In a course I taught on sustainability, I had a unit on emergy, Howard Odum's word for a combination of embodied energy and energy use in ecosystems. We applied it to stuff, whether it was a pencil, a car, solar panels, or a house. The car, or personal vehicle, was the most problematic for students because it is symbolic of personal auto…
In a course I taught on sustainability, I had a unit on emergy, Howard Odum's word for a combination of embodied energy and energy use in ecosystems. We applied it to stuff, whether it was a pencil, a car, solar panels, or a house. The car, or personal vehicle, was the most problematic for students because it is symbolic of personal autonomy, independence and freedom. In the end, a conclusion many students reluctantly accepted, was that the problem was not the fuel a car used, the problem was the car (including all pickups, SUVs, etc.). Cars and all the attached infrastructure, including parkig lots, the driveway and the garage, are not ecologically sustainable. They are a death trap. Just ride a bike along any road for a while and you will see death related to cars; racoons, skunks, squirrels, possums, deer, dogs, cats, birds, and more, to say nothing of automobile accident deaths and death from the pollution from their manufacture and emissions. Redesigning society around ecosystems - life - is essential if there is to be any regeneration, and the car, which we are all dependent on in "developed" nations, will not be a part of that new picture.
In a course I taught on sustainability, I had a unit on emergy, Howard Odum's word for a combination of embodied energy and energy use in ecosystems. We applied it to stuff, whether it was a pencil, a car, solar panels, or a house. The car, or personal vehicle, was the most problematic for students because it is symbolic of personal autonomy, independence and freedom. In the end, a conclusion many students reluctantly accepted, was that the problem was not the fuel a car used, the problem was the car (including all pickups, SUVs, etc.). Cars and all the attached infrastructure, including parkig lots, the driveway and the garage, are not ecologically sustainable. They are a death trap. Just ride a bike along any road for a while and you will see death related to cars; racoons, skunks, squirrels, possums, deer, dogs, cats, birds, and more, to say nothing of automobile accident deaths and death from the pollution from their manufacture and emissions. Redesigning society around ecosystems - life - is essential if there is to be any regeneration, and the car, which we are all dependent on in "developed" nations, will not be a part of that new picture.