I don't think your comments are fair. None of us can eschew all contact wth or reliance on motor vehicles or the oil industry- society at the moment isn't structured that way. All we can do is try to progressively reduce our own car use or pollution production, and encourage others to do the same, and Krispistoferson is moving in the right direction. First he got out of the car lifestyle, and hopefully next will move out of the car business. You Bek, probably consume goods brought by truck, or wrapped in plastic, and you've mentioned that you also drive, so like the rest of us, you're trying to minmize your impact but you can't do it alone or all at once.

I'm not critizing Kris, I think the less people use infernal combustion engines for personal use the better.

OK,a quick koan about ethics - Would a vegan work in a slaughterhouse? Ethics. It's not black and white, though, and there may be no right anwser.

Nonsense, how do people heat their homes? the heat source pollutes.
Working in a job, manufacturing...it's going to pollute somewhat.
Do you advocate cleaner cars, and using hydrogen/natural gas, or do you just hate the idea of someone turning a key and driving somehere? I suspect you want everyone who lives in the country either be people who grow food and never leave their property, or you want them shipped off to the city so the squirrels can jump from tree to tree in peace. Please give us your ideal US, Bekologist.
And by the way, whoever posted about Sault Ste Marie was right...it goes back to the 1600's..I;ve been there several times and it amazes me that it's been settled.discovered that long.

Now there's a well thought and pragmatic response, good job.

Strawman alert! No one likes working on the floor of a slaughterhouse, they do it because they need the money, Vegans have to feed their families too.

Well, usually vegans are vegans for moral reasons,(cuz it sure as heck ain't for their health ) such as the belief that it is wrong to kill animals under any circumstances. I am car free for moral reasons, because I think cars are over-used in this country(as well as it saving me LOTS of money, and being healthier,), NOT because I think cars are inherently evil. This is an important distinction. I honestly don't mind it if people drive cars, and YES, some people drive out of necessity.

When Howard Kunstler's prophecies come true and we're all riding on the backs of dragons, maybe this will not be so, but as for now, (and I hate to bust anyone's bubble,) some people need their vehicles to maintain their standard of living. This is not to say that many people THINK they need a car and don't, for anyone who will insist on misinterpreting what I've just said. So to recap: cars not inherently evil, since they are an inanimate object, overuse of cars is not what I'd cal "evil" either, but the unintended consequences of this ignorance and or heedlessness about causality is what gives us our present situation.

Besides, even if I'm complicit in the rise of the Fourth Reich, we WILL eventually run out of oil, and then everyone will be happy. Oh, and look into the definition of a "koan" before you misapply the term again, Beko.

Seig Oil!

koan was applied loosely. If a vegan complained about working in a slaughterhouse but the machinery was loud, what would the vegan hear?

And to rebut, as far as all the pollution watchdogs are concerned, private cars are the BIGGEST polluter of the Puget Sound region. I'm not going to bother trying to find any figures, but they throw the most particulates and noxious gases off in total tonnage compared to any other single combined source in the region.

Usually I'm on these forums boring everybody with tales of how great Michigan is. I didn't have to this time. Sault Ste. Marie (we call it "the Soo") was the center of Great Lakes trade and economy even before the French arrived. The fur trade was a dramatic period of first contact between two great civilizations. Mackinac Island was the spritual center of that Great Lakes civilization. The Indians staged a lacrosse game outside the American fort, chased the ball inside the gates and captured the fort without firing a single shot. Very clever strategists. They eventually lost that war between old ways and new ways. The story was eventually repeated all over the continent.

Another great confrontation between old and new ways of living is taking place here now. Michigan is faced earlier than other places with the certain decline of petroleum and the possible demise of the family car. Keep your eyes on this state if you want to see what's going to happen in the rest of the country a few years later. It's pretty interesting.

I love Non Detroit Michigan, especially the UP! SOme pretty tough winters up in the UP, but I go up for a few days every winter. Detroit is going to be a ghost town pretty soon.

