David Roedl

Recently, a friend forwarded me a news blurb from Treehugger.com about a so-called “green hummer”. Other than the fluorescent-lime paint job, its purportedly green feature is that it runs on biofuels enabling a 40 mpg fuel economy. I was little less than enthused, especially considering that my normal honda civic gets about the same, even while carting myself, a friend and most of my belongings.

While the effort to retrofit existing technologies into less harmful ones is often well-intentioned, it can be problematic when it tends to perpetuate the larger unsustainable structures of our culture. As cars become more efficient, they only extend our sprawl lifestyle; resulting in wasteful and destructive land development, inefficient transportation of goods, increased isolation, etc. etc. A modifed plug-in toyota prius earning 100 mpg is just as guilty as the hummer in this equation (not to mention my own design for an for oxymoronically named ‘eco-driving’ dashboard)…

Opposing this dynamic is a serious challenge now that green has become mainstream (which certainly you must have noticed). Politicians, businesspeople, technologists, everyone suddenly concerned about global warming will be tempted into applying old-school techno-centered fixes to problems that truly demand something greater and deeper. I offer Baron Hill’s words at Bloominton’s Step-it-Up event last Saturday as evidence. The Indiana congressmen exclaimed that “we have the technology” to stop climate change, referencing hybrid and bio-diesel. He went on with some empty ramblings that did more to point fingers at India and China than to encourage responsible action. Bush’s plan to cure our oil-addiction with more corn monoculture is even more insidious. Its a sad day when a communist dictator has saner energy insight than our democratically-elected leader.

If we are to have any hope for sustainment, we need to more serious critical reflection about how we got here. Car culture seems to me to be the best place to start. In that spirit, I’d like to commend the designers at greenhummerproject.org. A green hummer worth the name, their sexy vehicle may be painted yellow but has zero emissions and more importantly provokes some thoughts for all who encounter it.