and here's my 2 cents... (long, very, very long) (archive)

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I understand America's love affair with the automobile (although some may argue that it's more of a hate relationship at this point), but most people don't understand the detrimental effects of our energy-intensive lifestyle. No one wants to be lectured on the issues of consumption, energy, and the environment (keep in mind this includes your health and well being). Nevertheless, disheartening posts regarding removal of catalytic converters and getting around emissions testing prove that people need to be informed of the consequences of their actions.

Unfortunately, excessive automobile use in this country has resulted in destruction of many common properties, particularly air quality. How many of you live in cities where smog alerts occur 4-5 days per week during the summer? Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, even Louisville... Of course, it all comes down to an issue of property rights, do you have a right to clean air and health or do drivers have a right to pollute? Perhaps there is a middle ground, but users continue to neglect their responsibility to each other and the common property and free ride, taking advantage of the anonymity; ever heard of "tragedy of the commons?" Exploitation will continue until some sort of regulation or disincentive is introduced to discourage misuse. By cheating a system that is designed to protect your health, you are worsening a situation and ultimately increasing costs of pollution abatement, whether through taxes at the pump or through indirect industry costs, to yourself, the taxpayer. You do pay taxes, don't you? Of course. Perhaps you simply don't care about the regulations because you don't think you'll be around long enough to "pay" for your actions, in terms of money or health -- that is the irresponsible and ill-informed attitude that sets us back.

One more general complaint I hear: high gasoline prices. Due to extensive use of gasoline in the twentieth century, we have developed an infrastructure that stresses high-energy consumption. Big news, huh? As gas prices continue to be regulated and subsidized, more people drive more miles, reducing quantities of fuel (Did you know we import over 50% of our crude oil?) Should I make an appeal to emotion here? No, because the world is not running out of oil, at least not yet (and I'm no Greenpeace advocate either). However, what our society does face, and soon as consumption rates steadily increase more than 2% per year (remember compounding interest?), is the end of abundant and cheap oil on which all industrial nations depend. Further problems we encounter because of low gas prices, i.e. urban sprawl, deconcentration of people, pollution, and depletion of resources, are encouraged by low gas taxes (most of which go to building and maintaining roads that ensure we continue to buy lots of gasoline) and subsidies that artificially reduce our fuel price well below the global average.

The idea of technological determinism, that technology shapes and influences culture, could not be further from the truth. Furthermore, automobiles do not and never have determined our culture or the way we live. As active consumers we make choices about what we buy everyday. Please don't tell me that you are a zombie to television ads because I don't buy it. Undoubtedly, the lifestlye choices we make today restrict the choices of the future generations because we establish expensive and maintanence-intensive infrastructures (cough, cough, highways and roads) that limit our direction of growth and sustainibility. When was the last time you fellow Atlantans took MARTA? How's that public transportation system coming along in Los Angeles? I know that most of you experience the frustrations of daily gridlock but have you ever thought of how you could avoid it? Ah, but the transaction costs of organizing groups of people... I'll leave that one to the economists out there.

My apologies for writing such a long post and for getting off track. Obviously, this followup wasn't directly aimed at C. Yang or his views. I hope I didn't drown the post with statistics (the number out there and their meaning is amazing) and I hope I have informed a few more open minds.

I'd just like to give my perspective on where the U.S. car culture has gone. Because of the concern for emissions in the U.S., the heart and soul of many cars cannot be tapped. What is going to happen once the OBDIII chip is released. It will be even harder to modify the already bottlenecked obdII. Many enthusiasts will find it extremely hard to continue their passion on the cars of the future. Just my 2 cents.

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