What solutions are /you/ looking for?

[c9]

"In my travels, I have noticed a disturbing theme among the educated minority of eco-advocates: they are every bit as dedicated to the status quo (in their own way) as the NASCAR morons and shopping mall developers. The eco-advocates want cars, too, and all the prerogatives (like free parking and country living) that go with them, just like the WalMart shoppers. If this were not so, then why do the eco-advocates cream in their jeans whenever somebody presents a snazzy new vehicle that runs on a fuel other than gasoline? Indeed, why are some of the eco-friendly pouring all their efforts into the invention of such things instead of into walkable communities and the reform of our stupid land-use laws?

I encountered this ethos most strikingly a few years back at Middlebury College in Vermont, where angry biodiesel advocates assailed my lack of enthusiasm for their particular "solution" -- which seemed geared mainly to allow them to continue to drive their dad's old cast-off SUVs to the snowboarding venues of that progressive little state. But the wish to keep running all our cars permeates what little public discussion there is of the global warming / energy crisis issues at all levels. Even the elder statesmen of the eco-movement talk it up incessantly. The first great victory will come when they shut up about it and put their minds to other tasks."

James Howard Kunstler
(also available on jhkunstler)

Comments

[canuckotter.livejournal.com]

You've pretty much summed up my view of electric cars... and, for that matter, hybrids. It's just moving the problem, it's not solving it in any way.

[zedinbed.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily. If we couple electric cars with more nuclear or wind plants, you can have more electricity produced without resorting to making coal plants. I think the whole coal plants in Ontario thing is more of a dangerous legacy rather than a threat of the future.