> Car emissions have been reduced in noxiousness by more than 90 per cent
> over the last fifteen years, which means that you could have multiplied
> car ownership five times and still reduced pollution. But that fact
> barely registers on the discussion, because in substance this discussion
> is not about the pollution of the atmosphere by lead particles or CO2.
> On the contrary. It is a discussion about the "pollution" of the English
> countryside by honking Essex man in his Ford Cortina.
*Click*. Earth to Jim: do you copy. *Click*. Cars suck. Really, they do. They're energy-guzzling, noise-producing, swallow up the landscape with asphalt and pavement, make cities unliveable, turn highways into killing fields. Their CO2 emissions are slowly but surely turning the atmosphere into a boiling pudding. Particulates, oil spills and whatnot create a hell's broth of toxic chemicals, all of which merrily bioaccumulate and give Essex man Esso cancer. Mass transit is cleaner, cheaper, safer, and saner.
On the other hand, films set in desertscapes with wild car chases like "The Road Warrior" are pretty cool. Isn't it amazing how, in the movies, the car chases are getting faster and faster, while real-life traffic is getting slower and slower?
-- Dennis