So, you are for CLEAN CARS and emissions testing, thanks for clearing that up

Say ya to da UP, Eh?

(have tattoo of UP on left shoulder)

Give everyone in the cities an electric pod car, I think that'd be great!! The reason I'm not going to look up any figures about auto vs industrial pollution in Puget Sound is because it is COMMON KNOWLEDGE here. The private gas huffer is the big pollutin' kahuna.

Detroit already is a ghost town, in some ways. The downtown area is an amusement park with casinos, ballparks, people movers, etc. The next few milesw out are a burnt-over district, literally. The inner suburbs are OK, Royal Oak, Ferndale, etc, would work for a cyclist. The outer suburbs are the other type of wasteland--affluent, but with no sense of community or place, and totally unmanageable without cars. This was one of the great cities, the birthplace of the working middle class. Now it's almost dead.

And one of the all-time great ironies--it was the automobile that killed the Motor City!

You moved away???

Ya sure you betcha. Skied to school, surfed Lake Superior, slept in snowbanks when I was too drunk to make it home from the bars (old woodsmans trick.) Pineing to return, someday, to watch my parents grow old gracefully, if we are lucky enough to make it that long!

Hmm, I think this is getting personal AND off the point. I can't speak for Bek, but to me - and I believe to many others - being "car free" has nothing to do with any use we may make of motor vehicles outside of our own personal travel. I don't feel less car-free because I take a taxi a few times a year, the UPS truck stops by my house often, or my groceries get delivered by car. I feel car-free BECAUSE all of that is done by means other than my use of a personal-use motor vehicle.

I feel this thread has gotten rather far afield. My belief - and I only speak for myself - is that the personal motor vehicle used in urban centres is the big problem. A farmer having a pick-up out in a rural area is not the big problem, neither are delivery trucks or city buses. The jerk who lives in the suburbs and commutes downtown every day in his own car, all by his lonesome, that guy is the problem. Yup, all internal combustions engines pollute, and we need to work on that, but that is a secondary issue.

A lot of people think I'm an environmentalist, but actually I'm not. What I am is a proponent of being a responsible human being, and I do not think using a personal car in urban centres can be justified as "responsible" - and the only reason it is seen as acceptable is because the harm you cause other people is so indirect that you can fool yourself into not seeing it. Would you keep driving our car in a city if you knew the name of the person who would die from your exhaust? No? How many people die in your city each year of causes related to smog? How many have to die before you leave the car at home?

Being a responsible human being also means living up to my own standards. I've turned down jobs because the client/employer was involved in something I would not support even indirectly, and I have no problems expecting the same from others.

You say pollution is a secondary issue. Then you whine endlessly about smog.If everyone drove very low emission vehicles...then what would be your complaint?
You just don't like that guy driving by himself??
You ask if we know how many people die in our city "because of smog"
Do you? LOL Didn't think so. cars are 20 times cleaner than they were 20 years ago and getting cleaner every year
You'd be more successful arguing the money to terrorists slant.
Admit it, you don't like seeing them when you ride your bike,
Just be honest, I can respect that.

No, I do not say it is a secondary issue, I say it is not the only issue. If I wasn't clear on that before, consider the issue clarified. Quoting myself (from my site)

There's plenty else I don't like: that exemple simply illustrates the problem well.

I've never seen city-by-city stats, though I have looked. From memory, about 2000 deaths/year in Ontario are attributed to smog, and about 10,000 illnesses. Car exhaust is one of the largest causes of air pollution in Canada, and in some areas the largest.


And are also more numerous, and still use space, plastics, metals, roadway...

I was being honest. If you're such a fan of honesty, would you care to explain why you are being so hostile? Bad hair day or something?

If I may nitpick, that's a really poor way to argue a point. EVERYBODY KNOWS doesn't carry a lot of weight when you consider all the "facts" that everybody knows - head over to Snopes for a bunch of examples. To quote a good line from a silly movie, "1500 years ago, everybody "knew" that the earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody "knew" that the earth was flat. Imagine what you'll "know" tomorrow."

