...I was stuck in rush-hour traffic in Interstate 5 in Seattle. It was a blistering summer day, hot and so bright it almost hurt your eyes. I was sweating in six lanes of stop and go traffic (mostly stop), and suddenly I had an external viewpoint on this most mundane of American experiences....
Here I was, sitting in several thousand dollars worth of industrial machinery that had been extracted, manufactured, transported, and purchased at great expense--monetary and environmental--every step along the way. I was sitting in this machine, burning fossil hydrocarbons that had also been extracted, transported, processed, and purchased at great expense--monetary and environmental--every step of the way. I was on this federal highway system, the materials for which had likewise been extracted, transported, constructed, and purchased at great expense--monetary and environmental--every step of the way.
And I was going nowhere. The only thing I was accomplishing was polluting the air and losing my patience.
Worse, I was surrounded by tens of thousands of others who were in similar machinery, burning the same expensive, irreplaceable fossil hydrocarbons, polluting the same air, and also going nowhere...
http://bicyclefixation.com/commonsense.html---------------------------