Nuclears and fossils

[imomus]

This is my nuclear family. We're at my brother's wedding, which happened on Saturday. We don't all get together very often, the Currie nuclears, but I always really enjoy it when we do. We speak the same language. We share the same genes. I love them. It's also weird; when I look at a picture like this, I can't help thinking of Charles Ray's spooky 1992 sculpture "Family Romance", where a nuclear family stands naked in a line holding hands, all the same height, at different stages of development. We're all grown, and we're all still here, even if we're somewhat scattered now and all have our own lives.



We were mostly together in the 1960s and 1970s — that would be our "active years" in a music encyclopaedia if we were a rock band. Like a rock band, we toured around the world endlessly. In planes, in boats (my sister's son Robbie now looks exactly like me in a photo taken in 1973 on the SS France, as we sailed into New York harbour, emigrating to Canada) but mostly in cars. In the speech at his reception, my brother proposed a toast to his dear nuclears: "The main thing I remember about my family is that I never said a word," he mused, to the amusement of the crowd. "That we drove all over the world, it seems, the five of us, in a car, and I don't ever remember speaking. But there's something very good about this, because I think I derive from the four other members of my family all the key personality traits that I have now. I took the good bit from each. People say this about me — that somehow I sit quietly and absorb. That's what I did with them, and I think I got a fantastic combination of things."

My brother chose a particularly lovely part of the Norfolk coast to get married on. The wedding and reception were in a barn at Burnham Market, and the next day we all had a walk along the gorgeous beach (pines, dunes, miles of white sand) at Holkham Bay. Mark also chose a particularly inaccessible place; even for a public transport afficionado like myself, it was completely necessary to rent a car. In fact, Hisae and I missed the wedding ceremony itself because I made the mistake of thinking the A1(M) and the M1 were the same road. We turned round at the Watford Gap service station and headed across country, arriving a couple of hours late.



The fossils in my title aren't my family. They're cars, and the fuels they burn. As I drove towards the beauty of my brother's wedding, I couldn't help thinking how ugly car culture has made rural England. I'm sure once upon a time cars were a good idea, an idea you could get behind. When I was born there were 6 million cars in the UK. Now there are around 30 million, crammed into the same small island, all vying for space, polluting the atmosphere, making their drivers disconnected, disembodied, irritable, contributing to global warming, poisoning people, poisoning politics, making transit corridors of places that barely still have dignity as places-in-themselves. Driving past the roadkill and the Fatal Accident Here signs ("call police with information"), making way for the screaming ambulances (two or three of them) en route, I imagined how Chaucer's England, or Robin Hood's, must have been; covered with mixed temperate deciduous forests, traversed by donkeys and horses. Slow life! The air must have been clean then.

From the plane, flying in, I counted a convoy of oil tankers on the English Channel. Fourteen of them, heading south. The next day my plane to Berlin took off from Luton two hours late, delayed by Britain's biggest ever peacetime explosion. A fossil fuel explosion. I got a good view of the fire, just ten miles from the airport, when we took off at 9pm... in fact, after take-off we turned and flew right over the inferno, so close I feared the plane would be buffeted or singed. The lights of the highway snaking past the blazing depot looked oddly normal, oddly unperturbed by this oily cataclysm spilling black smoke across England. The radio reports I'd been hearing all day had been calming in tone: motorists shouldn't panic-buy fuel, there was still enough to go around. People should stay indoors and try to avoid inhaling the cloud of burnt ultra-low sulphur diesel, unleaded petrol, super unleaded motor spirit, kerosene, gas oil and aviation fuel. But as for pollution, well, all this stuff would have been burnt into Britain's atmosphere anyway, just in slightly more efficient ways. No cause for concern. No more than usual, anyway.

I believe that one day we'll look back on the age of the car as an age of fossils, filth and savagery. But I'm the black sheep of my British nuclear family: the only one without a car.

