3 October

The internal combustion engine has done a lot for the world, but it's loud, inefficient and filthy. If you ever get a chance to be in a city that doesn't have it (like Venice), you realise what we've lost. More than anything else it's destroyed civic life, splitting cities up into suburbs that wouldn't even function without cars. And air pollution is a killer, a sleeping killer that is finally getting recognition. Back burning for fires will have to be looked at again as well, the smoke likely kills far more people than fires do.