I finally watched “Who Killed The Electric Car?” and thought it was great. I actually couldn’t watch it through in one sitting. I became so depressed at how corrupt business is in terms of putting profits ahead of innovation. We have this perception that the technology we use is the latest and greatest but it’s not uncommon for us to be sold something out of date or known to be harmful even, because of the money that’s already been invested in it. Just yesterday I was talking to a group of programmers about Microsoft’s answer to Flash, Silverlight. This group thought it was crap and shared stories about Microsoft bribing programmers to use it and hiring agencies to develop projects with it so they can sell it and compete with Adobe. Sony’s pushed their Blu-Ray technology for years, forcing companies they work with to use it, despite a lack of interest because they can’t afford to abandon it. (Oh, ha! WKTEC is distributed by Sony!)
By the same token, the auto technology available to the consumer is light years behind what is possible, and what’s already been developed. The auto companies produced an electric car because a California zero-emissions law forced them to but they simultaneously sued the state and had the law repealed. After that, they collected the cars on lease – as they’d never let anyone actually buy them – and destroyed them. They were whisper quiet, went zero to sixty in three seconds, were completely clean inside and out and required very little maintenance but they threatened an infrastructure dependent on fueling and maintaining combustion engines.
It made me wonder how much different city living would be without all the noise of the cars on the road. I remember when I was unemployed, having to turn the TV up almost twice as loud in the daytime to hear it over the din of cars and buses outside. We build huge walls along the sides of freeways to block homeowners from the roar of traffic but they are only partially effective. Have you ever had a conference call with someone in a car? They have to mute their phone so as not drown out everyone else on the line!
And then there’s the obvious benefit of the lack of pollution spewing out the back of every single one of these things on the road - nineteen pounds of CO2 for ever gallon of gas! I find it ironic that it was so easy to get public support for the smoking ban, even in places like New York and London where I never thought it would happen. True, it took a long time for the public to be convinced of the dangers of cigarette smoke but once convinced, it wasn’t difficult to make the argument that we shouldn’t all be subjected to it. We’ve known for decades that smog is a worse culprit of respiratory disease than smoke and causes a long list of ailments to humans and the environment. You can see it, you can smell it and yet we keep driving cars as if they aren’t making our children’s lungs look like they belong to a veteran smoker.
The car companies say that people want big cars and don’t care enough about the environment to drive a smaller car. My dad never misses a chance to tell me that the hybrids don’t save enough gas to pay for the extra cost of the car. But I don’t believe that people don’t care, I think they just haven’t been given the choice. I flew into New York yesterday just before sunset. The sky was beautiful but laying on the city was a thick black blanket of smog so heavy you could only make out the silhouettes of buildings, but nothing on the ground. It was sickening, worse than any smog I’ve seen in Los Angeles. I just don’t believe that I’m the only one who sees it and the only one who thinks it’s disgusting. We’re ready for the change!
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