They don’t understand the problem. Or if they do they are in denial.
Who am I talking about?
I went out for a walk this afternoon. A fairly long walk. More than 5 miles. The first mile takes me past an elementary school, and then a middle school. I hit the elementary school just as it was letting out. The street was clogged with vehicles, waiting to pick up their kids.
It was the vehicles that struck me. Mostly SUV’s…Suburbans, Yukons, Hummers, Excursions, Expeditions, and Explorers. Also a number of full-size pickups…extended cabs and crew cabs, many with lift kits. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the California “culture,” the hot thing to do with your new pickup or SUV is to take it to a shop that installs a lift kit that jacks the body up 12 to 18 inches. Often, this is accompanied by the installation of HUGE tires. This does terrible things to the handling and safety of the vehicle, making it susceptible to rollovers and spinouts, but for some reason, it is legal. Don’t ask me why the Department of Motor Vehicles hasn’t cracked down on this. I haven’t a clue. But the people who do it think it is really “cool.”
It was a warm day. They were all parked, waiting, with windows closed, engines running, and air conditioners going full-blast. I tried to hold my breath as I walked past these fume-spewing monsters, but when the line is a quarter-mile long, eventually you have to breathe.
Gasoline prices have come down recently, but even when they were pushing four bucks a gallon last year, these people were still out there, waiting for little Johnny, wasting uncountable gallons of fossil fuel and fouling the air I breathe.
I should explain that these schools are in Villa Park, CA, an upmarket suburb in Orange County, south of LA. You could also describe it as a WASP ghetto. Someone in the media recently called areas like this Caucasia. Whatever you call it, the soccer moms and upward-mobile dads, intent on climbing the corporate ladder, are living the “good life,” and to Hell with global warming or anything else that might threaten their conspicuous consumption.
I continued my walk, past the schools, into some older sections of Villa Park. As I did, I conducted a little survey that I have done a few times. I counted the cars that I encountered, and divided them into two categories: SUV’s and others. When I have done this in the past, the split was pretty even. This time, the SUV’s won 60-48. Oh, and I should mention: Several times, I was passed by school buses on their rounds. So, those folks sitting down there in their SUV’s did not have to be there. A bus would have brought their precious offspring right to their front door.
Gasoline prices, economic meltdown, global warming…nothing seems to bother these people. They just keep on keepin’ on, buying their Hummers and 500 HP power boats to haul to the Colorado River for water skiing. Or dirt bikes to go tear up the desert. They never give a thought to anything but their own selfish gratification, as far as I can tell.
I find this profoundly depressing and discouraging. I was horrified by the stratospheric gasoline prices last summer, and by the economic meltdown that has destroyed the savings and retirement plans of a lot of baby boomers, postponing their retirement until…when? Maybe never. I thought that the only good that could come from this was, possibly, a realization that the wasteful and destructive lifestyle that we lead was unsustainable. That we all need to stop buying stuff we don’t need and start paying attention to our “carbon footprint.”
There are probably many areas of the country where this message has sunk in, but it is clear that my neighborhood isn’t buying it.
To some extent, I can’t blame them. My generation had the best of it. We lived the good life. Nobody was worrying about running out of oil back in the sixties and seventies. Global warming? Never heard of it. Air pollution? Okay, slap a PCV and an EGR valve on the old jalopy and fuggitaboudit. If your car got 11 mpg, it was no big deal. Gas was cheap. Now the young folks are insisting that they want all that too…and more!
Well…sorry. It ain’t gonna happen. Not for long, anyway.
The world is changing, and we can either adapt to those changes...or get steamrollered by them.
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Comments: 13
There is this weird idea in America that the moment you have a baby, you're going to need an SUV. I don't understand where it comes from.
Neither do I. It used to be a station wagon, which made a little more sense. SUV's are among the most weight and space-inefficient vehicles on the road. Most are equipped with 4WD which where I live in southern CA is totally useless. I will admit that there are areas where 4WD makes sense, but a Subaru Forester would do the job nicely, and use half as much fuel as a Hummer.
