"Evolution can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet--the only one in the whole Milky Way--with a century of transportation whoopee. Our government is conducting a war against drugs, is it?
Let them go after petroleum. Talk about a destructive high!
You put some of this stuff in your car and you can go a hundred miles an hour, run over the neighbor's dog, and tear the atmosphere to smithereens. Hey, as long as we are stuck with being homo sapiens, why mess around? Let's wreck the whole joint. Anybody got an atomic bomb? Who doesn't have an atomic bomb these days?"
Kurt Vonnegut from A Man Without A Country, his last book published in 2005.
Ecclesiastes may have had it right, nothing is new under the sun. Or wait.
What about harnessing the sun for solar power, and harnessing the wind, and harnessing the best minds in our culture, not the worst.
And creating plug-in electric cars, an odorless and no particulates in the air alternative to smog.
There are good minds like Lester Brown spreading solutions and alternatives to petroleum and nuclear.
Listen to the good minds now. Don't miss opportunities while given the chance.
Here on Chasing Clean Air, I report advances like Electric Cars Women Will Enjoy and educate how our purchasing power can advance healthy change.
Had folks listened to a Mr. Pope in 1890 we'd breath cleaner air now. Pope built clean odorless electric cars as he put it, "that women would enjoy". But petroleum-powered car companies had better marketing, and today 186.1 million Americans breathe toxic air, largely due to transportation sources.
So put your purchasing power to good use. Given an opportunity invest in renewable energy, a plug-in electric car, mass transit.
In the end, Vonnegut was pessimistic about mankind.
"True terror is to wake up one day and discover your high school class is running the country."
Vonnegut was pessimistic about mankind, yes, except for one thing: He believed in kindness.
Be nice to each other.
Photo of a concept electric car I saw at 2010 LA Auto Show.
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