Posts filed under 'ecological'
The Cult of Car
- Emissions - The most obvious and detrimental product: visible as smog, invisible as carcinogenic compounds causing direct harm to humanity and changing the composition of the planet. We’ve known about this for some time, but awareness has yet to culminate into significant action. Modest increases in fuel economy and emission controls can’t offset the rapidly increasing total number of miles driven. Driving a hybrid is like a lung cancer patient switching to low tar.
- Oil dependence - We have put all our eggs in this one basket and now it’s being tossed about. More than ever, the effects of natural and man-made chaos across the planet can send the whole system into panic.
- Noise - The music of civilization comes from tailpipes, tires, horns, and faulty security alarms in the middle of the night. Emergency vehicles must use an incredibly high volume to notify cars of their passage… usually to the site of a car accident.
- Danger - 42,000 people die per year from automobile crashes and another 4,000 from motorcycles. 400 times as many people die from car crashes than from terrorism. More lives are lost each month on US highways than from the 9/11 attacks.
- Traffic - Life is too short to spend idling in a metal cage. It’s morbidly ironic that the worst traffic delays are actually caused by drivers rubbernecking at accidents to gawk at yet another gory victim of traffic. A vicious cycle.
- Suburban sprawl - Because of the “ease” of auto commuting, residential areas are now separated by great distance from commercial and social areas. Localities used to be more heterogeneous with all goods and services within walking distance.
- Social estrangement - Garage doors isolate. If neighbors were out walking around in the marketplace, we would have to interact a lot more. It’s so much easier to hate some anonymous person behind the wheel than face-to-face.
- Asphalt - See map of Pennsylvania.
- Parking lots - Who enjoys finding parking? Who enjoys paying for parking? Who enjoys paying tickets for parking in the wrong place or at the wrong time? These impervious surfaces exacerbate flood control and require energy to wastefully illuminate through the night. Church growth in the US is limited to the availability of parking.
- Obesity - The body seems to have a way of adjusting its content according to the amount it is asked to transport itself around. Why waste time and money doing cardio at the gym when you could kill two birds with one commute?
- Road rage - Compare to a brisk walk: fresh air, solitude, sunlight, and stress reduction rather than creation.
- Overshopping - If we had to manually transport the products we buy and dispose of the trash created by them, we’d likely not buy as much.
- Advertising - Imagine radio without J.W. Motormile’s obnoxious commercials every hour. “Cash back!”, “No money down!”, “Your job is your credit!” which leads to…
- Debt enslavement - The allure of a new truck has hoodwinked more than one poor man into buying something he couldn’t afford because he didn’t think past 0% financing for the first 6 months. Imagine the number of people who get suckered into feeding a car payment instead of their kids! Seriously, which is more socially destructive: the drug dealer or the car dealer?
- Operational cost - With gas, maintenance, and insurance, my paid-for car costs about $7/day to operate. I suspect marketers maximized a curve of how much operational cost I could tolerate while still maintaining my brand loyalty. There’s no doubt that engineers designed parts to break within months of the warranty expiration.
- Vacation brevity - When people had to traverse great distances, they would stay there for months, strengthening family connections and deepening learning experiences. Now, because we can drive to the beach or grandma’s in a day, we don’t stay as long.
- Convenience - A simple tilt of the right foot is much easier than moving both arms and feet in laborious swinging motions.
- Sex - For nearly a century, otherwise unattractive teen and middle-aged men have improved their chances.
- Power - As human muscle atrophies in the information age, it’s reassuring to have the energy of several hundred horses available on command. There may be speed limits but there are no posted acceleration limits.
- Mobility - Sure, I haven’t driven my sport utility vehicle over yon mountain as advertised in the TV commercial (or off-road for that matter), but I theoretically could if I needed to.
- Soccer moms - An entire economy of sporting-goods, fast-food, and portable electronics revolves around the maternal mini-van experience.
- Hmmm - I can’t think of anything else positive.
(And for some positives.)
Feel free to add to the list.
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