Natural Humanists believe that every building in the world, should eventually be replaced with extremely large, square, hugely land-efficient high-rise buildings, with ‘green living rooves’ and ‘green’ external walls, and with the whole of any walls that face the sun being entirely covered with highly-efficient and suitably-angled solar-panels.
However, they believe that no building, road, or any other construction, should ever prevent any human being, or any other natural creature, from moving freely and safely around every part of the planet’s land, which could be achieved by incorporating numerous tunnels through, or subways under, each of these very large buildings, and by ensuring that every road and rail line was inside a tunnel.
This would allow every human being and every other creature to move freely and safely through or over every single building and road, allowing them completely free movement around every country and continent without restriction, with the added benefit of eliminating all of the millions of deaths and injuries caused to children and adults, and to other animals, birds and insects every year, as a result of collisions with cars, buses, trains, lorries and other vehicles.
They believe that no land should ever be fenced-off to humans, or to other creatures, and that nobody has the right to have a garden, park, golf course or any other selfish use of potentially wild and biodiverse land, which has been made inaccessible or inhospitable to some or all human beings, and to all other species of living thing. They believe that any such ‘private’ land has effectively been ‘stolen’ from the planet and its inhabitants.
They believe that, if necessary, it’s acceptable for human beings and other creatures to be ‘channelled’ around the perimeters of any essential buildings by, for example, the use of narrow paths, with green rooves, through dense permanent wild woodland, planted close to the edges of these buildings, which effectively guide human beings and other creatures to safely pass by them and get to the other side.
Removing Barriers
Millions of years ago, all of the Earth’s land formed just one continent, with nothing but rivers, lakes and estuaries separating it, and, even when this one continent divided, every part of this land was 100% wild, and was shared equally between those species of living things that needed to use it, but today, about 20% of all the world’s land, excluding Greenland and Antarctica, is taken up by the land around roads, which have been built by humans, solely for their own selfish use, and even the remaining 80% of the Earth’s land is divided up, by these same millions of miles of roads, into around 600,000 separate pieces of land,93% of which are less than 60 square miles[i], and 50% of which are less than 1 square mile, which prevents wildlife, and even human beings, from roaming freely, as nature intended them to do, and which also permanently divides important natural ecosystems.
Roads can have a negative effect on wildlife up to 1km from both sides of the road[ii]. They can prevent species from migrating, can restrict gene-flow in animal populations, and can reduce the range of animals. They increase soil erosion and spread contaminants, and both these roads, and the vehicles that use them, cause air, water, noise, light and plastic pollution, and a huge increase in the level of carbon in the environment, which contributes to global warming[iii]. Whenever new roads are built, they also significantly increase the likelihood that new relatively untouched areas of land will be subject to further human-built development.
Natural Humanists believe that one potential solution to the problem of roads and rail-lines creating a barrier to free movement and polluting and damaging nearby wildlife, would be to permanently remove and rewild every single local road and rail line in the world, which would result in vast areas of open wilderness, without any roads, fences or buildings to prevent human beings and all other living things from having completely free movement.
These roads and rail lines could be replaced only with narrow cycle routes, suitable for electric bikes or tricycles, and for self-driving ‘weatherproof’ enclosed mobility scooters, for people with impaired mobility, and for those who prefer not to cycle, which could be steered automatically by Artificial Intelligence. All of these cycle routes themselves could run through brand new natural woodland, between existing closely-planted trees, so that they didn’t take up any land where additional trees could have grown.
The exact route of these cycle tracks, and the exact position of trees that would need to be planted beside them, could be planned precisely by Artificial Intelligence, to prevent any unnecessary waste of potentially wild land. Immediately to either side of these cycle routes, species of trees could be chosen, which give plenty of headroom beneath their lowest branches for cyclists and mobility scooters to pass, but whose branches and foliage effectively create a permanent ‘green roof’ over these cycle routes.
Onlymain ‘A’-roads, motorways and mainline trainlines would not be removed in this way, but even these would be reduced in number, so that only essential routes between main locations would exist.
