Monday, June 30, 2008

Are You Hearing This?

Lately I've heard a lot of people say things to the tune of, "It's so obvious. We're going to need to start conserving. People are going to realize and then hybrids will become more popular and we'll get the research we need done on alternative fuels."

This word "obvious" I don't think it means what you think it means.

I was thinking today how a fuel shortage should mean that air and train travel should be more accessible and affordable to help people get around. Logically shouldn't we be encouraged to use public transportation? That's not how it works, though, I guess.

If you think that the country at large is all of a sudden going to get a clue then please let me direct you to a post by Aaryn about something she found in the grocery store parking lot.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:39 AM

    I have seen this idling thing quite a bit. It is popular in Florida where it is really hot a really lot. It is almost without exception the SUV crowd which does it. They just cannot stand to leave Bowser home, and, if there is not hound in the car, cannot stand the brief discomfort they experience when entering their car. I think there are states where this practice is actually illegal. There are some folks who will not give up the teeniest tiniest thing in favor of being good citizens.

    My car stops idling when I stop and am still in it, and the A/C keeps running!

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  2. Its a big time no no here. We have such a scattered polution of good, bad and ugly that had that been here...
    it would have been gone!
    And the next time it was seen would have been when they were pullling it out of the river to search it for a murder weapon.
    I would love nothing more than to be able to get on a subway or mass transit...but in our large urban crawl of a city... we don't have that available.
    And I doubt I will see it my lifetime.
    I have to try to get jobs closer to home and consolidate my trips and do many other green things to make up for my mass consumption.

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  3. Anonymous5:30 PM

    Thanks so much for linking to my piece. It was much more of a lightning rod than I'd anticipated. But interesting dialouge going on, at any rate. I just wrote a follow-up post and expect to be torn to pieces. What's a girl to do?

    Thanks again!
    In Peace,
    aaryn

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  4. Thanks for swinging by Aaryn, I'll check out the follow up.

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  5. I think that we Californians are the worst. Drive huge cars, drive long distances, and drive hard and fast - every stoplight must be RUSHED up to.

    When I was at university, I often saw students pull up to class 45 minutes early (we had a big parking problem, so everyone came early) and slept, car running so the heater stayed on.

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  6. Yesterday, at the grocery store, the minivan parked next to me idled the entire time the owner was in the store. I looked in to see if there was a pet. It was a teenage boy, around 16years, playing with a gameboy. It wasn't even that hot out yesterday. I have never understood why people would waste so much on something so unimportant.

    And don't tell me that youll die/sweat/morph/reek if you get the least bit hot. I lived in houston for 2 years with no car a/c. I survived.

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