The Cure: Part II

As one observer has put it, "If the whole world wants to live like the United States, the planet is doomed." The fact is that having even one nation like our own, with a mere 5% of the global population, consume as much of the world's resources and, in the process, create so much waste and pollution is dangerous enough. The prospect of China's (at least until now) growing middle classes all acquiring automobiles is a frightening one. In just the last five years or so, Beijing's roads, once crowded with bicycles, have begun to be clogged with traffic. Less exercise and a fatter diet have produced a new generation of Chinese children plagued by childhood obesity. Needless to say, air pollution in Beijing has worsened. Progress?

Just as Einstein's scientific discoveries led to nuclear weapons, the introduction of methods to create relatively cheap, internal combustion-driven, privately owned vehicles has led to wholesale devastation. The automobile creates pollution in myriad ways. It has allowed urban and suburban sprawl to eat up more and more of our landscape; it uses up very high percentages of the world's natural resources both in its operation and in its manufacture. Not content with making such an innovation merely a means of transportation that could be privately owned by individual citizens, the industry here in the United States put forth the automobile as a status symbol. Even if an argument could be made that having individuals owning and driving their own vehicles, willy-nilly, as their impulses led them, a rational approach would have dictated a simple machine that was safe, got good mileage and lasted indefinitely--basically a Volkswagen with brains. Opposition to this approach, (which, frankly, I cannot recall any real voices for), came from the obvious sources--the automobile companies and, of course probably most significantly, the oil companies. For the average American, the right to own and operate an automobile is God-given. It is not merely a symbol of freedom, it is an enabler of freedom--freedom of movement, freedom of choice, freedom to be frivolous if one wishes with one's own hard-earned cash. As a status symbol, the automobile has no parallel. A small luxury apartment on wheels--leather upholstery, climate control, sterophonic sound, DVD players, GPS instruments. It is probably safe to assume that, for many Americans, the interior of their automobiles is far better appointed than the interiors of their homes or apartments. Thus, the automobile is the ultimate escape. It does on a far broader scale what fashion and cosmetic ads do for women--create an alternate universe that is uncluttered, clean-lined and unrelated to the grungier, sweatier aspects of being a living organism.