Every one of these remaining roads and rail-lines would have huge, square, green-rooved, multi-storey buildings constructed directly over their entire length, so that part of the ground floor, and possibly also the first floor of each of these long terraces of square buildings would, effectively have a tunnel running through them, which contained this road or rail-line, effectively completely hiding it from the view of any of the building’s residents, or anybody outside the building, meaning that every road in the world would effectively disappear, and no vehicle noise would ever pollute the environment, not least because all vehicles could be electric.
These ‘tunnels’ through these incredibly long continuous ‘terraces’ of buildings, would effectively form one long continuous tunnel, for the entire length of each of these roads and rail-lines to travel through, totally insulated from any weather conditions outside, which might affect their safe use and free-running, including strong winds, rain, snow and ice.
Such long, linear, high-rise building developments, could potentially accommodate all or most of the country’s residential and industrial properties. They would also allow all, or most, of the country’s ugly electricity pylons to become a thing of the past, allowing them to be permanently deleted from our countryside, because virtually all properties and businesses which require electricity, could be part of this same long line of buildings, meaning that any cables could be safely concealed beneath them, at the time of their construction.
All roads concealed within these buildings, could have an overhead electrical supply, capable of providing a constant source of electricity to every type of electric vehicle, from communally-owned three wheeled electric bikes and mobility scooters, to shared electric cars, vans, buses and lorries, none of which would need polluting and natural-resource-depleting batteries, and all of which could be powered by 100% renewable sources of green electricity.
However, if all homes and businesses were part of this nationwide network of high-rise homes and commercial buildings, then the number of miles travelled by vehicles would reduce massively, as would the amount of green electricity that was required to power these vehicles.
The huge potential benefits of building all of a country’s homes, offices, factories and even 100% of its agriculture (within vertical aeroponic buildings) over existing roads, can be highlighted by using Great Britain as an example.
Shockingly, just since the year 2000, more than 5,000 miles of new roads have been built in Great Britain[iv], enough to cover the distance from the South coast of England to the north coast of Scotland approximately 7 times, and all of these new roads have permanently stolen potentially wild biodiverse land from the planet, and from its other natural inhabitants, as will every road that is ever built in the future.
There were a massive 247,500 miles (398,228 km) of roads in Great Britain in 2020 [v], which is the equivalent of over 6 metres of road for each adult or child in the country, or over 24 metres of road for a family of 4. Thisincluded 196,800 miles (316,650 km) of ‘C’-roads or unclassified roads (including residential streets), 31,800 miles (51,166 km) of ‘A’-roads and motorways, and 18,900 miles of ‘B’-roads[vi].
Even if large, high-rise housing developments were only built directly over every part of the 51,166 km of ‘A’-roads and motorways, but not over any of the 316,650 km of ‘C’ roads, or over any of the more minor or unadopted roads, or over any of the country’s rail-lines, then this would still mean that every adult and child in the UK could have an apartment covering 7.8 meters or 25.4 feet of road, if it was a 10 storey building, which is the equivalent to over 31 meters or 101.7 feet for a family of 4, which is more than enough for a space-efficient home.
Alternatively, every type of building could be built over these roads, including all residential, commercial and industrial buildings, and all ‘vertical agriculture’ buildings, which could grow every bit of food needed in the country, indoors, using aeroponics. This would just involve making every one of the proposed buildings much wider, so that they all projected out further from either side of the original road, perhaps by 1km, or even much more.
This would then allow these wider buildings, in any particular part of the country, to either be 100% residential, or 100% industrial or commercial, or 100% agricultural, or any beneficial combination of the three. Possibly the residential buildings could be in the locations which are the most popular places to live, but the industrial and agricultural buildings could be in the least popular areas.
The width of all of these buildings could be exactly the same, or some could be wider, for example if a certain area was a particularly popular place to live, or there was some benefit to siting large amounts of industry in a particular location, for example with all industry being sited in just one part of the country, at the very end of one of these roads, away from where most people live, or the widest buildings could be in areas where land had the lowest potential to thrive as highly biodiverse wilderness, due to things like climate, rocky ground or altitude.
This would allow every one of the country’s homes and workplaces, and every shop and leisure facility, to be accessed by highly efficient ‘indoor’ public transport, self-driving communally owned electric cars, 2 or 3-wheeled electric bikes, or mobility scooters, using the tunnels through these buildings.
