• happilybitchycowboy@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Good night. I started talking about this in like 2002 after facing the terrible heat in the middle east during my time in service. I came back and moved to New York and it was just like Chicago, you could see the haze of pollution above the city from miles away. I moved back down south and in bigger cities there, you can see it too. People didn’t want to hear it, some still don’t. I’ve had a personal moto for many years, “One person, one piston.” Everywhere I look, cars, trucks, and SUVs have gotten more ginormous. Why the hell does one man need to drive a v8 2500 to an office job? Why the hell does one girl without a family need to drive an Escalade to get coffee and donuts? We, the people, are going to have to be the ones to make the changes. Electric cars are really no better as so much fuel is used mining minerals for the batteries, and so many of the power grids run off coal fired power plants. You might not have a tailpipe, but it’s all coming from somewhere. I wish we could go back to the days a man had a good horse, but it seems too far gone now.

    • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      If everybody had a horse it wouldn’t be much different, though. There are way more people on earth now than when horses were still the main mode of transportation. Horses would cause similar problems as our other livestock for climate change.

      People powered vehicles (bicycles, skateboards, etc.) are the only thing that we have that are truly zero impact forms of transportation. I guess we could count solar and wind powered vehicles, but those don’t really get the job done for our transportation needs.

      We need to focus on public transportation, but so many people would refuse to ever vote for that stuff.

      • havokdj@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Well, I wouldn’t say TRULY zero impact. There are some things that would still contribute such as the need for more calories and also the work we would exert making pollution from ourselves, but it is still 10,000x more beneficial than what we have with cars or horses.

        Honestly, horses may even be worse because you don’t really turn them off like cars. Depending on how often you drive, horses may wind up causing even more pollution than if you just drove.

        Also, horses are really, REALLY expensive, not just in initial cost either, and their legs are like glass.

        Not defending cars at all BTW, just supporting what you said on horses.

    • thisorthatorwhatever@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The ‘one person, one piston’, rule is amazing.

      The car industry, and regulations around cars need to rewritten. Small 1 cylinder cars need to be sold legally.

      Many families I know would be happy using a golf cart for 90% of their needs. Leaving the big car in the garage for the 1 time a month they drive somewhere far, or in very bad weather.

    • 5in1k
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      11 months ago

      In horse times the streets of cities were littered with dead horses and piles of shit everywhere. You can read about it in old newspapers. They were heading into a crisis right before cars because of it.