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The world has become considerably 'smaller' in the last 60 years through air transport, and changing people's mindsets back to only living and working in one area, and trading their products and services in areas they can easily reach is not going to happen.
It's going to have to happen, sooner or later, the way things are going our current transport choices are too cheap and too easy. I suppose the driver will be cost and capacity this will start with freight and food, but it won't be long before people are restricted too. None of what we're doing at the moment is sustainable financially, environmentally or socially. It's time we faced up to this.
What Peyote said. Plus the UK will be importing increasing ammounts of crude at world prices (driven by new demand in the East) with a declining economy struggling to pay for it.
[b]None[/b] of what we're doing at the moment is sustainable financially, environmentally or socially. It's time we faced up to this.
None of what we're doing with regard to what, exactly?
There are thousands of engineers in this world working toward environmentally sound alternatives to all sorts of things. Battery development is coming on leaps and bounds, with increasing energy densities possible - we already have light recreational aircraft that are all electric. Oil scarcity will not be the death of aircraft.
None of what we're doing with regard to what, exactly?
The whole transport system by which we live our lives, from local motorised journeys (50% of which are under 5 miles, 30% under 3!!!), all the way to shipping strawberries from Ghana so that we can have Eton mess for pudding in February!
Cheap flights, cheap fuel, cheap parking, cheap foreign imported goods, cheap holidays in far flung places. It's all completely unsustainable and founded on a temporary capital ideal. Sooner or later the third world will catch up with the first world and we'll be stuffed because we can't get away with cheap labour and cheap natural resources anymore (assuming any form of energy crisis doesn't hit before that tipping point). It makes more sense to start to think now about getting as much as we can locally, with minimal transport involved.
Edited to add - I suppose the engineers could sort out some of the problems we face, but surely a simpler solution is to be found by doing things differently? Maybe I just don't have enough faith in human ingenuity and technology to sort out the problems!
No bad thing if you believe that air travel is a major contributor to A[s]GW[/s][b]CC[/b]