluting, and more energy efficient with every model year. Predictions of the imminent death of the automobile have given way to a new optimism. [A Massachusetts Institute for Technology] report comes to the particularly rosy conclusion that ‘the automobile’s future as the prime means of personal transport is quite secure because of the flexibility of the basic concept and robustness of automotive technology. . . . [T]here is no basis whatever for projecting that in the end auto technologists will fail to cope. Thus, the auto industry can continue to be one of the world’s foremost manufacturing activities far into the future, serving the need for personal transportation in developed and developing nations.’”
-James Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993), p. 404.
“The automobile revolution and the rail revolution . . . improved transportation, whether by auto or by rail, increased personal mobility, brought city amenities to the countryside, decentralized urban space, sanitized the central city, and created an integrated national culture, economy, and society.”
– James Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993), p. 3.
“Growing shares of energy consumption in fossil-fueled civilization have been channeled into moving people and goods. The unprecedented degree of travel and trade are, together with the prodigious generation and exchange of information, the two key external attributes of high-energy societies.”
– Vaclav Smil, Energies (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), p. 175.
“The personal and professional mobility conferred by cars has been among the most powerful social forces of the twentieth-century Western world.”
– Vaclav Smil, Energies (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), p. 183.
“The combination of near-sonic speeds, growing ranges, and the multitude of airlines and frequency of services has made it possible to reach any continent within a single day—and to do so with steadily declining real costs.”
– Vaclav Smil, Energies (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), p. 187.
“The rise of the automobile industry and the socioeconomic impact of the road and the car are central to the history of the advanced capitalist countries in the twentieth century, and explain an especially large part of the history of the American people.”
– James Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993), p. viii.
“The personal and professional mobility conferred by cars has been among the most powerful social forces of the twentieth-century Western world.”
– Vaclav Smil, Energies (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), p. 183.
“When James Watt patented his steam engine in 1776 . . . it marked the beginning of a long series of inventions, including the steam turbine, the gasoline explosion engine, the Diesel engine, the gas combustion turbine, the different jets—turbojet, rocketjet, aeroresonator, etc.—the water turbine, and the host of other inventions which have made electricity one of the most widely used forms of energy. . . . These inventions so raised the productivity of man that he at last found the leisure and surplus which made possible the systematic pursuit of scientific research.”
– Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. 57.
“The most important contribution of Detroit to the world goes far beyond the immediately tangible effects of G.M.’s and Ford’s European market strategy. It lies in the philosophy of producing more for less. Exported as ‘Fordism’ to Europe and other parts of the world, this philosophy has done more to bring closer the conquest of poverty than any other contemporary force or animating idea. The advent of mechanization can be painful, breaking up peasant economies and disrupting political institutions, but it is the only available instrumentality for changing underdeveloped countries into developed ones, and for the progressive enlargement of markets.”
– John Chamberlin, The Enterprising Americans: A Business History of the United States (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 222.
“One of the most important uses of energy is locomotion—the moving of things and people and ideas from place to place.”
– Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. 71.
“The car has come to be widely perceived in modern societies as a means of freedom, mobility and safety, a symbol of personal status and identity, and as one of the most important products in the industrial economy.”
– Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2001: Mitigation (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 47.
“Cars and trucks are generally faster than alternatives because they can be parked close to where we live, work, shop, or worship; make stops along a route only when and where we want to; and take us right to the doorsteps of our destinations. Cars and trucks are generally more flexible than alternatives because we can decide at almost any time to change travel plans to pick up groceries, visit a friend, decide to arrive earlier than planned or leave later than planned, and so on. Cars and trucks provide more privacy than alternatives, which are apt to require waiting in lines and sitting with strangers whose values may be unknown and whose conversations and activities can be disturbing.”
– Joseph Bast and Jay Lehr, “The Increasing Sustainability of Cars, Trucks, and the Internal Combustion Engine,” Heartland Institute Policy Study No. 95, June 2000, p. 3.
“There is a direct relationship between personal mobility and freedom. No authoritarian leader really wants to see his people able to move about freely, associating with whom they please, with the inevitable exchange of ideas and information and the independence these freedoms bring. . . . It is much easier to control people if they stay put or move about only on mass transit.”
– James Johnston, Driving America: Your Car, Your Government, Your Choice (Washington: The AEI Press, 1997), p. 2.
“The car also has had a pervasive effect on the whole balance of the agricultural economy merely because it collaborated with the tractor to displace the horse. Because of the internal combustion engine, some eighteen million horses and mules have vanished along with stalls and stables—and the fifty million acres that were once required to feed them have become available to feed people.”
