How does the
US envision the future of automobility in the context of
climate change and resource depletion? This dissertation examines
texts produced by the US
Department of Energy; the US Department of Transportation; and the writings of Transition US. Automobility's dominance of the
American imagination is being unsettled as discourse fragments into three narratives. One envisions
technological acceleration into a future where climate change is
manageable and where Americans remain highly mobile, autonomous,
driver-consumers. One sees the future as an opportunity to repair the
social and environmental damage wrought by 20th-century automobility by
transforming the built environment to resemble the pre-automobile
landscape. The third expects the inevitable end of the
automobile age in the face of runaway climate change and peak oil. Each narrative derives from irreconcilable core assumptions about
human nature and how much of the world is in human hands.
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