Jen brought up a good point yesterday about people not owning up to our impact on climate change. Sadly, most of these people are fundamental Christians. I'm not sure if it's an active denial, (after all, I'm sure these are signs of the end times, and why not help them along?), or whether they are just that ignorant. A lot of them believe God gave us the earth to do what we will, and take care of it. This is taking care of it? And even if hypothetically there was no global warming, why is it such an insane idea to actually take care of our home, just in case we do contribute to something worse. The whole thing reminds me of a scene from I Heart Huckabees. I've referenced it before, but I'm actually going to give you the transcript this time.
Setup: Albert and Tommy are at Steven's house, investigating several coincidences between Albert and Steven. Steven was adopted by an American family, and brought over from Sudan.
Mother: What do you do?
Albert: I'm the director of the Open Spaces Coalition. We fight suburban sprawl.
Daughter: What's suburban sprawl?
Father: Ask Steven. He could have used a little suburban sprawl in Sudan.
Daughter: Excuse me, dad?
Father: Industry, houses, jobs, restaurants, medicine...
Albert: You can preserve a lot of open spaces and have jobs for people with...
Father: I beg your pardon, Albert. I wasn't finished.
Albert: Sorry, sir.
Father: Clothes, videos, toys, cheeseburgers, cars,a functioning economy.
Albert: You can still have a functioning economy and preserve open spaces With a little planning.
Father: Yeah. - Socialism. Complete disaster.
Albert: Theodore Roosevelt was a socialist? And Yeats? -
Father: Theodore Roosevelt...
Albert: Henry David Thoreau, Robinson Jeffers, the National Geographic Society, all socialists?
Father: You're talking about socialism.
Albert: Oh, I'm not. I'm talking about not covering every square inch with houses and strip malls, until you can't remember what happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk.
Son: What happens in the meadow at dusk?
Albert: Everything.
Parents: Nothing!
Albert: Everything! It's beautiful, it's beautiful.
Father: I Work for an electrical engineering firm, son. We do a lot of commercial and residential contracts. If development stops, so does my paycheck. Then Steven couldn't be here as our guest, could he? So your ideas hurt Steven.
Albert: I'm not hurting Steven. That's an outrageous accusation.
Father: Don't use that tone of voice in my house.
Albert: I think you started that tone. And I think it's entirely possible for your engineering firm to have jobs for people, preserve open spaces, have contracts, do the...
Father: Do you have a job, Tom?
Tommy: I'm a firefighter.
Mother: Oh, God bless you. A hero.
Tommy: I'm not a hero. We'd all be heroes if we quit using petroleum though.
Mother: Excuse me?
Tommy: You say you're Christians living by Jesus' principles. Are you?
Daughter: Jesus is never mad at us if we live with him in our hearts.
Tommy: I hate to break it to you, but he is. He most definitely is.
Mother: All right. That's enough. Steven, I don't know what this is about. Why they're here...
Steven: Sorry, Mom. Sorry, dad. I did not know.
Father: Stevo, I'm so disappointed.
Mother: It's all right. Look, he's sad. He's sad.
Father: I'm sorry, Stevo. My bad. You didn't know.
Tommy: You should be ashamed of yourself.
Father: I should be what?
Tommy: You should be ashamed of yourself.
Father: Why should I be ashamed?
Tommy: You're a hypocrite.
Father: I'm a what?
Tommy: You're misleading these children. 'Cause you're the destroyer, man.
Father: How am I the destroyer?
Tommy: I saw that S.U. V. Out there.
Father: My car's the destroyer? You wanna know how many miles per gallon I get?
Albert: Steven, I need to ask a question. It's why I came here. Why are autographs so important to you?
Mother:It's just for fun [Game Beeping] - for entertainment. No games at the table, please.
Son: Yes! 260! And I've reached the omega level!
Tommy: Destroyer. Destroyer. Destroyer.
Father: God gave us oil.! He gave it to us.! How can God's gift be bad?
Tommy: He gave you a brain too and you messed that up pretty good...
Father: I want you sons of bitches out of my house now.
