[SustainableTompkins] Those wasteful vehicles

[Jon Bosak]

I'm not talking about mechanics, I'm talking about attitude.  I'm
talking about the kind of holier-than-thou preening that
implicitly relegates the rest of America to the category of the
morally inferior.

The fact is that the vast majority of Americans -- I'd guess
around 90 percent of them -- are dealing with economic tides about
the best they can while swimming in a sea of government and media
manipulation that very few people can resist.  Yes, there is a
group of people who might in some better world be held to account
for what's happening -- the usual suspects.  But most people have
landed where they are through the operation of forces beyond their
control.

Here's a single mom with four kids who lives in the same place in
Newfield that her family has lived in for 150 years, located on a
side road that is not and probably never will be served by TCAT.
She drives into Ithaca every day to her job at Wal-Mart in a car
that doesn't get good mileage but is far beyond her means to
replace.  She feeds the kids GMO crap from Wal-Mart because she
can't afford anything better.

What's your solution for her?

Tell her to commute to work on a bike?

Give her a lecture on the need for population control and tell her
to shoot two of the kids?

What's your plan?

Jon


George Frantz wrote:
> On Fri, 7/18/08, Jon Bosak <bosak at ibiblio.org> wrote:
> 
> Oh, that's right, without those wasteful vehicles, they're not going to be able to get it to you, are they?  Tsk.
>  
> Jon,
>  
> On our farms we really never had any use for all those cars Andy Goodell was referring to when it came to getting our goods to the city.
>  
> On our farms we used trucks, not cars, to transport the tons, not pounds, of our farms' production to market.  Between the dozen or so farms owned by the members of the clan we had the 1/2-3/4 ton pick-up for small loads, 2 or 3 single-axle large trucks and at least one ten-wheel truck owned by an uncle but available to other family members as needed.  Milk production was hauled away by a truck - owned and operated by a local family.
>  
> For large shipments like bulk grain, hay and straw we would contract with a local indpendent owner/operator or a tractor-trailer to haul goods to market.
>  
> I've seen nothing in the past couple of decades to make me think that this practice has not changed among farmers.
>  
> My farmer in-laws in Viet Nam still rely on the old standby that Tom Shelley referenced in his e-mail, the handcart.  On flat land they can haul a 500-1,000 pounds of produce the 10 miles to market in Hoi An in about 3 hours.  But I'm willing to bet they are in far better physical condition than any reader of this post.
>  
> One of the horrible negatives of the urban density model I advocated a few months ago is the elimination of that suburban American sacred cow known as the sideyard.  Eliminating the sideyard in favor of townhouse party-wall architecture however would free up 25%-30% of the land currently wasted in cities such as Ithaca and let it be utilized for more productive, greener use, like community gardens within walking distance of ones home.
>  
> Our colonial predecessors here and America brought that concept from Europe 400 years ago.  Outside the United States  99 percent of the world's urban denizens understand the concept.  It's pretty amazing in this "enlightened" day and age that we still can't figure it out.
>  
> George Frantz
>   
> 
> --- On Fri, 7/18/08, Jon Bosak <bosak at ibiblio.org> wrote:
> 
> From: Jon Bosak <bosak at ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Prius/electric Cars Could Be Polluters
> To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv" <sustainabletompkins at lists.mutualaid.org>
> Date: Friday, July 18, 2008, 3:21 PM
> 
> Andy Goodell wrote:
> | I specifically chose to live in a place that I knew I would easily
> | get along without owning a car. I get everywhere by bike except
> | when I have been lazy and use the moped, which is about $2 of gas
> | per month with my current usage.
> 
> Good thing someone else is willing to grow your food for you.
> 
> Oh, that's right, without those wasteful vehicles, they're not
> going to be able to get it to you, are they?  Tsk.
> 
> Jon
> 
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