– John Chamberlin, The Enterprising Americans: A Business History of the United States (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 221.
“The American chapter of petroleum history starts with the internal combustion engine and its major application—the automobile. . . . There are two fundamental reasons for this. In the first place, the people of the United States can afford the luxury of an automobile and in the second place, they need a car more than most other people. The United States is the only country of continental expanse which maintains a highly industrialized economy and a mechanized society with high per capita purchasing power on a population density of less than 50 people per square mile.”
– Erich Zimmermann, World Resources and Industries (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), p. 497.
“Gasoline, now in universal use in this country, shows no such increase in price since prewar times as other articles in daily demand. A comparison of wholesale prices of eggs, sugar, butter, potatoes, milk, flour, bread, and shoes with gasoline reveals that gasoline in 1926 represented the smallest gain, as against the average price in 1913.”
– American Petroleum Institute, Petroleum Facts and Figures (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1928), p. 96.
“In terms of what his dollar would buy in all commodities, the consumer spent less for his gasoline in 1926 than he did in 1913.”
– American Petroleum Institute, Petroleum Facts and Figures (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1928), p. 97.
“At the present prices of gasoline the public is not primarily interested in gasoline economy, but in greater apparent power, freedom from detonation, and a smooth running engine. These characteristics . . . ‘may be had in an engine using high compression, high turbulence and anti-knock fuel, and one of the least appreciated by-products will be economy.’”
– American Petroleum Institute Petroleum Facts and Figures (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1925), p. 210.
“Cars in 1896 were such a curiosity that they performed in circuses along with dancing bears: by 1995 the world had half a billion cars.”
– J. R. McNeil, Something New Under the Sun (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2000), p. 310.
“In the currency of work time, today’s Ford Taurus costs about 17 percent less than the celebrated 1955 Fairlane and more than 70 percent less than the first Model T, introduced in 1908. And that’s without any adjustment for quality. Early cars rarely had an enclosed body, tires couldn’t be removed from rims and buyers had to purchase a separate anti-kickback device to prevent broken arms. Today’s models embody literally hundreds of standard features—from air-conditioning and antilock brakes to computer-controlled carburetors [and injection systems] and CD players—making driving safer, more economical and more fun.”
– W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, Myths of Rich & Poor (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 11.
“Automobile affordability in the U.S. hit a 19-1/2-year high in the third quarter. . . . Vehicle affordability has been a major factor in the auto industry’s booming sales this year. Industry experts estimate that total sales of new vehicles this year will hit a record 17.5 million units.”
– Staff Report, “New-Vehicle Affordability Reaches a 191/2-Year High,” Wall Street Journal, November 15, 1999, p. B13.
“Throughout this century, the relative cost of travel has been falling; at the same time, wealth per capita has been increasing. This trend has contributed to a rapid growth in transportation demand and a commensurate increase in energy demand and vehicle emissions.”
– International Energy Agency, Energy Technologies for the 21st Century (Paris: OECD/IEA, 1997), p. 243.
“In the last digital decade, teleconferencing has really taken off; so have total air miles flown, rising from 4.3 to 5.8 billion a year. The number of telecommuters has grown five-fold in the decade, to over 20 million. People are driving more than ever too, and in bigger vehicles. Transportation fuel use is up 12 percent against an already enormous baseline.”
– Mark Mills, “Silicon Power Play,” The American Spectator, April 2001, p. 41.
“Despite recent policy efforts such as the EU voluntary fuel economy agreement, the Reference Scenario for transport of the IEA World Energy Outlook 2000 expects that over the next two decades energy demand in transportation will climb faster (at 2.4 percent per year) than in any other end-use sector. By 2020, transport is likely to account for more than half of global oil demand and roughly one-fourth of global energy-related CO2 emissions.”
– International Energy Agency, Toward a Sustainable Energy Future (Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001), p. 155.
“[A] huge development in energy use which has impacted on the world around us has been in the transportation sector. There have been roads and wheeled transport, including covered wagons, for about 4,500 years. Horses, donkeys, mules and oxen were used from the beginning as draught animals. Horses have been ridden for more than 3,000 years. Roman roads represented a substantial advance in engineering 2,000 years ago. Canoes have been in use for 20,000 years, while river and sea-going boats have existed for at least 4,000 years.”
– World Energy Council, Living in One World (London: World Energy Council, 2001), p. 58.