April 26th, 1998
WILL IT EVER BE TIME?
By Jackie Alan Giuliano
Want to drive a car that could get over 1,000 miles to the tankfull and produce virtually
no pollution? You could have - but you won’t now. The decision has been made for you.
In our own generation we tremble on the verge of Flood.
The air is full of poison.
The Earth hides arsenals of poisonous fire,
seas of light surcharged with fatal darkness.
The ice is melting,
the seas are rising,
the air is dark with smoke and rising heat.
Who speaks for the redwood and the rock, the lion and the beetle? Who are our Noahs?
Who can teach us to be "Restful-ones?"
Where is our Ark?
Who can renew the Rainbow?
What must we do to reaffirm
the covenant between the Breath of Life
and all who life and breathe upon this planet?
-- Arthur Waskow
Conservative rhetoric usually includes accusations that those concerned with the
environment are often insensitive to the economic realities of the world. We who are
searching for a kinder, gentler, sustainable, and compassionate way to exist on our world
are often accused of the stereotypical labels that accompany such beliefs. We are called
weak, idealistic, impractical, and a host of other terms meant to suggest that living
sustainably is impossible. 
Cars in Los Angeles (from "L.A.'s Lethal Air")
And it IS impossible if you have as your guiding principle that a small number of
people must be able to make mountains of money as quickly as possible. Environmentalism is
not just another "-ism." It is the only way of life possible if you consider
health, compassion, and sustainability of paramount importance.
Yet some humans have been trying for millennia to separate themselves from the web of life
and declare themselves the rulers of the land. This is impossible, of course, so the
result is an immense variety of dysfunctions and aberrant behaviors that have evolved. The
mantra of the West has become "be happy at any cost" and along with it, even the
concept of happiness has been redefined.
No longer is having enough food and shelter a sufficient cause for happiness. No, we have
redefined happiness as the state of having so much more than we need.
Some science fiction writers told us we would be living in a pollution-free world by now?
What happened? Unfortunately, our authors and prophets and visionaries did not predict the
strangle-hold that polluters would have on our culture, especially the makers of our cars.
Air pollution has become part of our lives. The media and the automobile manufacturers
have downplayed the problem for some time now.
Los Angeles had the world's finest urban transportation system in the 1920s known as the
Red Cars. These electric trains traveled everywhere you needed to go. But the tire and car
manufacturers of the time bought the system and tore up the tracks, claiming that America
wanted the automobile now. And they conveniently removed any alternative.
Refinery in Los Angeles (from "L.A.'s Lethal Air")
In 1991, scientists from the University of California performed autopsies on 100 youths
between the ages of 15 and 25 who had died of violence, accidents, or other non-disease
related causes. The results were shocking. In their report, "L.A.'s Lethal Air,"
the scientists said eighty percent had "notable lung abnormalities" and 27
percent had "severe lesions on their lungs." The principal pathologist of the
study said the youths were running out of lung and that they all had a very high
probability of having lung disease by the time they were 40 - the result of breathing the
Los Angeles air.
We may need some reminders. In the Los Angeles area alone:
- Barbecue lighter fluid fumes add up to four tons a day of hydrocarbon pollution, equal
to the emissions of a typical oil refinery.
- Motor vehicles, not industry, are the largest polluters, responsible for two-thirds of
all air pollution.
- Consumer products such as underarm deodorants, aerosol sprays, and floor wax are
responsible for 4.5 times as much hydrocarbon pollution as all the oil refineries in the
Los Angeles Basin! Paints and solvents produce 19 times as much hydrocarbon pollution as
all the oil refineries in the area.
So what about that 1,000-mile per tank non-polluting car? It is dead. Well known
engineer Harold Rosen and his brother Benjamin, the head of Compaq Computer, have spent
$24 million of their own money on developing such a vehicle. However, they closed their
operation on November 18, 1997 because they could raise no interest from any major
automobile company.
As they have done many times before, the auto manufacturers and the oil companies have
successfully silenced another technology that could have moved us forward. Sadly, their
only wish is to keep the fossil fuel systems in place until they have squeezed every last
drop from the Earth - and trashed our air along the way.
So what can we do? Be mindful, for starters, that we are all part of the problem. The
"them" is us. Since we cannot rely on industry to solve this problem, we must
reduce our own use of automobiles. Buy an electric car as soon as you can afford it and
eliminate the practices that contribute to the poisoning of our most vital resource, the
air. We must put pressure on the auto makers to advance the technologies. Never buy a new
car if you can possibly avoid it. Buy a used one, fix up the emission system as best you
can, and write to the car makers and tell them why you made such a choice.
We are the only ones who can do something, who can avoid the greed and shortsightedness.
Some will continue to tell you it is not yet time. If greed is the measure, will it ever
be time?
RESOURCES
1. The Labor/Community Strategy Center is the author of "L.A.’s Lethal
Air," a hard-hitting publication of community activism. Visit them at http://www.igc.apc.org/lctr/ and
learn how to activate your community no matter where you live. 2. Learn more about the
saga of Rosen Motors and the automakers’ concerns at http://bubblemouth.pathfinder.com/fortune/magazine/1996/960930/ros.html
3. Learn about the electric vehicles on the market at http://www.calstart.org/cgi-bin/catalog.cgi
and write to the vehicle manufacturers encouraging them to bring their prices down,
applying their billion dollar profits to subsidize the electric vehicle program. You can
link to all the car manufacturers from this site. 4. Visit the Los Angeles Air Quality
Management District at http://www.aqmd.gov/
for an overview of the basin’s problems. Be aware, though, that this organization has
slowed down air quality improvements by being too good a friend to business. 5. The
California Air Resources Board has declared that Diesel exhaust is a strong cancer risk
and that nearly 15,000 Californians will die of diseases caused by breathing those fumes.
People around the country are at risk, since diesel powered vehicles are the backbone of
our trucking, shipping, and farm equipment industries. Most buses also run on diesel. Read
their report at http://www.arb.ca.gov/toxics/diesel/dieselex.htm
6. Visit the Saturn EV1 web site at http://www.gmev.com/
for a look at one of the nicer electric vehicles. Send them an email message telling them
(and the other car makers) that you do not need high performance in the vehicles. Tell
them you want them to spend their time making vehicles that will go long distances on a
charge, not ones that duplicate the wasteful performance of traditional cars. 7. Find
polluters in your neighborhood at http://www.envirolink.org/search/, an Envirolink project with the
Environmental Defense Fund. 8. Let Congress know how you feel. Get easy e-mail access to
those on the appropriate committees at http://web.iquest.net/ofma/leglink.htm
9. Changelinks is a publication that provides a calendar of activist events in the
Southern California. Visit them at http://www.labridge.com/change-links/ and find a similar calendar for
your home town. 10. Find many lesser known environmental links at http://www.webdirectory.com/
{Jackie Giuliano can be found in Venice, California wishing he didn’t have to drive
40 miles today to Pasadena. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch
University, Los Angeles, and the University of Phoenix Southern California Campuses. He is
also the Educational Outreach Manager for the Outer Planets/Solar Probe Project, a NASA
program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send space probes to Jupiter’s moon
Europa, the planet Pluto, and the Sun. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to
him at jackie@deepteaching.com and visit his
web site at http://www.jps.net/jackieg} |
