Cities are ruining our cars

An article in Verge claims that "Self-driving cars are on a collision course with our crappy cities" as if to say cities are ruining the possibilities for our fancy new self-driving cars.

¡No! Au contraire, cars are ruining our cities! Letting Google be the driver won't change that. In fact, it could get much worse.

Consider the author's statement of the obvious: "[R]ide-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft, are shockingly creating more traffic problems than they are curing," as if to say this fact could somehow be fixed if cities would only do things differently.

¡No! An on-demand taxi service carrying one passenger will deliver less than 1 person per vehicle-mile (km) by definition: the back seat has to be empty ("dead-head") en route to picking up the fare-paying passenger. 

Fossil Fuel Free Nations

Several nations have declared their intent to become fossil-fuel-free. In this post you can find websites and news articles with more details about this international movement.

• 5 Countries That Prove the World Doesn’t Need Fossil Fuels
  These countries now lead the way toward a future free of petroleum and dirty energy. In the process, they save significant amounts of money on national energy costs while preserving and protecting the world’s natural resources.
• Costa Rica
• Denmark
• Scotland
• Sweden
• Finland
• Fossil Free Sweden (the Swedish Government's website)
  Sweden will be one of the world’s first fossil-free welfare countries. To this end, the Government has launched the Fossil Free Sweden initiative, where Swedish actors are given the opportunity to call attention to how they are contributing to climate change work. The initiative brings together actors from the business sector, municipalities, regions and organisations from across the country.
• Making Sweden an Oil-Free Society (Wikipedia) 
• Ban of fossil fuel-driven vehicles
• Sweden To Become The World’s First Fossil Fuel-free Nation in History

The theme of Non-Oil, Power-Exporting Countries ("NOPEC") was first presented online in 1989:

• NOPEC -- Non-Oil Power Exporting Communities©

Several papers about NOPEC and the goal of 100% renewable energy have been presented at ASES and ISES conferences, and in Solar Today magazine since that time:

• 1990 NOPEC II (ASES)
• 2000 Apollo2 - Solar Energy Meets the Challenge (ISES)
• 2005 A Roadmap to 100% Renewable Energy (Ecotopia)
• 2006 A Wake-Up Call Dawn of the Solar Era (ASES / Solar Today)
  

Several organizations have been helping to organize international commitments to 100% renewable energy:

• Renewables 100 Policy Institute
• The Solutions Project
• Go 100% Renewable Energy