Truly, you are a Green. People are going to buy stuff anyway, and surely there's some benefit to getting them to buy greener. And I think a lot of people have a low-level, latent commitment to the environment. Hybrid cars seem like the best example of all this coming together. That's not a bad thing, right? Or would you say we should be encouraging them to bike?
Bike. Carbon emissions is the biggest issue for me, but there's also all the bad stuff car culture does to society: congestion, walling people off from the world and encouraging inattentive driving, making life expensive for the working poor, turning downtown blocks into garages, sedentariness, tire landfills. Hybrids reduce emissions, yeah, but they're still two tons of steel used to transport one or two people five or ten miles. The bike is one of those amazing perfect inventions that has the potential to solve lots of problems while creating few new ones -- they're cheap, easy to maintain by yourself, good for your health, fast and efficient, and fun. All you need is better infrastructure and a good set of panniers.
Two things. 1. I've become several times more anti-car since moving to the East Coast. I love driving in California and particularly hate the roads and drivers in greater Philly. A lot of obnoxious or oblivious drivers here in Hummers and Escalades. 2. I do still drive to work (about 12 miles from home) once every couple weeks or so. Girlfriend and I have a car, but we want to get rid of it.
Truly, you are a Green. People are going to buy stuff anyway, and surely there's some benefit to getting them to buy greener. And I think a lot of people have a low-level, latent commitment to the environment. Hybrid cars seem like the best example of all this coming together. That's not a bad thing, right? Or would you say we should be encouraging them to bike?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 11-16-04 10:01 PM
Bike. Carbon emissions is the biggest issue for me, but there's also all the bad stuff car culture does to society: congestion, walling people off from the world and encouraging inattentive driving, making life expensive for the working poor, turning downtown blocks into garages, sedentariness, tire landfills. Hybrids reduce emissions, yeah, but they're still two tons of steel used to transport one or two people five or ten miles. The bike is one of those amazing perfect inventions that has the potential to solve lots of problems while creating few new ones -- they're cheap, easy to maintain by yourself, good for your health, fast and efficient, and fun. All you need is better infrastructure and a good set of panniers.
Two things. 1. I've become several times more anti-car since moving to the East Coast. I love driving in California and particularly hate the roads and drivers in greater Philly. A lot of obnoxious or oblivious drivers here in Hummers and Escalades. 2. I do still drive to work (about 12 miles from home) once every couple weeks or so. Girlfriend and I have a car, but we want to get rid of it.
Posted by Bob | Link to this comment | 11-17-04 5:23 AM