Tommy: If Hitler were alive, he'd tell you not to think about oil.
Father: You're the Hitler! We took a Sudanese refugee into our home!
Tommy: You did. But how did Sudan happen, ma'am? Could it possibly be related to dictatorships that we support for some stupid reason?
Mother: You shut up! You get out. -
Tommy: You shut up. Come on. Let's get out of here.
Albert: Later, Steve.
So much for a short post.As spread out as the US is, I don't think we'll be able to adopt any type of train system. I would love to have a hybrid car, but I can't afford a new car right now - and there is no public transportation in Lake City. So until I save some money to get a new car, regrettably I will still be contributing to the downfall of our environment - at least I can carry the guilt that goes along with it.
5 comments:
Um, I think yesterday might have bee your day to post. I was a bit late getting my post up... Sorry!
I was quite bummed when Toyota stopped making the Echo - although supposedly its replacement, the Yaris, is equally as fantastic in terms of gas mileage. While it is somewhat scary being on the freeway with Hummers and such in an Echo, I know that I'm saving tons of money in comparison to them. I just hope they don't hit me.
er, "been" not "bee" :-)
Unless black and white movies lie to me (curse you, Hitchcock!), we used to have a passenger rail system in the US.
For some reason, we don't anymore. We lost is somewhere along the way. How careless of us.
I was going to do the guest blog thing this week, but I think I will just sum-up in this comment:
- I love public transportation. Without it, I couldn't get anywhere further than my legs could take me (which, as Stephanie will attest to, is pretty damn far). I do not have a driver license or any plans to really get one.
- Switzerland has the best public transit I have ever enountered. Montreal is doing pretty well for itself. Paris has the fastest Metro. British trains cost too much.
- Taking public transit helps you develop life skills like time management, navigation, and recognizing that the world isn't just middle class white people (I am going to assume most of us on the blog are middle class white people). It is also useful for students of linguistics (in Canada, anyway), where you encounter many, many different tongues. And are shocked at how many are tonal.
- Once you have been around the public transit block a few times, you can do it in new places with relatively little trouble. Yes, even foreign countries where you think you don't speak the language, you speak the universal language of "bus"!
- When you do the math, public transit is cheaper than owning, maintaining, fueling, and storing a car. Also, probably better in general. At least, I reckon that's a take-home message of Al Gore's movie, though I have not seen it.
- Even car-owners can take the bus now and then. With exact fare. Try it some weekend when you head to the grocery store. You will probably save extra money by buying only what you can carry.
More fuel efficient/hybrid cars only treat the symptoms, not the disease. The social ramifications of the car culture are far reaching and generally negative. Aside from environmental impact, it's facilitated the rise of the WalMart type store, and the mall before it (both economically and logistically). It accelerated the white flight from cities, leading to decaying urban areas. The pollution angle is also valid.
Cars also depersonalize other people. Using public transportation you realize that the weird looking guy on the bus/subway/tram doesn't want to mug or rape you. He just wants to get home, too. Cars allow people to interact less with others, even at superficial levels, and I think that's socially detrimental as well.
One pet peeve that I can't fit anywhere else in here:
People want to drive because it's faster. What are you in such a hurry to get to? Nothing, probably.
And it's all unnecessary. It was, anyhow. Find the pre-1950 part of a city/town and you see that it doesn't have to be this way. We've been shooting ourselves in the foot for close to 60 years now (what? oil reserves are FINITE? Why didn't anyone tell us??) and we continue to do so. The amount of time, money and (ironically) energy to undo the mistakes is likely astronomical.
This isn't to say that I don't see another side of this. My brother's a 4th generation autoworker and North America's reliance on cars has paid dividends in several other areas of life (both mine personally and many more in greater society), so I'm a bit ambivalent on the topic.
OK - I should've said that we can't adopt a train system as efficient and fantastic as those in Europe. The thing is, I love the train systems I've been on - London, Paris, NYC, Switzerland - I walked a hell of a lot more (never a bad thing), and it was easy to get around.
Glenn, didn't it take you 72 hrs to get from Orlando to Illinois?
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