Motorists Cannot Avoid Blame For Global Warming
That’s part of a quote from the current Mayor of Seoul, Oh Se-Hoon:
“Any urban areas where commuters only rely on vehicles burning fuel cannot avoid blame for global warming and traffic congestion,” Seoul City Mayor Oh Se-Hoon said on Wednesday, on the city government’s website.
I like the directness of the quote. It’s difficult to twist this to mean anything but what it actually means - motorists are destroying the earth, and the quality of life that still exists on earth - including places like our San Francisco.
I would generally count myself among the group of people who generally try nicely to coax people out of their air-polluters, and onto bikes, but sometimes the hard truth is a good advocacy tool. Some motorists will respond with shame, some with confusion, some with anger, but one thing is certain - they will respond when accurately accused of being part of the problem, and that’s important. Get their attention - wake them from their slumber - then pour on the love. Their driving has very real, negative consequences on the City of San Francisco and its residents, and drivers shouldn’t be lulled into thinking that driving is only expensive to their pocketbooks, it’s expensive and harmful to all the city’s residents.
The good Mayor throws in the ‘only rely on’ part to make sure he’s not too confrontational, but still - can you imagine a San Francisco Mayor saying the same thing?
Neither can I.
But that doesn’t mean we need to wait for our Mayor to be this direct - there are plenty of other people in leadership positions. We should encourage them to speak freely and openly about the myriad hazards and copious amounts of destruction wrought upon our city by motorized traffic.
Maybe motorists do need to be treated like petulant little children - many of them act that way. Yes, children may cry when you reprimand them for being selfish, but they eventually come around. They learn.
And I think blame gets a bad rap. Sometimes it’s important to blame people for making selfish choices. Not everyone can walk and bike and take transit, but for those who can and choose not to because they’re too selfish or lazy or have some other lame excuse, they deserve to be reprimanded, and probably ridiculed. For most people in San Francisco, for most occasions, it is simply not ‘OK’ to drive. Find a less destructive way to get to your destination and take care of your errands.
Seoul is 60% more dense than New York City, and 275% more dense than San Francisco. Yes - Seoul has some serious biking potential. As do New York and San Francisco, the #1 and #2 most dense cities in the U.S. (possibly depending on whose calculations you go by, but in either case, San Francisco is ready for a bicycle explosion).
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November 17th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Pinpointing motorists alone is a mistake. No doubt, they are to blame but they’re not acting alone. A motorist doesn’t really use a car on a regular basis unless the infrastructure built around them almost makes it mandatory: highways, poor bus and rail service, lack of accommodation for bicycles, lack of pedestrian-friendly areas, suburban development.
So you and the mayor of Seoul need to point the finger at the various levels of government and their awful urban and suburban policy, the auto manufacturers, and the oil companies in addition to motorists.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Also, let’s not forget that we are all indirectly and to varying degrees causing this motorized traffic by our consumption habits. Food we eat and other products that we buy had to get to you probably by motorized transport. It’s a question of how far did it travel and how much of it are we consuming.