Comments

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Do you see any inconsistency between the condemnation of fossil fuel in your post and your admissions of having flown from Berlin to Luton and back, and thus having contributed to fossil-fuel pollution far more than catching trains and/or ships (or even driving the distance and catching ferries across the Channel) would have?

From what I've read, the boom in cheap flights has been one of the most ecologically damaging phenomena in Europe in recent years. Convenience and price wins every time, and aviation fuel is tax free.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't want to get into quibbles about statistics, because both road transport and aviation need to reduce emissions. But the figures I've seen are that aviation causes 3.5% of global warming. Road transport causes about 60%.

[glowingwhispers.livejournal.com]

You have one of the hippest looking families that I've ever seen.

[spoombung.livejournal.com]

You have one of the hippest looking families that I've ever seen.

Yes, I have to agree. And I'm puzzled how it's done, quite honestly. Because whenever my family get together for photos we look like a bunch of short-arsed, overweight social misfits with learning difficulties.

[(Anonymous)]

"The Buncefield depot is a major distribution terminal operated by Total and part-owned by Texaco, storing oil, petrol as well as kerosene which supplies airports across the region, including Heathrow and Luton" (from the linked BBC article)

So most of that oil would have been used by the airplanes you take to go to, say, Germany, or Japan, or New York...

Momus, should we go back to the age of international transport by boat, propelled by wind only?


--Remi(ttens)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The depot did also store kerosene, as I mentioned in the article. But "most of that oil" is not kerosene. All pollution is bad, but most transport pollution is coming from road traffic. The solution I advocate is the adoption of Japanese models; because of the widespread use of public transport, Japan is one of the most energy-efficient countries in the world, producing just 4.8% of global carbon emissions. For comparison, China is increasing its carbon emissions 5% per year and the US produces 25% of global carbon emissions.

[dzima.livejournal.com]

Nick's sister is better looking than Liz Hurley.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

dzima !! it's about time 2 cobble some website together. cut it up, boy !! FASTER !!

cars in the usa

[(Anonymous)]

i don't have a car myself, nor do two of my friends, but i just found out that our three families own a total of 17 cars. personally, i think it's disgusting. i wish i could say our generation is environmentally progressive, but looking outside to the street below, i'm sure that's not the case. i've been living in an overcrowded area right outside of a major univerity, & the highest buildings around are the parking garages. i've lived in london and i saw (inhaled) how bad it was there. yet, there are probably only 50 or 60,000 people living here, and often the traffic outside my window now is as bad as my old window which overlooked new cross road. i think most europeans assume americans to be incredibly lazy or apathetic towards the environment... but i think it's actually far worse than most imagine.

Re: cars in the usa

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that, and I have to say that the fact that you're the only person saying this here so far, and are anonymous, doesn't portend very well for the future either.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, I think you're being very disingenuous with your anti-car tirade. Yes, of course I'd like to see far fewer cars on the roads. But how many plane trips have you made in the last couple of years? A dozen? Two dozen?The fact remains that your jet-setting, peripatetic lifestyle generates FAR MORE CO2 EMISSIONS than the lifestyle of someone who drives to work every day, and perhaps takes a plane from one European destination to another once a year for their holidays. So why aren't you decrying lifestyles that involve taking the plane more than a couple of times a year? Or is that a bit too close to home?

[resonantfish.livejournal.com]

This anon says it best. I hardly think that Mr. Momus is in a position to decry the driving lifestyle of the average American who is not NEARLY as privileged as himself. Some of us have jobs to get to, captain. And maybe HE can choose where he lives and his particular local population density, but I doubt that many people can so liberally jaunt around.

Use a car, use a plane, use a unicycle. Just don't be a snob about it.

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Um, but anyway-- I like the family stuff. Family is important, regardless of all the artists who would prefer to run away into their statistical quibbles.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

welcum back 2 da weirdos.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

your father looks like a good laugh..awe.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm. I think all (most of) these people love their cars too much (and like to argue).

