If we stopped driving cars to lower CO2, would that merely result in another form of pollution in its place?

Answer 1

It depends on how we travel instead of using cars. If we were to use horses for instance there would be a real big horse poop problem. You might laugh at that but it was a real problem just about the time cars were invented. In many big cities horse poop was literally stacking up inches deep in the streets. That is actually one of the important reasons that cars caught on so fast. Ironically it was to solve a pollution problem caused by horses.

The way many Americans live today it would be impossible to simply stop driving cars without replacing them with something else. There are some big cities, especially the older ones on the East Coast that have excellent public transportation that is used by many people, but where I live in California lots of things would have to change first. I know people that work in San Francisco but live up to 100 miles away in the Central Valley. There would be no way for them to give up cars because there is no other way to get to work.

There are a couple of alternatives to cars that would not cause allot of other pollution and they are public transportation and electric or hybrid-electric cars. Public transport does cause some pollution but because lots of people ride in a few vehicles it causes a lot less pollution per person. The amount of pollution an electric vehicle causes depends upon the type of batteries used and how the electricity is generated so that can vary allot, but could fairly easily be made much less than today's cars.

Certainly for short distance both walking and riding a bike are excellent low pollution ways of getting round. They have the added benefit of being very good for our health both physical and mental. It would be nice if cities were designed to better accommodate walkers and riders.

Answer 2

Not necessarily... many futuristic (and plausible) designs incorporate using hydrogen engines, leaving the byproduct as simply- water. Ethanol, however, does present a problem. Corn crop is messy and waste is high, as more corn is grown for ethanol, farm waste fills in the gap that CO2 has left. If cars were simply not driven, this could result in higher pollution levels. As humans consumed more to travel farther (running or bicycling) they would produce more waste. But less time would be spent on the road, leaving more dependency on alternative sources of power- leaving the door open to nuclear intervention.

Answer 3

I don't think so. If we stopped driving cars that emitt CO2, than what we are hoping is that the CO2 will start to disappear nd maybe eventually the whole in the ozone layer might possibly close up or get smaller instead of larger. We could always drive battery powered cars or cars that are more environmentally friendly. Also it wouldn't be that hard to walk to places, just make many small communities that can be self suffcient instead of few large communities.

Answer 4

Not really... pollutants wouldn't be airborne at least. It really depends on what alternative you speak of. If we can develop hydrogen-powered alternatives, the pollutant you'd replace car-created CO2 would depend on how the hydrogen was produced. If it was produced in coal-fire power plants, well then you're going to replace the CO2 with... well, CO2 and pollutants related to the burning of coal.

Answer 5

An interesting note about hybrids and fuel cell cars...A strong component of the exhaust is water--also a "greenhouse" gas. From a literal perspective, water is also a pollutant.

Answer 6

wed be more aware of the other pollutants in the world but i dont think it would make them go up.