Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 13, 1990 TAG: 9005110656
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WALTER REINHARDT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And everyone has jumped on the environmental bandwagon. A recent Harris poll found that 78 percent of Americans consider themselves "environmentalists." Known corporate polluters have taken out full-page ads identifying their companies as "partners with the environment."
The end result of these weeks of reflection and scrutiny will probably be the traditional surge of interest by the public in recycling. This is fine, as long as the economics are justified. (In times of recession, baled newsprint/magazines are often hauled to the dump; thousands of tons of glass are available to anyone willing to pay the truck or rail freight; scrap cardboard and aluminum cans are not collected because the salvage price is so low; waste plastic regrind cannot compete with "virgin" materials, etc.) So in itself, this response is wholely inadequate for problems that are solvable if the American public has the resolve.
The desired objective must be greatly reduced consumption of fossil fuels. Lester Brown, who publishes an annual "Global Watch," states that only the highest level of public concern can achieve the major reordering of priorities that are necessary. And he has identified the main culprit - our sacred automobile.
American society has become totally dependent on the automobile in the 20th century. And the destruction wreaked upon our habitat and our society has been cataclysmic.
Air pollution due to gas guzzlers is a substantial problem in the urban areas, particularly those in which common atmospheric conditions prevent rapid dispersion of the pollutants (like Roanoke). Air quality in major U.S. cities has continued to worsen. Over the last five years, more than 100 metropolitan areas failed to meet the standard on ground-level ozone pollution. Most of the problem is due to car emissions. But in March, the Senate defeated a bill requiring cleaner-burning fuels and more efficient cars.
One obvious problem of the auto is that the proliferation of roads and expressways has come always at the expense of historic buildings, landmarks, or just aesthetic wooded areas. The internal-combustion engine has surrounded us with noise and visual pollution. Today's streets and thoroughfares have to be considered poor neighbors. A major intersection of urban expressways consumes tens of acres of land and construction of thousands of linear feet of bridge structure. Additionally, traffic congestion contributes ever more greatly to loss of productivity.
To an increasing level, the predominance of gas-driven vehicles (more than 143,000,000 registrations in the United States in 1989) has short-circuited the mass-transit modes available in Europe and Japan. Although a few futuristic monorail systems are in the planning stages in Florida, no private (or public) enterprise could hope to achieve an economically viable mass-transit system in competition with the private automobile. This compounds one of the worst social effects of the automobile: upon the poor. The high cost of urban transportation has invariably fallen most heavily on the poorest classes, who pay a higher proportion of family income for transportation.
Every year, traffic casualties are on the scale of a Vietnam war. Our hospitals, our rehab facilities, and our morgues are filled with the victims of the automobile. Three thousand pounds of hurtling plastic and steel traveling at 88 feet per second (60 mph) has been an awesome weapon of destruction, accounting for tens of thousands of lives abruptly snuffed, and many times as many people maimed for life. Our capacity as a society to view this as acceptable, even inevitable, astounds me.
In marked contrast, the London Underground has had only four serious accidents in 40 years of operation. The Paris metro had no deaths in 57 of 60 years of operation. The Toronto subway has had no accidents since its opening in 1954.
Auto junkyards are usually a blight upon the land. Untold hundreds of millions in various stages of disassembly litter urban and rural America. A recent trip to Long Island through New York City revealed an apparently popular method of auto disposal - abandonment along the shoulders of the roads. A garbage fire of baled unrecyclables at a salvage operation in Montvale recently burned out of control for days.
Only the naive believe in simplistic solutions. For certain, our burgeoning population will of itself impose some restrictions in personal freedom of movement, as will increased criminal activity against person and property. But the following suggested alternatives to the internal-combustion engine are now available:
1. Human-powered conveyance like the Utah series vehicles. These Swiss-designed streamlined and lightweight cars are capable of accelerating into traffic and attaining speeds of 65 mph. Small hybrid vehicles using pedals (and perhaps with a small auxiliary engine or battery-powered) are the way to go for short hops to the office, school, or to the mall. According to the Census bureau, in 1983 some 59 percent of all miles traveled were for these purposes.
2. Total-electric cars and minivans have been planned for production by Ford, Chrysler and GM. GM's electric two-seater will probably debut in California. The Impact will zip from 0 to 60 mph in 8 seconds and can go 110 mph. Total range of 120 miles between charges is expected to improve.
3. Developments in telecommunications such as videotelephone conferencing and computer work stations in the home will eliminate some commuting.
The proferred suggestions are an attainable vision of the near future. But public recognition of sacrifice is necessary; the economy must take environmental resources into account. To do otherwise is to compound our problems, and to brainlessly emulate the arctic lemming in a headlong push to destruction.
by CNB