Читать книгу Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 255

Perhaps the best example of an environmentally damaging consumer product is the motor vehicle, particularly the private car (Lucas et al. 2011). Many households have one, two, or more cars, and people use them even for very short trips to the shops, taking children to school or visiting nearby friends and relatives. But large-scale car-ownership and use generates large amounts of pollution and waste and is a major contributor to greenhouse gases. Why has it proved so difficult to reduce our use of the car?

Most drivers are extremely reluctant to give up the family car, 4 × 4, SUV or small hatchback on purely environmental grounds, despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating the negative aspects of private car-ownership. Thousands of deaths are due to low-level vehicle pollution in urban areas, and residential streets are blighted by mass vehicle ownership, yet the private car remains deeply enmeshed in our daily lives (Mattioli 2014). A partial explanation of this is that the car is extremely functional for the conduct of modern life. Many cities have been built around vehicle movements rather than cycling or walking, and, as Shove and her colleagues argue, cars are ‘[a] consequence of the extent to which driving has become integral to the conduct of an increasing range of social practices including shopping, commuting and getting to school’ (Shove et al.: 2015: 275).

One survey of attitudes to car-ownership found a range of consumer types among visitors to National Trust properties in the north-west of England (Anable 2005). The largest group consisted of Malcontented Motorists. They are unhappy with many aspects of their car use but feel that public transport has too many constraints to be a genuine alternative, so they do not switch. Second are Complacent Car Addicts, who accept that there are alternatives to using the car but do not feel any pressing moral imperative to change. Third are Aspiring Environmentalists. This group has already reduced their usage but feel the car has advantages that force them not to give it up altogether. Fourth are Die-hard Drivers, who feel they have a right to drive, enjoy driving and have negative feelings towards other modes of transportation, such as buses and trains. Fifth, Car-less Crusaders have given up their cars for environmental reasons and see alternative modes of travel in a positive light. Last are the Reluctant Riders, who use public transport but would prefer to use a car; however, for a variety of reasons, such as health problems, they cannot do this, but will accept lifts from others. This study shows that blanket appeals to an emerging environmental awareness to promote public transport use and a shift to electric cars are likely to fail. Instead, ‘the segmentation approach illustrates that policy interventions need to be responsive to the different motivations and constraints of the sub-groups’ (ibid.: 77).

Some sociologists argue that, seen in the long term, the ‘century of the car’ may be coming to an end anyway, as oil supplies have peaked, the mitigation of global warming is leading to a push for new, ‘low-carbon’ technologies, and rising population levels make mass individual car-ownership unsustainable (Dennis and Urry 2009). The current shift towards electric vehicles, particularly cars, vans and buses, may offer a way of radically cutting CO₂ emissions while maintaining the freedom of movement that many people have grown used to.