I have no clue how to drive, and never plan on learning (30 years old now.. . and American !!.. . I don't know if "American" is much of point, but there are at least three H2s I see going up and down my street.. . constantly.. . "soccer-moms".. .)

No matter how terrible flying is, you flying 5, 10, 15 times a year cannot be better than 27 years of not driving (too often).

Justin.. .
Flickr.. .
Myspace.. .
" the red joke " .. .
(Just don't want to be completely "Anon".. . sorry)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

you flying 5, 10, 15 times a year cannot be better than 27 years of not driving (too often).

Thanks, I'm going to assume you mean "cannot but be better..."!

Off Topic?

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

I saw Syriana (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/) last night. I highly recomend it.

[(Anonymous)]

"Um, but anyway-- I like the family stuff. Family is important, regardless of all the artists who would prefer to run away into their statistical quibbles."

Perfectly said (please excuse my last comment)
Justin.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

By the way, I just want to note that the very first Click Opera entry to get over 50 comments was this one, Al Careda (http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/19380.html), about cars. I was also accused of hypocrisy for that entry, but it was a different hypocrisy; one of my songs had been licensed by an Italian advertising agency to advertise Suzuki vehicles. How could I countenance this, when I had an anti-car stance?

In fact, the Suzuki in question was a highly fuel efficient small vehicle, so I'm going to sit back and wait for due congratulation for that "hypocrisy" from the people telling me today that virtue consists, sometimes, in efficient private transport, or that I shouldn't be a snob.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

so I'm going to sit back and wait for due congratulation for that "hypocrisy" from the people telling me today that virtue consists, sometimes, in efficient private transport

Seems reasonable to me, but the person making that accusation was anonymous. Could've been anyone - it's normal that different people will disagree with you for different reasons.

Still think the train would have been most enviro-friendly from Berlin though...

[jasongtokyo.livejournal.com]

Sport Pollutility Vehicle, it should be renamed. And walking may induce increased farting -- methane. Surely it's not 0.

Car lovers will defend their tin boxes (with their soft, cream center) until death.

If you're going to pollute the air, at least do it by travelling to other cultures instead of driving to work!!

[jasongtokyo.livejournal.com]

Oh, that chart was for CO2 only, not methane.

Graphs are for giraffes.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

who's that chap walking to chicago? stanley lieber !!! (our lil traveller)

fossils are a nuclear issue

[dactilografo.livejournal.com]

Studies have proven that train is the most ecological mean of transport when you weight all variables in this process. But this thing is much wider than a choice between private or public transports, plains, boats, bikes or whatever. This question is about development models. You see, in Portugal, 20 years ago, we started to receive the huge amounts of money the EU offered us for development. Spain and Ireland faced the same experience more or less around that period.
In Portugal, that money was used to build a few thousands of highways. Now we have a lot of trains and people driving from city to city (in this so tiny country) in their own vehicles.
In Spain, there is now the TGV and a reinforcement of the maritime transportation starting a rebirth of the ancient inhospitable port cities.
In Ireland, it were built (I’m not sure but it’s something around that) 10 km of highway. Nowadays, the grey people of EU, the guys with the nice (sometimes, not so nice) suites and ties, talk about the Irish Miracle and the Irish Development Example, a kind of European Japan…
What I mean is that transport policy is a global strategy issue. And one of the most important too. If those grey people around Europe decide to think a bit and promote a reasonable transport policy, then the urge to buy and use cars will certainly decrease. People only buy cars because they’re “advised” to. When you offer intelligent networks and correct transport policies, population will adopt them as the best. You can search on the absolutely impressive operation made in Brazil, in a city called Curitiba to get an idea of what’s possible to do in a small/medium scale, or take a look at the trains around the European Pentagon to get a nice and quite good working train network on a larger scale.

