Automobile Pollution

Today as I was riding home after a really nice metric century around a local lake I saw a police car stopped by the side of the road. As I got closer, there was a cyclist under a blanket. The ambulance had not yet arrived. The late model luxury pickup truck that had hit the cyclist was pulled over by the police car, the driver just staring. There was nothing anyone could do...

The automobile has been in large part responsible for the breakup of the nuclear family and the attendant social ills. Its use has resulted in:

the paving of the countryside
consequent massive species deaths
removal of quiet and the silence of nature
production of toxic world wide pollution
most modern wars (which are usually over oil and gas)
countless deaths through maiming and injury
degradation of animal (including human) life through a plethora of resultant diseases, social ills, and loss of natural habitat.
the death of many innocents

Here are some numbers:

120 deaths per day in the USA alone are due to car accidents - orders of magnitude more than all the terrorist-caused deaths in all the countries of the world
North American lawlessness on the roads:
Across Canada more than 10% of drivers are unlicensed. Few of these are ever caught.
In the United States as much as 75% of unlicensed drivers regularly (and illegally) drive - of these, 20% are involved in accidents.
One car produces 2.7 billion cubic yards of poisonous air during its normal life. More than most other manufacturing processes.
Car crashes are the number one cause of death in children in North America.
29 tons of waste material are created during the construction of a single automobile.
There have been more deaths and disfigurements due to car accidents than due to both World Wars.
The quest for oil and gas for automobiles results in frequent high-casualty wars (eg. the well known wars of genocide orchestrated by oil company CEOs and their bought and paid for politicians).
The quest for rubber for tires has essentially obliterated the world’s rubber trees, thereby creating a monumental species die-off.
Electrical use of mercury in convenience lighting, switches, and other systems in automobiles is regularly dumped into the environment makes its way into drinking water, despite inexpensive and practical alternatives. More than 0.000000015 pounds per gallon of mercury in drinking water is toxic.
Cars, light trucks, minivans and SUVs are responsible for over 50% of US carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming; over 20% of that country’s emissions of nitrogen oxides emissions and volatile organic compounds, which cause ozone-smog and acid rain; and over 40% of the country?s air toxic emissions. The US is of course, the world’s worst polluter - production and misuse of the automobile has substantially contributed to its dubious standing as having the worst environmental history of any nation.
There are no automobile exhaust emission controls for any vehicle produced in China, which as of this writing, is gearing up for massive automobile production.

Bicycles and tricycles in cities are a viable alternative (with small motors for the infirm), and have been used by billions of people world wide (eg. China) which much success. How tragic that China, India, and others have these last decades rushed to emulate the folly of automobile as social nexus, and consequently will soon bypass the United States as the world’s most egregious polluters. These countries could lead the world in sustainable production of non-polluting non-socially and environmental destructive modes of transportation… before it is too late for us all.

You might enjoy reading “Asphalt Nation” by Jane Hotz Kay.