My (earnest, irate) thoughts

When I used to watch my brother play Grand Theft Auto III, I remember an SUV commercial on one of the radio stations. It ends with a woman saying, “So what if it gets 3 miles to the gallon? I’m a mom, not a conservationist!” Here is the commercial in its entirety:

“Phil and I just had another kid. So of course we need a bigger SUV. Being a mom is hard, with soccer, football and lacrosse practice, so we bought the new Maibatsu Monstrosity. It’s so big we lost little Joey in the back and couldn’t find him for and hour! When I’m rushing to the mall, or talking on my cell phone, I know me and my family are safe. The Maibatsu Monstrosity has 4-wheel drive, and in amphibious mode, it can cross rivers. So far I’ve only hit a few puddles, but it’s good to know it’s there. With the time I save taking shortcuts through the strip-mall parking lot I can focus on the important things. Like gazing longingly at the pool boy or buying more exercise equipment off the TV. So what if it gets 3 miles to the gallon!? I’m a mom, not a conservationist!”

I haven’t seen my brother play that game in ages, but the memory of that woman’s breezy dismissal of everything real still kills me. I used to die laughing at those commercials. And I would wonder about the people writing them, and wish I had a job like that, where I could tell the truth but make it palatable with absurdity — a la Jon Stewart — and people would laugh, and then recognize themselves, and possibly one day change.

Gasoline is $3 a gallon where I live, which is still way cheaper than most anyplace on earth. On my 10-mile trek to and from work on two- and four-lane roads, there are SUVs, Hummers, trucks and minivans — at least as many of these as there are of regular cars. These behemoths are usually holding exactly one person. And because I live in the outlying asphalt sprawl of a large metropolitan area in a totally mountainless state, that person is hardly ever doing weekend off-roading in a scenic red-rock vista.

To make it clear, I’m not one of these people who wants more rules and regulations. Recently my editor wrote a story about how our county is doing a pilot program for red-light cameras. He asked five people if they supported cameras at traffic lights that would be able to photograph cars running red lights, and then warnings and ultimately tickets would be sent to the drivers. I was stunned — stunned — that four out of five thought the cameras were “a good idea”. People want nonstop cops. They want Big Brother watching them and keeping them safe. Personal liberty be damned!

So I’m not one of these people who’s calling for our government to step in and “fix” this problem with a large gas tax. I want people to fix themselves. Why does our government have to tax a short-sighted behavior before we’ll change it? Why do we have to hit peak oil before we reform the way we use fuel? Why does the government have to set emissions standards before we desire more clean, fuel-efficient vehicles? Why are we relying on our government to head off the ecological and fiscal crises that we are incurring with our choices? Why do we have to trap enough greenhouse gasses to spur another ice age before we change our lifestyle? Why do we have to create instability and kill people in the Middle East to ensure we have enough fuel for our country’s infrastructure?

My husband says I’m vaguely ridiculous for going on and on about these sorts of problems. I have to agree, particularly right now because I’m battling a case of bronchitis. (That must be quite a sight: me, my neck slathered with Vicks VapoRub and wrapped in a bathtowel, drinking hot tea with honey, pontificating about the inherent wrongness of driving a Hummer.) Of course I agree theoretically with the words of Jesus, recorded in the Bible: one ought to remove the splinter from one’s own eye, in order to see more clearly, before trying to take out the beam from a neighbor’s eye. Islamic scholar Said Nursi said something along the same lines, that there are concentric circles in one’s life — the inner circle of self, then family, city, country and so on — and that the inner circles have to be faultless and complete before making a meaningful difference in the outer circles is possible.

But seriously (even though it rhymes): What reason could there possibly be for a person to drive an SUV?