1, Thus, while the Cold War was based on the atom, the hot war which began at the end of the 20th century is largely based on the automobile and its massive use on a planetary scale. The individual automobile characterizes the Western way of life, rapidly progressing throughout the rest of the planet, based on the accelerated plunder of natural resources and in particular hydrocarbons. However, what was already difficult to sustain on a Western scale is simply becoming impossible on a global scale. The first petro-wars and the exploration of oil within ecological sanctuaries, the growing pollution and proven global warming, the current tensions on the prices of raw materials and the plundering of world reserves are all warning signs of a planned destruction of the planet by the “civilization of the automobile”. (source: Marcel Robert, To put an end to the automobile society, CarFree Editions, September 2005)
2, A symbol of virility for flirts lacking confidence, the car could ultimately prove more harmful than beneficial for men’s fertility. According to an Italian study, automobile pollution affects the quality of sperm. Dr Michele De Rosa’s team examined the quality of the sperm of 85 men working at toll gates and therefore exposed to exhaust fumes for 6 hours a day. When comparing these samples to those of men living in the same region, they did not observe differences in the quantity of sperm, the levels of certain hormones acting on sperm production or male sex hormones. But the parameters relating to sperm quality were significantly lower among toll workers and even lower than the standards defined by the World Health Organization. Further analyzes showed that nitrous oxides and lead were the most dangerous substances. There is thus an inverse correlation between the number of spermatozoa and the concentration of lead in the blood (blood lead), and the other qualitative parameters were inversely correlated with the level of methemoglobin, a marker of the concentration of nitrous oxides. “Our study demonstrates that continued exposure to automobile pollution affects sperm quality in young and middle-aged men,” the authors conclude. The latter call for further epidemiological studies and fertility assessments in men who have left their work at the toll booth, to determine whether the harmful action of these substances is reversible. (source: Laurent Mauriac, Antivoitures.free.fr).
3, Let us summarize this thesis (by Aldous Huxley): if you want to use all the resources of industrial civilization to acquire immense power, distribute purchasing power to the population and resort massively to advertising to condition them to consume this that you produce, which will make her happy and make her delight in her servitude. The thesis was published in 1931, well before Keynes’s ideas on supporting purchasing power were known to the public and even to most policy makers. (source: Richard Bergeron, The Black Book of the Automobile, Exploring the unhealthy relationship between contemporary man and the automobile, ed. Hypothesis).
Paradox of the automobile: apparently, it gave its owners unlimited independence, allowing them to travel at times and on routes of their choosing at a speed equal to or greater than that of the railway. But, in reality, this apparent autonomy had the opposite side of a radical dependence: unlike the rider, the cart driver or the cyclist, the motorist would depend for his energy supply, as well as for the repair of the slightest damage, merchants and specialists in carburetion, lubrication, ignition and exchange of standard parts. Unlike all previous owners of means of locomotion, the motorist would have a relationship as user and consumer – and not as possessor and master – to the vehicle of which, formally, he was the owner. This vehicle, in other words, would force him to consume and use a host of commercial services and industrial products that only third parties could provide. The apparent autonomy of the owner of an automobile covered his radical dependence (André Gorz, The Social Ideology of the Car, 1973).
At a time when the motor show opens following an annual rite, it may be justified to question the relevance of such a purchase. The automobile has become an obligation, a component of normality, social status, independence, even virility. This is thanks to vast advertising budgets, and also with the help of state powers, which without the shadow of real reflection have paved the roads and built highways with public funds.
However, the automobile, a product whose price is only beginning to fall despite decades of profitability of industrial investment, represents an enormous pressure on household budgets, without a relationship with real utility being always well established. Far from guaranteeing independence, the automobile is the object of the unleashing of the sovereign State, with the surge of controls, injunctions and taxes of all kinds. It is seriously and rapidly destroying the environment through noise, pro-auto urban planning, and global warming. Finally, it is the occasion for individualistic, egocentric, conflicting and sometimes violent behavior.
These few quotes from excellent texts, without claiming to exhaust the subject, encourage us to think about it.
And to ask ourselves if we could not do without the automobile, allocate our financial resources differently, develop other solutions, or use it more responsibly.