A very fine description. If my neighbor has a Hummer, I expect I should not have a car that makes me appear less successful? Hummers tip over pretty easily.
"A day after filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to shield itself from $172bn in debts, GM signed a memorandum of understanding to offload Hummer to Sichuan Tengzhong, a manufacturer of heavy industrial machinery based in the south-western Chinese city of Chengdu.A source close to the negotiations said Tengzhong would pay between $150m and $250m for the business. It will be the first time that a Chinese company has purchased a US car brand and Tengzhong has pledged to clean up Hummer's dismal environmental image by developing models which use less petrol."
I knew that Hummer was on the block. I'm surprised they were able to get that much for it.
So the Chinese are gonna clean up the HUmmer? Boy, has the world turned upside down!
I had my Civic tuned last month in a car care center that deals rims and chunky tires. Waiting, I read Road and Track, Car and Driver, Custom Trucks, you know. Virtually every article echoes the Bush Sr. theme, uttered as he boarded a plane to an international environmental summit, "The American way of life is not negotiable." That, and the eternal themes of Christian chivalry I have recently referred to from my recent readings of knights and ladies. By that, I mean the entire world is seen as one big episode of "The Dukes of Hazard." The car was a Dodge Charger.
Yeah, somehow we need to change that mindset, Ed. I would add that we shouldn't have to negotiate the American way of life. We should have enough common sense to see that things are changing, and we need to change with them if we are to survive as a nation.
I've had similar thoughts and experiences, Bert. I haven't lived close enough to a school to walk past one since the pre-SUV era, but I drive past them (in my Honda Civic Hybrid, which gets over 40 mpg) frequently and notice the mob of SUVs idling or unsafely pulling out or in, and causing unsafe traffic jams for cars on their way elsewhere.
One friend told me about the moms in his affluent and safe neighborhood who drove their kids even in good weather a half a block in an SUV to the school bus stop and stayed there with the motor running until the bus came.
Since I drive a sedan, the SUVs provide visibility (which translates into safety) problems for me. Sometimes in a parking lot, I find myself hemmed in on both sides by SUVs, which makes it difficult to see adequately to get out. I also occasionally have problems seeing the left turn signals due to SUVs in front of me.
Like you, I've considered that perhaps the economic downturn might have a silver lining in it by moving us to adapt a way of life that is healthier for the planet and therefore, for us. One of the lessons of evolution is that we must adapt to survive. The updated term for survival is sustainability.
Verie...it sounds like they have the same problems in Chicago...or Michigan...that I described in southern California. I don't know which you are referring to. I suspect there are "Caucasias" all over the country where affluent, upper-middle-class people live. THOSE people need to understand that our lifestyle must change, and that the change is not necessarily bad, nor will it degrade the richness of their childrens' life experience. Until they realize that, our nation is still at risk.
Bert, I'm referring to north and northwest suburban Chicago. I was in Southwestern Michigan two weeks ago, and SUVs aren't nearly as prevalent there. However, this is a tourist area, and summer may bring more SUVs from Chicago to the area.
When I was in elementary and high schools, hardly anyone was driven or drove to school. Those who lived quite far away took the local public bus system. As school buses became popular and students took those, the public bus system failed.
Guess I'll stick with my five year old Toyota Matrix. We live 17 miles from town, so anyone going in will ask around if others want a ride. That way, there is one car on the road instead of three or four.
The Matrix is a very sensible car, Wilhelmine. We are sticking with our old cars too, even though the mileage isn't great...around 20 mpg around town. We rarely take driving trips, but when we do, they get 25-27. They are both over ten years old, but both are in very good condition. We have maintained them carefully, and they are still good for years of service. Besides...we don't drive much. Each of them accumulates less than 5000 miles/year. When we replace them (if we ever do) it will be with something much more fuel-efficient.