It may still be a focus on the car rather than on moving around but it is interesting to watch the progress of the electric car. Actively scorned by big motor manufacturers, and lamented by enthusiasts only a few years ago there is now a bandwagon effect in progress towards this technology.

ESD education can take heart that there is plenty to chew over in this shift, not least in investigating how real it is: the Daily Mail manages to bundle the promotion of nuclear power and putting off the electric car revolution by 40 years all in one go! (2) (continues)

Electric Mini

Faced with climate change, global recession and the end of cheap(ish) energy ESD will find itself focussed on weighing up ever more rapid technological and systemic change and this will demand more of teaching staff. Just reflecting on electric and not so electric vehicles consider: hybrids, plug-in-hybrids, electric, fuel cell, hydrogen, compressed air, urban carclubs, ‘velib’ bike share, ‘feebates’, integrated public transport timetables via mobile phone. A bewildering array of options each with their own advantages and disadvantages their own spin offs for environment economy and society. Each demanding certain levels of knowledge. How much simpler it once was – petrol vs diesel vs public transport (cycling or walking...).

ESD is also in danger, well some of it, from what might look like a petty obsession with doing with less or making do. The electric car debate points to the possibilities of smart(er) efforts, and even ecological design, so what place has the rather homespun message of so much ESD? The response is often that it teaches moderation and responsibility. This message looked more convincing when the conventional was so obviously out of tune with a convivial and sustainable society. If a response to the beginnings of ecological sensitivity in the early 90s was to hear a 7 year old say ‘when I grow up I’m going to put unleaded petrol in my Ferrari’ (oh how we laughed) another sort of argument is going to be needed when the 7 year old says I will drive an electric sports car made of bioplastics. My temptation is to want to agree with her, ‘that would be very nice’. If she is very trendy she might say. ‘Oh I will use the Velib’. Its that ‘bright green future’ notion of Alex Steffen which for me is the touchstone for progressive ESD. At all levels it needs to be inspirational as well as realistic.  

(1) Denmark to have electric car battery station network by 2011 http://tinyurl.com/bwjlb6

(2) “Electric cars are the future, of that I have no doubt. Sooner or later we will come to our senses and embrace nuclear power  -  the only way we will keep the lights on while cutting carbon emissions. And battery technology WILL improve.

But despite the spurious sci-fi air with which they are surrounded, electric cars simply do not work. I have no doubt that by the time my toddler son reaches my age, he will be driving something powered by flowing electrons rather than exploding octane. But that is four decades away.” Michael Hanlon April 17

http://tinyurl.com/cozk7s