Global Obliteration of Life – Endless Development $ Seductive Automobile Marketing

I was instigated to write this right away, in response to a friend’s post of his present experience in Antarctica, talking about ice sheets breaking off while the rest of the world is concerned with debates or Coronavirus. Greg Bernie Blaug posted this caption with his pictures at McMurdo Sound in Antarctica March 6, 2020.

Amidst all of the preoccupations today, there’s still this looming event that eclipses them all.

I feel that people are so incredibly disconnected from how their actions affect the natural world. Besides global warming, there’s also perpetual indulgence in continued building and expansion.

Ancient trees

I do not know how to derail the fixation that people have on having their own personal automobile.

I’ve had friends ‘unfriend’ me on Facebook after talking about the issue; that if they’re not part of the solution, they are part of the problem.

Like displaying fashion in clothes or status in property, automobile/truck ownership is something fully embedded in peoples’ psyches.

The transportation sector is the largest contributor to global warming (the word climate change neatly replacing the former term, bc it seems less human-induced and more of a natural occurrence. Certainly individuals seem to be less obnoxious than a refinery or oil spill from pipelines, but collectively pps decision to use and own cars that are using petroleum and willfully continuing despite the fucking statistical facts, implies that there is not enough education and pressure from the society and leaders, to make these facts clear.

The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama says “we have an urgent responsibility” to protect the planet and its inhabitants.

Ironically, it’s difficult to capture an image on a website without being bombarded with ads that are (often with respect to what I read) pointedly revealing information paradoxical to the content of the message.

As members of Climate Action Rhode Island canvassed outside of a new Chase Bank branch, to inform people that Chase is the largest supporter and investor in fossil fuels, a police officer on duty stated that he had lived in Europe earlier in his life working in the shoe industry. In Europe he witnessed much more conscientiousness with regards to automobile use and recycling. He said that here “It’s all about money”. I asked him if his colleagues saw things in the same way? He shook his head, no, no, not even close.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-causes/

Mentioning to my friend, just like back in the days when we’d participate in the San Francisco critical mass collective bike ride, I’m still riding a bicycle. Because of this, I notice very clearly through the fumes and higher temperatures emitted by the majority of vehicles, that there are in fact an extraordinary amount of people in thIs capital city of Providence, Rhode Island, who let their car engines idle, oblivious to the present and future repercussions. I never witnessed this in any European city. I continue to be miffed by their errant mufflers. Here in this New England city, people of every race, ethnicity, socio-economic background, leave their automobiles and trucks running, engine on; whether they are pulling over to check their phone, stopping and getting out of their vehicle to talk to someone, or going to do an errand. THEY LEAVE THE ENGINES IDLING, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE NOT NEAR THE CAR; for minutes, verging on half an hour. There’s also a population of motorcycle riders (big Portuguese community from islands off Portugal) who get off on revving their motors and spewing out black clouds of smoke and laying rubber to leave thick black streaks on the pavement. I find it unfathomable. I look at this scenario as if I’ve landed on Earth in the future, and see this extraordinary not just dependence, but flagrant fixation on vehicles. But not just to show how cool one is, but to demonstrate how loud and obnoxious they can conceivably be.

I’m okay with seeing people do ‘wheely’s’ and demonstrating skill, but spinning black tar and spewing it into the air is filth, and they tend to do it down by the water, where wild birds live.

I went bicycling yesterday to find the local chapter of the Sierra Club after reading about their program introducing experiences for communities of color who are less exposed to green space, to introduce them to wonder and appreciation of the natural world, so that they will be more likely to care and want to be guardians for the planet. https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-3-may-june/feature/outdoors-for-all-nature-is-a-human-right The

Sierra club ‘Outdoors for All’

Sierra club was at neither address that they claimed on their website. The local director of a River council, when i mentioned idling cars, reflected on the fact that she does this too, ‘her nice warm car’ she said.

As this article points out, “will require resisting common marketing tactics.” I mean, whether you’re a low rider, motorcycle rider living paycheck-to-paycheck or a wealthy Swiss banker with a 500,000 Euro automobile, the marketing print and air waves for the last dozens of years target the human population; telling you that your worth, perceived success and luck with romance are driven by what kind of machine you drive.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/09/letters-from-the-march-9-2020-issue

“A longer-term solution may require the slowing, and the eventual reversal, of population growth, combined with a decrease in average individual consumption in richer countries. The latter change will require resisting common marketing tactics...After forty years as an ecologist, I believe that the transition to a less materialistic world would be a cakewalk compared with living on a planet with too little photosynthesis.”