Every other part of the country, which was not part of this nationwide complex of buildings, would also continue to be fully accessible, via cycle tracks, using 2 or 3 wheeled bikes, or self-driving covered mobility scooters, all of which would be communally owned and could be hired wherever these cycle tracks passed by, or through, this complex of buildings.
Whenever appropriate, the roads within these buildings could be sunk underground, with an open ground floor level above them, to allow human beings and wildlife to pass freely ‘through’ the buildings, and then multiple storeys of building above this ground level, all topped with a vast area of ‘green roof’, possibly covered with wildflowers. Alternatively, the open ground floor level could itself be a wildflower meadow, all growing under L.E.D. lighting, powered by ultra-efficient solar panels, which could cover the building’s entire roof.
Crucially, this would completely remove the need for all of the following human-made scars on the natural landscape, all of which could be permanently demolished, so that every bit of the land on which they stood, could then be permanently rewilded, to create biodiverse environments, for every species to share equally:
- Every single type of residential or commercial building in the country.
- Every farm building and every bit of agricultural land in the country.
- Most, if not all of the existing 196,800 miles of residential roads and minor ‘C’ and ‘U’ roads.
- Most, if not all of the large number of private or unadopted roads, which weren’t even counted in the 274,500 mile total.
- Every public car park and every private driveway and garage, most of which a fully integrated public passenger and freight transport system, built under these new high-rise buildings, would completely eliminate the need for.
The large proportion of most existing towns or villages, which are of no significant historical or architectural value, could be demolished, but any part of any city, town or village which human beings considered to be particularly attractive or valuable, could be retained, and a freestanding ‘green roof’, or a high-rise building with a green roof, could be constructed directly over these areas, so that any of the original buildings would then effectively be underneath this green roof, or would be inside this high-rise building, taking up some of its lower storeys.
From the inside of all of these large multi-storey residential buildings, residents would have views, to both sides, only over permanent wild biodiverse land, like woodland, lakes and wildflower meadows, because every bit of agricultural land would have been replaced by huge multi-storey aeroponic agricultural buildings, which, just like every other building in the world, would have been constructed over similar ‘essential’ road and rail-lines, and would be part of the same continuous ‘terrace’ of buildings. These agricultural buildings would also have been hidden by tall trees, as part of a large permanent wild forest, which would have been planted close to both the front and the back of these buildings, to always hide them from view.
Every resident of the homes within these huge, green-rooved buildings, would have direct access to wild countryside from right outside both the front and back door of their own building. They could also use roof-level cantilever balconies, which took up no land at all, to walk unlimited distances, with immediate views of both the adjacent totally wild countryside, and of the building’s own huge wild meadow roof, with occasional raised footbridges, with green rooves, going over this meadow, to give access to the other side of the building.
Everybody could also access public transport from inside the ground level of their own building, with this transport only ever stopping at buildings which residents had requested, in advance or at short notice, using the internet or a phone app.
Nobody would ever have a long walk to a bus-stop or train station and nobody would ever have to wait in the rain, or in intense sunshine, to catch a bus or train, as all transport would be ‘indoors’ and passengers would know exactly when to go to catch a bus, because GPS and Artificial Intelligence would tell then exactly when it would arrive, and could even give them personalised advice on precisely when to set off to reach the bus stop exactly on time, based on their own usual walking pace.
Integrated Public Transport
Natural Humanists believe that all trains and road vehicles should be electrically powered, virtually silent, and should be driven solely by Artificial Intelligence, with no human involvement, allowing vehicles to always travel safely at the ideal speed, and at the ideal distance from the vehicle in front.
They believe that, ideally, all vehicles should be publicly rather than privately owned, including trains, cars, vans, lorries, buses and public electric bikes and self-driving mobility scooters, and that they should be shared, to minimise both the total number of vehicles needed and the total number of miles travelled by these vehicles, with all vehicle availability and use precisely and efficiently planned, coordinated and controlled by Artificial Intelligence.
This would ensure that every human being, and all freight and commercial traffic, can always get to where they need to go, when they need to get there, in the easiest and most environmentally-responsible way possible, always by clean and well-maintained vehicles.
Natural Humanists believe that, just like with all essential food, all essential clothing and all essential personal possessions, all human and freight transport should be provided strictly on a ‘not-for-profit’ basis, which is affordable by all.
