I’m In Love With My Car

(11AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

They are unfeeling metal monsters. They’ve taken over the world. They have us surrounded. They’re everywhere. They remorselessly kill and maim more people every year, at least in North America, than all the terrorists ever dreamed of in all the worst nightmares sold to us by politicians, and in all the wars going on around the world.

They are bankrupting our economy and destroying our planet. They show no respect for human life. There’s a good chance one or more of them will kill you or someone in your family soon, if they haven’t already done so.

They are dirty bombs that have polluted and poisoned the entire earth. Besides our homes, they consume the largest part of our disposable income, and produce the largest portion of the personal debt carried by most people.

Yet over the past century they have become our life. We can’t live with them. But we can’t live without them, it seems.

When the Apollo astronauts were making their trips to the moon in our first foray to another astronomical body, one of the first things they took with them was.. a car. A car. To the moon, for fucks sake.

They divide us from each other, and make us hate each other. But we love them. Even though they kill us.

They’re not just part of popular culture, there can probably be good arguments made that they are our culture. We all want to own one, and some of us own as many as we can, but in reality they own us, and we organize our lives around them.

But we sure love our cars. So much so that many of us even lose our virginity in them. Many of us have certainly lost our innocence in them.

And ever faster and faster, we’re going nowhere except to hell in them.

Managing the health effects of climate change (.PDF)


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The first image shows the world in terms of carbon emissions. America, for instance, is huge. So is China. And Europe. Africa is hardly visible.

The second map shows the world in terms of increased mortality — that is to say, deaths — from climate change. Suddenly, America virtually disappears. So does Europe. Africa, however, is grotesquely distended. South Asia inflates.

27 comments

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    • Edger on October 5, 2010 at 20:13
      Author

    The real problem is…

  1. or should that be “dooode”…?

    Here in Texas, you almost have to own a truck just for self defense!

    but then, we did come up with the art car parade.

  2. less and less comfortable / usable, while the creature comforts of the automobile have gone off.

    In the US, it used to be that you could take your cats, or your surfboards, or whatever you can think of- on the train. Good luck on that now.

    Connections used to wait across the platform, and leave immediately. Now with the ‘HSR’ proposals, there’s no provision they even go to the same city, or if they do — not to the same station. One proposal of a ‘HSR’ links Tampa <> some town in Fl no one has ever heard of–entirely as a give away to some contractor, and connects to nothing.  High speed train to nowhere, from next to nowhere.

    There used to be bar cars on even the most local of trains, and good food on medium to long distance.  And they were damn fun.

    And in Mexico, which 10 years ago had an extensive network, there’s only a few lines left–the excellent El Chepe, and maybe one other.  The long proposed Mexico City to Guadalajara HSR link has stalled.

    Even in Europe, the situation isn’t that great. They’re forcing Greece to cut miles of lines as part of the ‘austerity’.  Good move, if you’re France or Germany and want to sell more cars I guess.  

  3. is deeply wrapped up in our cars, you can tell a lot about the character of the American times in the whats and hows and whys of American cars and driving.

    The self-destructive arrogance deeply embedded in the American psyche today is reflected by the increasingly reckless aggressiveness, ego-gratification demonstrated in the driving behaviors of Americans.  I really remember when people made proper corners.  I remember when the people that drove like drunken teenagers were mostly drunken teenagers.  Not anymore.

  4. cleaner than automobile shit.  

    • jamess on October 6, 2010 at 14:44

    when do those bubbles …

    burst?

  5. Before I die I want to own another and I want the 383 Magnum with the six pack on top. I won’t be needing viagra to driving that classic.  Well we read TocqueDeville’s diary about how they sold conservative values. That’s nothing compared with  the auto industry’s propaganda program.

    Even the Chevy Volt sounds sexy. Well once you set aside the fact that without a sustainable energy program in America and most urban commuters can’t get to a place where they can plug in, the emissions are about the same. So the solution so far from this government, don’t even think about blaming the auto industry, the deregulating government give us an overpriced car where suburban drivers get to do their first 40 miles on coal power.

    But don’t worry Edison’s  Electric Car Runs Again! We had an electric car in 1912 and a one party government that just started making electric cars is already kicking our asses.

    In 2009, BYD sold over 430,000 automobiles, more than double its year-earlier shipments and ranking as one of the largest domestic auto manufacturers in China, LAEDC said.

    Now they will be importing a hybrid that charges at home, goes 60 miles on electric as Americans  pretend that Tesla technology can’t be mass produced.

    What does the Tesla do? Is it 200 miles between charges?

    We could have the freedom we love of a sleek sexy car that runs on sustainable energy. All we need is a government that is not wholly owned by the oil industry  

  6. Oxygen supplies in the space suits were/are limited.  One could range much farther afield with a vehicle than not.  And it was, heh, an electric car.

    Here, on earth, our cities are designed around our cars.  We spread out and cover the land not because we have to, but because we “need” freeways and streets and roads — for our cars.

    It is not impossible to design carless cities that are much more efficient — even in terms of people getting places with goods — than ones that are designed around cars.

    • jamess on October 7, 2010 at 14:40

    Public Transportation,

    for the last 10 years.

    • Edger on October 7, 2010 at 15:14
      Author

    in orange…

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