- ARMCHAIRMAYOR.CA - A La Une - 18/Jan 22:53

SUZUKI – Car culture is driving us to disaster; it needs to end

THE CLIMATE CRISIS is too big to be remedied by individual actions alone. It requires government policies and regulations and international cooperation in everything from research to global agreements. One critical area where individual acts (including public advocacy) combined with government policy can make a big difference is transportation. Car culture has fuelled the climate crisis from the beginning. In the early days, large cars weren’t built just for luxury and big families; they were built to burn as much energy-dense oil as possible, fuelling a massively profitable, mutually beneficial alliance between Big Oil and the auto industry. An entire way of life was built around it, in the United States and Canada especially — with motels, drive-ins, suburbs and strip malls. Now, despite advances in electric and hybrid vehicles, tailpipe standards, better transit in some areas and more, emissions continue to rise, thanks largely to a boom in light truck and SUV sales. To keep the oil economy going, relentless advertising portrays trucks and SUVS as offering freedom, adventure and safety. According to a recent David Suzuki Foundation report, light-duty trucks (including SUVs and minivans) are one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions in Canada’s transport sector. Although emissions [...]