Reply to Deborah

I don't like the idea of proselytizing nor do I have a fervor to convert people to being carless. I just want to explore if and how it can be done if that's what someone chooses. And, I recognize that my experience is relevant mostly to middle class, mid-country Americans like myself.

What's wrong with a Buick? That's more wrong than any other car? OK, so I get in an ideal world, for an environmentalist, we'd all be walking and biking a lot more, and our vehicles would be shared, quiet, go 150 mpg, probably be electric, and that electricity would come from solar power. However, we're sooo far away from the ideal that it seems to me that any and all sincere efforts to improve the situation are welcome. Besides, saving the Earth is more likely to happen if lots of people are experimenting and innovating.

Besides, there are so many fronts to saving the Earth and you are far ahead of me in many areas, such as water usage and eating local. NO GUILT! NO BLAME! That's my motto, mostly, because I don't think either is useful to us at all, unless, perhaps it operates as a spur to action. In complex situations like this which are going to require many changes by many people and where we don't even know exactly what changes will be required, guilt and blame are not helpful. We (everyone in the world!) are all to blame; in this case, blame is meaningless.

My parents have a Buick as well, a car they like and have driven for a number of years now. More aspects than environmental ones have to be considered, e.g., comfort, cost and safety. It's probably more helpful to the Earth that they one only one car for 2 people than the type of car they own.