Overheard on Car Talk this morning, the fellas mentioned that you should maintain your car as long as possible. Their suggestion was that the longer you maintain your car, the more you can postpone buying a new car. That will mean one less car will be produced – at an environmental cost – and one less car will go to the landfill. Excellent idea, boys.
I can hear the response now: what about the manufacturing jobs? Jobs, jobs, jobs! A fine point. A good argument. Where does that leave us? We need to choose between our future and our present. We are currently choosing the present, and not very well, at that. How do we deal with future needs at the same time as present ones? By changing our current priorities. “Business as usual” is not functional. Looking to the future means changing our present.
1 comment:
So with you on the idea of manufacturing jobs. Let's look at the housing industry b/c everyone always talks of it as a bellwether. We have to have a *sustainable* economy, and building tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of NEW houses every year is a recipe for disaster. Look at all the unspoiled space that will be eternally ruined by new houses and the materials (at great environmental cost) involved in creating a house from scratch just to name 2 issues. Not to mention the crazy amount of unused/abandoned housing stock already extant...I agree w/you, Barak, about the auto industry. Yes, it did wonders for creating a diverse middle class in Michigan and other current Rust Belt states but our country can't keep churning out millions of cars each year without reaping the ecological consequences. Sustainable industry, people. It'll be painful and tough and a slog but it's a marathon, not a sprint for profits.
Post a Comment