A World Where Horses Replace Cars: A Greener, Better Future?

A common topic that has come up over the past few years is that cars pollute the environment.

Every time I have witnessed this topic, I have thought:

Horses, what about horses? Can’t we start with that again? Wouldn’t that have helped the environment?

To try to see the above and get some perspective on the idea, to find answers to what is good and what is not so good, I want to take you on a morning in the life of a person who lives in a time where this idea is a reality.

Let’s say our main character is named Bill.

Bill wakes up early to get ready for work. After completing his morning routine, he walks out the door.

Near his house stands a small but modern horse house — a more advanced home for his faithful means of transportation.

Bill walks over to the stable, opens the door, and is greeted by his loyal horse, Jude.

He finds food and drink and gives it to Jude.

Then he gets the saddle and fastens it to Jude.

When everything is ready, Bill swings himself onto Jude and rides off to work.

At the workplace, there are several horse stables for employees who also use horses as a means of transportation.

Bill parks Jude in one of the stables, pats him lightly on the side, and makes sure he is comfortable before starting his workday.

What is good?

Environmentally friendly — since fossil-fuel cars emit a lot of gases, horses emit significantly less.

Safe in traffic — Cars drive fast, and there are more car accidents every day here on Earth. Horses have a significantly slower pace, which means that they are likely to have many fewer accidents.

A good friend — Horses are a very sensitive animal to us humans; they consider us humans as their leaders and can easily form strong bonds with us. You can’t do this with cars.

What’s bad?

Slow — Normal horses have a maximum speed of 48 km/h (30 mph). Regardless, this is actually quite fast, but horses cannot maintain this speed for long. While cars are fast all the time, this makes horses impractical for long distances.

Cold — I am in a country in northern Europe. In winter it gets quite cold, and then it is very nice to be able to get into a warm car when I go on my travels.

Poop — Expect roads and paths to be covered in horse droppings, because these animals eat non-stop and poop just as much.

Not everyone loves animals — A lot of this idea comes from the fact that I generally really love animals, and the problem is that I can’t quite imagine that there are people who don’t love animals. But that’s the thing: Not everyone loves animals.

It’s alive — A car really only needs one thing: fuel. A horse needs food, drink, and exercise, and this will probably cost a lot of money plus a lot of time.

Conclusion

When I was 5 years old, I got to try riding a pony. Since then I haven’t had any physical contact with a single horse. But I’ve seen a lot of horses in all the western movies I’ve watched. This is probably why the idea has been romanticized and embedded in my mind.

We can conclude that this is an idea that doesn’t really work, but we can call it a half-baked idea. Since there are some advantages of this idea, which is mentioned earlier.

It’s very important to me that this isn’t taken too seriously because I’m just writing it for fun, and it’s coming from the heart. It’s interesting to imagine a world where such things are turned upside down.