And really it's not that hard to find some info on this. According to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, you're not really correct. For instance (from the linked page), "Smoke from wood fires produces the majority of particulate air pollution in our neighborhoods during winter months." Do you have a wood stove, Bekologist? If not, do you think the environmental impact of the electric or gas production to run your heating system is better than burning wood? Or just better for Puget Sound, because the energy production is done somewhere else?

Frankly, you're coming across as a zealot, and an uninformed one at that. You're only going to turn people away like that, not convert them to the cause. If people are properly informed of their environmental impact, they may well take steps to reduce that impact. But if you just yell, "Cars suck, they pollute more than anything else, QUIT DRIVING!!" - well, that's not helping. Get some real facts, provable ones, and approach it knowing that it won't always work. Many people won't even want to hear it, some that do won't believe it, and a lot of the remaining folks just won't care enough to inconvenience themselves.

So, patc, to get back to Expat's original question, this is where the contempt comes from: uninformed zealots who reflect the contempt that their poorly-constructed arguments glean them from the "uneducated cager masses." Treat someone like crap too long, and they will treat everyone else that way too. It's just too bad that some people don't realize how damaging they are to the very ideals they are attempting to promote. (Or don't appear to care - "I'm not going to bother trying to find any figures.")

Oh, man, all that plastic in cars...I'll be up all night feeling guilty now..LOL
I'd love to know how someone can attribute their death soley to car smog.
Come on brother, take off the hair shirt and put down the Chomsky.

The metal, fabric and plastic!! <Angst sound effects>

Kids used to suffer nervous disorders in inner cities until lead in gasoline was banned. Not quite as bad as dying, but a tangible cause and effect from auto pollution.

Diffuse pollutants from auto exhaust is likely a culprit or contributing factor in a LOT of disease.

Zeig Oil! Zeig Oil! Zeig Oil! (I just had to get that in there, it's not an indicator of my luddism.

Lead Gasoline has been banned for about 30 years or so.
Cars are like 20 times cleaner since those days.....bad strawman attempt.

Because you say so??

The leaded gas wasn't a false argument but an example of pollution from cars being nasty. Nothing more. It sounds like smog kills 2000 in Ontario annually.

Yes. wood stoves produce the most particulate matter during the winter months. Pollutants like Ozone, Nitrogen Oxides and carbon monoxides are also pollutants, and autos produce far more of these pollutants. But good job hunting and pecking data to build up a false argument AGAINST the carfree ethic.

Yes. Home wood stoves should have catalytic convertors, and strict burn bans for cities prone to inversions (many western cities have toxic woodsmoke/car exhaust smog inversions) There are cleaner, greener ways to heat a home anyway, and using a clean natural gas furnace, or electric power, IS a cleaner choice.

Frankly, someone is coming across as an uniformed one about personal automobiles. Without getting into specifics, because to me it's NO argument, haven't you heard- "Cars suck, they pollute more than anything else, QUIT DRIVING so much!"

For one thing leaded gas has been gone for 30 years.

If all cars were switched over to natural gas...would that be OK then?
Seriously if you are comncerened about pollution, wood and coal stoves are where to start.
I asked how it could be proven someone died soley from car smog.
I don't think you care what's true.
I think you just like the way "2000 per year die of car smog" rolls off your tounge.
Same thing with "cars are the biggest smog producers in the bay"

Forest fires have been happening for millions of years and nature is completely capable of addressing the seasonal and localized pollution from wood stoves. Admittedly if wood burning stoves deplete the forests we have a problem. The pollution from cars and the car industry is far more widespread and is year round and includes unnatural compounds like dioxins and PCBs. Here's a source that tends to back up Bekologist's claims.
(EDIT) From this American site: "cars and light trucks are still the largest single source of air pollution, accounting for one-quarter of emissions of smog-forming pollutants nationwide."