Re: fossils are a nuclear issue

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I think the reactions here, though, show exactly why politicians avoid attacks on cars and road culture. Because people invest a lot in owning cars, they're emotionally very invested in them too. It takes a lot to persuage them otherwise, and it may cost a politician his career.

Irony and solutions

[madape.livejournal.com]

There is a new urbanist type area () near my house that is amazingly absent of places to lock up your bike. I've seen a few people lock their bikes to trees in the middle of the walkway. Your post reminds me I should give them a call or email about this apparent discrepency from "pedestrian friendly". I think they must expect people to DRIVE to the area, park, and then walk around.

Also, what are some possible simple solutions that could be implemented locally and make a difference?

There have been tax-incentives to purchase hybrid vehicles before, what about tax-incentives for living close to work or utilizing public transportation? Also, an interesting idea I heard on the radio was having electrical utitiles inform their customers of the average power consumption for a house of similar size so they can see where they stand. Other ideas?

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Handsome lot. Kudos to your paw for donning the clan colors (appropriately, mine is somewhat magenta).

I live in the country, work from home and use my bicycle to get about on most days; I get sick from the air when I spend more than a week in either Paris or London. I suppose my lungs are spoiled.

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

That's funny - I didn't enjoy the smell of London either.

[resonantfish.livejournal.com]

Either way, you still rock my brains with genius.

And I borrow my car, since I too cannot afford one.

[xinit.livejournal.com]

I was going to comment on how completely unimpressed you look in many of your posed photos such as this one, and then I noticed the guy on the right side, also looking unimpressed; your brother, I assume?

[luckyclone.livejournal.com]

LoL 2 this thread's comments... air travel's got NOTHING on car-commuting when it comes to pollution. and planes don't fuck up the landscape, they just make a lot of noise while looking really cool.

momus, have you seen the trailer for sophia coppola's new movie? marie antoinette?

http://movies.aol.com/movie_exclusive_marie_antoinette_trailer

just stay tuned and brace yourself for the pOsT-pUnK title graphics. wow!

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

jolie laid don't re-tyre....next.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

bro looks like a right miserable git in that photo. i dig the gloss shirt though.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think he's just doing his best Jacques Derrida face (http://www.sijmen.nl/filo/philoimages/derrida.jpg).

[xaotica.livejournal.com]

i do think there is a growing interest in the u.s. in alternative fuel (biodiesel, electric cars, etc), more fuel-efficient cars for those who do insist on normal gasoline, an anti-SUV sentiment, etc... not so much because of more environmentalist tendencies, but because the cost of gasoline is rising. even the more conservative members of the population are jumping on this bandwagon because they don't want to be seen as "supporting the middle east" via gasoline purchases...

but it is true that the car is an ingrained part of the culture here. at the upperclass high school i went to, it was considered normal for every kid to get a car on their 16th birthday, as soon as they were legally able to drive.

part of it is the population density issue. i live in seattle, and supposedly we have one of the best bus systems in the country. but since everything is so spread out, a typical bus trip which goes even a short distance is lengthy. for example, it takes me 12 minutes to drive to my job in a suburb east of the city... but on the bus, the same trip takes 1.5 hours.

but the older i get, the more i become disillusioned with car culture. i love driving, but i don't love sitting in terrible traffic every day surrounded by hundreds of other people who are also sitting alone in their cars.

i'm sure you guys probably have something similar... but one popular program that was started here recently is flexcar (http://www.flexcar.com). they park cars around the city, and for a monthly fee, you can go on a website, reserve a car for an hour, and walk a block away and pick it up. as a result, many of my friends have been able to get rid of their cars.

scooters have also been getting more popular where i live. that's my plan: ditch the car and get a scooter.. hopefully one that can run on biodiesel.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm going to invent a car powered by my own sense of self-satisfaction

[jina---.livejournal.com]

I couldn't help thinking how ugly car culture has made rural England.

so true. I second that. not only england.