I have always loved my car, and I think my wife knows about it. She knows that she has competition. How can anyone imagine not having wheels to get around? I grew up close to Motown. Actually Indianapolis, which is close to the center of American car production in the 20th Century.
Northern Indiana was a huge producer of steel and car parts for at least the first half of the 20th Century. When I was a youngster growing up in Indianapolis in the early 60s, going to Chicago to see the New York Yankees play the Chicago White Socks for a three game series was a real treat. Driving to Chicago in a huge Pontiac with air conditioning in the summer was the best.
I remember the first time we drove through the steel producing area around Gary, Indiana. I looked out the windows of our very comfortable cocoon of the air conditioned GM wheels and couldn’t believe what I saw. The air completely foggy and deeply orange colored. I couldn’t believe it. Laundry was hanging out to dry behind houses, and I thought to myself “How do people live here?” I was 15 and that was probably my first view of a place that didn’t seem able to support life as I knew it. The air in Indianapolis, about 150 miles south, was quite clear by comparison.
I remember the Chairman of General Motors standing before a Congressional committee saying that what was good for GM was good for the country. Another moment when the Big Three car companies testified that if car pollution standards were put in place (starting in the 70’s as I remember, they would go out of business.
That era is now in our rear view mirror. We have harnessed our inventive nature to help lessen that pollution greatly. We have balanced some of the desire and demand for more and more benefits with the side effects.
Remember how coal miners used canaries in a cage to see if the air in the mine was all right? The birds can be forewarning us of trouble. The bald eagle, our national bird, was dying off in not being able to reproduce because of the use of DDT. It would have been troubling to have a man made chemical in our own “nest” which ultimately would lead to their demise. It would be kind of strange, having our national symbol dead and gone. Maybe it is ultimately good for us too. The Romans thought that the lead pipes they used to deliver water to the upper class homes was great until they couldn’t reproduce themselves anymore. Finding out after the fact is kind of late to do anything, if we don’t learn from history, it repeats itself.