Without a doubt, the most glaring example of wasteful consumption is personal transport based on the motor vehicle.

Think of what is needed to build a vehicle with all its components, to keep it fuelled and running, to provide the infrastructure, highways, parking lots, to repair the damage it causes, to dispose of its rusting remains. There are 600 million cars worldwide and it’s obvious that resources and energy are being gobbled up at an unsustainable rate. Yet more and more cars are built.

Not even the threat of peak oil, the situation where oil supplies peak and rising demand coupled with decreasing supplies causes fuel prices to skyrocket, affects our love affair with the motor vehicle.

It has become an ingrained part of our culture for a number of reasons not all to do with necessity. Convenience, status and a host of psychological factors are at play - to the point where we’re hooked. As a society we suffer from car addiction.
If we are to be serious about reducing consumption, we need to drive less. Ultimately it’s up to governments to make the policy and provide the funding to help deal with our addiction, but taking action as individuals can make a profound difference.

Car use can be difficult to cut back on. Urban sprawl and a lack of infrastructure that encourages alternatives make sure of that. But it’s not impossible and it can be very rewarding.
For example, physical activity is the “best buy” in public health, so try walking more. Many car journeys are for short distances, less than 3 km for 37 per cent of car trips in Brisbane. This is an easy distance to walk, and you’re burning fat, not oil.

Walking is the most natural way of getting around, yet our car-dependent culture has made it something unusual. Humans evolved as walkers - it took us a million years to learn how to walk but only 50 years to forget!

Being car addicted deprives us of a long list of health benefits, not to mention friendlier neighbourhoods and more vibrant communities that result if more people are out-and-about on foot.

Walking doesn’t need much infrastructure apart from footpaths, but it could be encouraged in some simple ways - less waiting time for the pedestrian signal at traffic lights, for example.

Use a bicycle for short-distance travel. You don’t have to wear Lycra and look like a Tour de France cyclist to take to two wheels. It can be fast - anyone of average fitness can move along at 20 km/h under good conditions. It is definitely quicker than driving short distances on congested roads. It’s also healthy and inexpensive. No parking woes and it’s excellent if used in combination with public transport.

And it is fun too. Cycling releases endorphins - those chemicals in the brain that produce feelings of wellbeing, even euphoria. Zipping along with the wind in your hair and the endorphins flowing freely - try it and see for yourself.

Safety is the big barrier to getting more people on their bikes and we need some action to overcome this. Providing off-road bikeways and a network of traffic-calmed streets where cyclists have priority, would be a real inducement.

And lower speed limits are a key inducement too. Parents will encourage their children to cycle knowing that urban streets are safe. A 30 km/h speed limit is recommended and becoming common in Europe, so why not here?

With a bicycle in more than 50 per cent of households, and outselling motor vehicles in Australia in 2006, there’s great potential to increase bicycle use and reduce car dependence.

For longer distances in regions like the Sunshine Coast, public transport will be the preferred treatment of our addiction. If you use it already, you’ve probably found it viable, not necessarily fast, or convenient.

Improvements are happening, but so far they have barely kept up with demand and there needs to be a huge attitudinal shift by governments for public transport to be efficacious. Reversing priorities by giving public transport, not more roads, the lion’s share of transport funding, is essential.

We could consider public transport systems like bemos in Indonesia or collectivos in Ecuador - mini-vans or Kombis that travel a set route; they’re faster, more frequent and more convenient than buses and, cheaper than taxis. They’re great for low population densities over a large geographical area.

Some measures to help cut back from excessive car use can happen immediately. Setting up a car pool register for commuters wouldn’t take much to organise. The taxation system could be quickly amended to make the car habit more expensive and at the same time encourage alternatives. It wouldn’t be difficult to remove the GST on public transport.

Other measures will take longer. It’s essential that governments move quickly and develop long-term policies that recognise the reality that our hyper-consumption, our unhealthy addiction to the motor vehicle, is damaging our communities. It’s an environmental disaster and it doesn’t prepare us at all for the resource scarcity issues of the future.