Environmental Issue- Automobiles

With all of the environmental issues nowadays it is easy to find many places to put the blame. You could argue that people are too wasteful, that we don’t take advantage of new less wasteful resources, and even that we just don’t care. Especially when so many of our recreational activities are so harmful to the environment. According to howstuffworks.com more people in America watch NASCAR than baseball, which is considered to be “America’s pastime”. With NASCAR being one of the least environmentally friendly sports you might wonder how American’s can preach recycling and “going green” when we uphold such an environmentally destructive pastime.

            It can be hard to wrap your mind around all the ways that automobiles pollute our environment each and every day. Of course there is the obvious air and noise pollution but automobiles also negatively affect our water, take up a significant amount of land space, produce tons of solid waste, and kill more wildlife each day than both hunting and trapping. Aside from pollution automobiles also use a lot of energy “Each year, the United States produces about 10% of the world's petroleum but consumes about 26% of the world's total production. Cars and light trucks are the single largest users of petroleum, consuming about 43% of the total. Overall, cars and light trucks consume about 16% of the total energy used in the U.S.”. After looking at these facts from bikesatwork.com I find myself asking “why don’t we just quit driving so much?” it doesn’t seem like it would be hard to do until you think about all the ways we utilize automobiles. We use them for transportation, work, and recreation. As much as I would like to do my part to preserve the environment in most cases I find myself driving a car much more often than riding a bicycle, and when Saturday night comes around chances are you will find me at a racetrack.

I feel sure that I am not the only one who struggles with the desire to help the environment without giving up the convenience of things that make life easier especially automobiles.  In the end we each have to ask ourselves what the environment is worth to us and what we are willing to do to help preserve it.