The Green Twilight Zone, Carnival #33

Carnival of the Green #33 is hosted by Jen (for the second time already!), at Jen's Green Journal. It's even quirkier than usual, presented thusly:

Submitted for your approval . . . our story begins in a possible future in a museum that documents our species' survival through a period of environmental crisis. We are all given the temporary gift to see ourselves and our culture as history might view us. In this carnival we will have one foot firmly planted in the now, and the other in...The Green Twilight Zone.

Jen is having fun with this Carnival, but the topics are entirely serious, beginning with her first exhibit, which

..." illustrates one of the biggest factors in the near environmental collapse nearly 200 years ago -- the gasoline automobile. People in most developed nations at that time became very dependent on their vehicles, and roughly 25% of all trips made in these cars were less than two miles. The pollution from the fossil fuels used in these vehicles helped to exacerbate the conditions for the global warming crisis early in the new millenium. Ironically, as the earth's temperature started to rise, the corporations that manufactured the vehicles created vehicles that were less and less fuel efficient, and through a clever manipulation of the time called "advertising", were able to convince many people that such vehicles were a desirable status symbol."

A subject to which I have devoted much thought in the past three and a half weeks, since arriving in Albuquerque. This city, like the other western cities I know well, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Denver, is of an age with the automobile. Unlike the cities of the east coast, these have never known life without automobiles, and they are ruled by all things automotive. Perhaps it's having experienced my first serious accident in our Toyota Matrix (hit by a driver who ran her stop sign), then having the transmission in our old Mazda pickup totally fry - but my attention is fixed on the way life here is lived in cars. And on the vast industry that surrounds automobiles: transmission companies, tire companies, auto body shops, auto glass shops, ad infinitum.

Well, these are thoughts for another day. In the meantime, have a go at The Green Twilight Zone. Lots to ponder there.

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