On the Evils of Driving - orig. 08/22/05

Here is a reponse to a friend who asked my why I couldn’t support her driving to Seattle:

You will find if you look at my blog that I have been doing some research into the global ecological disaster that our society is causing through overconsumption and overpopulation. Operating a motor vehicle is destructive on a number of levels. First one has to look at the gathering of resources it takes to create the vehicle and to support it's operation of which there are both humanitarian and ecological issues (Just one example: We are currently fighting a war, one of the reasons for which is to insure that no nation will ever dare interfere with our oil supply). Then one has to look at the waste produced by the production of the vehicle. There is of course the shipping issue. Then once the consumer begins to use the vehicle the emissions are one of the major contributors to air pollution and global warming (here is a link to an entry that discusses global warming: [[The link has moved. If interested you should be able to search "Saving the World - The Beginning" to find the article]].). Then once the vehicle is no longer useful it becomes 2000+ lbs of waste much of which is a petrochemical based and cannot be reabsorbed by the biosphere.

There is nothing ecologically sound about driving a motor vehicle, which makes it very hard for me to support anyones desire to drive an automobile.

I have come to believe through the research that I have been doing that our overly consumptive lifestyle is leading to the destruction of all life on earth. We have a moral imperative to try and change this at every possible level.

-----

I saw recently on the news that the spotted owl population continues to decline. Regardless of all the hard work that environmentalist did to try to save the species it was too little too late. The species has reached a level of population that will probably not be able to rebound. Here is a link to a Seattle PI article called Spotted owl is on a dangerous decline. No one can predict a populations point of no return.