Spring Break
So Many Cars, I'm Exhausted!
Adam Ennes
Issue date: 4/27/09 Section: Editorial & Opinion
Like a lot of people, I enjoy the scenery of Silver City. I also enjoy the fresh mountain air that we are blessed to have here. I love to ride my bicycle, and riding up the 12th St. hill to Harlan Hall can be quite enjoyable. That is unless I'm pedaling behind 4 trucks spewing out diesel exhaust. We live in a very small town, and I am surprised at the rising number of people driving to school, especially if they live on campus.
I'll be riding my bike up that hill, behind those trucks (you know what they say about people with big trucks, right?), and I have no choice but to hold my breath, or to breath in the exhaust. This should be illegal!! Blah!! Nasty!! Why are we so foolish? It does not make any sense that one would drive from one side of the campus to the other, yet this is done. What about people like me who live off campus and STILL ride a bike to class? Am I destined to have lung cancer because a majority of people are too lazy to walk or ride a bike. Do I even need to mention the changing climate? I won't call it global warming, because we may find that all of this extra carbon dioxide in our atmosphere could shove us into another ice age. Though this isn't my argument. My beef is that despite all of the facts showing us that we should slow our role when it comes to carbon emissions, there are more cars than I've ever seen here in Silver.
I'm exhausted. I'm tired of breathing in other peoples pollution. There should be high standard emission laws in all of New Mexico, yet there not. The only city I know of in N.M. with vehicle emission laws is Albuquerque. Our culture is wrapped up in a go, go, go, head-space that leaves little to no room for the consideration of the environment, or others who do.
When I was 12 years old I decided to never get my drivers license. Seeing the problem from an early age allowed me to form my solid opinion that cars are bad. Of course ride in cars, and of course I have driven on rare occasions, yet I vowed to myself never to buy a car that is not electric. I have an electric moped, which, due to our obsession with fossil fuels is not as fast, or as nice, as it could be if our focus was on renewable energy resources. It seems that we are moving in this direction with hybrid cars, but come on, you know that if the industry really wanted to move ahead that there wouldn't be hybrid cars, but electric cars period. They're just weaning people off of combustible fuel.
I'll be riding my bike up that hill, behind those trucks (you know what they say about people with big trucks, right?), and I have no choice but to hold my breath, or to breath in the exhaust. This should be illegal!! Blah!! Nasty!! Why are we so foolish? It does not make any sense that one would drive from one side of the campus to the other, yet this is done. What about people like me who live off campus and STILL ride a bike to class? Am I destined to have lung cancer because a majority of people are too lazy to walk or ride a bike. Do I even need to mention the changing climate? I won't call it global warming, because we may find that all of this extra carbon dioxide in our atmosphere could shove us into another ice age. Though this isn't my argument. My beef is that despite all of the facts showing us that we should slow our role when it comes to carbon emissions, there are more cars than I've ever seen here in Silver.
I'm exhausted. I'm tired of breathing in other peoples pollution. There should be high standard emission laws in all of New Mexico, yet there not. The only city I know of in N.M. with vehicle emission laws is Albuquerque. Our culture is wrapped up in a go, go, go, head-space that leaves little to no room for the consideration of the environment, or others who do.
When I was 12 years old I decided to never get my drivers license. Seeing the problem from an early age allowed me to form my solid opinion that cars are bad. Of course ride in cars, and of course I have driven on rare occasions, yet I vowed to myself never to buy a car that is not electric. I have an electric moped, which, due to our obsession with fossil fuels is not as fast, or as nice, as it could be if our focus was on renewable energy resources. It seems that we are moving in this direction with hybrid cars, but come on, you know that if the industry really wanted to move ahead that there wouldn't be hybrid cars, but electric cars period. They're just weaning people off of combustible fuel.
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