Every part of every country currently accessible by minor roads or local rail lines, could continue to be accessible by electric bike or self-driving mobility scooter, if it wasn’t already accessible via this integrated public transport system, and all electric bikes and self-driving mobility scooters would be available to every citizen, by advance booking online, or on demand when this is not possible.
These self-driving vehicles would automatically ‘deliver themselves’ to that person’s building at an agreed time, or in the case of bikes, would automatically be attached to another vehicle already travelling to that building, using a bike-carrier attached to a certain proportion of the country’s vehicles, again all coordinated by Artificial Intelligence, which would coordinate the movements of all vehicles to safely permit this fully automatic ‘pick-up’ and ‘drop-off’.
Each large building could have a supply of these bikes always available, with the number of bikes automatically monitored by Artificial Intelligence to ensure it was the minimum number needed to meet all requirements. There would also be the ideal number of bikes and mobility scooters always available wherever one of these roads or rail-lines meets one of the previously mentioned cycle-routes, which replaced previous local roads and local rail lines.
As the entire population would live and work along these main transport routes, all public transport would only follow these routes, so it would always be possible to get from any home, workplace, school, or any other building in the country (or the world) to any other, using this ultra-efficient, green and low-cost public transport. The fact that Artificial Intelligence would coordinate all of this, would mean that any passenger could be actively guided to any other point in the country, or the world, by this same efficient, fully integrated transport system.
These major, permanent changes to our ‘built environment’ would result in all wildlife, including human beings, having the freedom to roam throughout every country of the world safely, without any restrictions, and without any risk of collision with vehicles. This is something that all land creatures had complete freedom to do until very recently in human history, but is something that, today, they have virtually no ability to do at all, in our unnatural, fenced-in, human-made ‘built environment’.
Shared ownership of the planet could effectively be returned to every one of its wild species, with whom we currently share it so unfairly, and from whom we selfishly and thoughtlessly stole it in the past. It would return the planet to being what it always should have been, one world, shared equally, by every single species on Earth.
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References
[i] Ibisch, Pierre L., Hoffmann, Monika T., Kreft, Stefan, Pe’er, Guy, Kati, Vassiliki, Biber-Freudenberger, Lisa, DellaSala, Dominick A., Vale, Mariana M., Hobson, Peter R., and Selva, Nuria. “A global map of roadless areas and their conservation status”. Science Vol 354, Issue 6318 (16 Dec 2016) pp. 1423-1427 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf7166. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6318/1423
[ii] Ibisch, Pierre L., Hoffmann, Monika T., Kreft, Stefan, Pe’er, Guy, Kati, Vassiliki, Biber-Freudenberger, Lisa, DellaSala, Dominick A., Vale, Mariana M., Hobson, Peter R., and Selva, Nuria. “A global map of roadless areas and their conservation status”. Science Vol 354, Issue 6318 (16 Dec 2016) pp. 1423-1427 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf7166. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6318/1423
[iii] Ibisch, Pierre L., Hoffmann, Monika T., Kreft, Stefan, Pe’er, Guy, Kati, Vassiliki, Biber-Freudenberger, Lisa, DellaSala, Dominick A., Vale, Mariana M., Hobson, Peter R., and Selva, Nuria. “A global map of roadless areas and their conservation status”. Science Vol 354, Issue 6318 (16 Dec 2016) pp. 1423-1427 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf7166. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6318/1423
[iv] Department
for Transport. “Accredited official statistics: Road Lengths in Great Britain: 2020”. 4 February 2021. gov.uk/government/statistics. 3 June 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/road-lengths-in-great-britain-2020/road-lengths-in-great-britain-2020
[v] Department
for Transport. “Accredited official statistics: Road Lengths in Great Britain: 2020”. 4 February 2021. gov.uk/government/statistics. 3 June 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/road-lengths-in-great-britain-2020/road-lengths-in-great-britain-2020
[vi] Department
for Transport. “Accredited official statistics: Road Lengths in Great Britain: 2020”. 4 February 2021. gov.uk/government/statistics. 3 June 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/road-lengths-in-great-britain-2020/road-lengths-in-great-britain-2020