In this article, Treehugger's Lloyd Alter comments on a Hush Magazine (Vancouver) article written by Chris Bruntlett. Alter's piece begins like this:
We have often complained about the negative impacts of our car culture, but Chris Bruntlett, writing in Vancouver magazine Hush, goes much further, calling them selfish, anti-social, unhealthy, and destructive. He says that it is time to start treating cars as the 21st century version of smoking; and picks up on Mikael Colville-Andersen's idea of warning labels for cars. with his own up-to-date designs.
Using cigarette-like warning labels as a starting point, he suggests warning labels on cars that could look like these below. Perhaps we remember how initially shocking and controversial the cigarette warnings were when they first were used. Imagine seeing something like this every time we'd get into a car!
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| Copyright: Chris Bruntlett; Source: Treehugger |
Bruntlett is hard hitting in his critique of the use of cars:
Let’s face it: when someone gets into a car, they are entering a bubble. Not just a physical bubble of metal and glass, but also a figurative one, where all logic and reasoning is barred from entering. They seem oblivious to the simple truth that the motor vehicle is the most inefficient mode of transportation ever devised. Without thinking, they squander millions of years of stored solar energy to haul around two tons of metal, fibreglass, machinery, and electronics, along with their meager frame. This machine demands a colossal amount of space: 300 square feet when parked, and 3,000 square feet when moving at 50 km/hr. As a result, we carelessly hand over vast chunks of our public realm to the parasitic automobile; space that could be put to much better use.
You can read the entire article here.
- submitted by Gareth
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