I like how McCarthy starts his Intro by asking the question, can six to nine billion human beings find contentment through the unending acquisition of material possessions without irreparably harming the planet they depend on? Wow! Take a look around you right now; I’m sure there are all kinds of objects made of plastic and other petroleum based products that we just had to have because we just had to have them. The things we just have to have are the items that seem to be filling our land fills and killing our oceans, knowing this we still have to have our little trinkets. McCarthy really gets the environmental question stuck in your head before we even get too involved in his book.
Always thinking Henry Ford was the father of automobiles, McCarthy states it was Vanderbilt and his wealthy friends that fathered the American love for the automobile by always keeping the car in the public’s eye through magazines and racing. Speeding tickets and reckless driving never entered my mind. I always thought the early years of the car as sluggish and slow, but Vanderbilt and Bostwick proved to be the first hellions on wheels.
In the early 1900’s gasoline was a waste product when they distilled kerosene from petroleum. Kerosene producers would dump gasoline back in the natural environment. In our life time gasoline has always been one of the important commodities. Imagine gasoline only costing 7 cents a gallon. Life would be so different if we had a fuel that was affordable and had a high EROEI. In 1906 when Roosevelt signed the free alcohol act into law it gave everyone the opportunity to switch from petroleum to alcohol powered cars, but the auto industry and consumers kept pushing for petroleum since gas powered cars where already formatted for production and a proven raw power which Vanderbilt was the poster boy. Think of life if we did switch to alcohol in the early 1900’s. Would our energy needs be less complex? Would we still depend on foreign energy? Would we have the pollution problems that we have today from our cars?
Ford would rather build a car that the common man could afford. He wanted to build a car that would last a life time. What a concept! He wanted to build a car that could be easily and inexpensively repaired. I think we all wish that he could have fulfilled his dream. How many times have we had our cars break down to find out that only a specially trained mechanic could fix it, for a very outrages price? We can thank Sloan and GM for wrecking Ford's dream. GM made cars more fashionable and stylish than Ford. GM created an automobile market that would persuade people to buy a new car before it’s time was up. For the first time in automobile history the consumer was caught up in the material world of what’s new and what’s different. Ford stood his ground until he realized he needed to start updating his cars to stay in business and to compete with GM, which is when Ford came out with his Model A. With cars starting to change annually, it was model and year to be the cause of retirement, not the mechanics of the vehicle, which caused more unnecessary environment waste and damage.
Then the Cadillac became America’s obsession. Ford and Chevrolet were both forced to transform their cars to resemble the Cadillac. Cadillac was a status symbol; it was a symbol that told others that they have achieved financial freedom. After World War II, Americans wanted more for more, not more for less. More for more meant, more horse power, more chrome plating, more steel, and more pollution. The Big Three and the consumers were forgetting about the environment and instead, thinking of status and success.
The water pollution always received the most publicity because of the sportsman who hunted and fished, but the air pollution couldn’t be ignored. Henry Ford’s Rouge was the biggest polluter. The Rouge was then how a lot of China factories are today. Many of their rivers have no fish to be fished, because of the toxins. Their air is so bad they had many of their factories shut down during the Olympics. You would think that we as humans would learn from our mistakes. Maybe that thought should be in our heads when we purchase our next material object from China. The Environmental Protection Agency, which was formed in 1970, was in charge of enforcing the 1970 Clean Air Act and the 1972 Clean Water Act. The Clean Air Act is considered the most controversial law ever passed. Thanks to these laws it put pressure on the automotive industries to produce a better product, they had no interest in reducing pollution or increasing fuel efficiency on their own.
After the Clean Air Act was passed into law the auto makers knew they needed to clean up the exhaust from their automobiles. One of the steps to cleaning the exhaust was to get the Tetra ethyl lead out of the gasoline. Lead in gasoline is absurd, it is poisonous to humans and our environment. Lead in gasoline meant lead in our atmosphere and permanently in our lungs. The sad part is they knew how dangerous this was and still kept manufacturing it. Auto Mania was a very informational read. It did have a lot of scientific facts and governmental statistics, but I feel McCarthy had to put the data in to get the whole feel about just how massive and powerful the automotive industry is. It also shows how the automotive industry was the cause for some of our big government. I could ramble on about so many other areas, but I will save the rest for class.
Always thinking Henry Ford was the father of automobiles, McCarthy states it was Vanderbilt and his wealthy friends that fathered the American love for the automobile by always keeping the car in the public’s eye through magazines and racing. Speeding tickets and reckless driving never entered my mind. I always thought the early years of the car as sluggish and slow, but Vanderbilt and Bostwick proved to be the first hellions on wheels.
In the early 1900’s gasoline was a waste product when they distilled kerosene from petroleum. Kerosene producers would dump gasoline back in the natural environment. In our life time gasoline has always been one of the important commodities. Imagine gasoline only costing 7 cents a gallon. Life would be so different if we had a fuel that was affordable and had a high EROEI. In 1906 when Roosevelt signed the free alcohol act into law it gave everyone the opportunity to switch from petroleum to alcohol powered cars, but the auto industry and consumers kept pushing for petroleum since gas powered cars where already formatted for production and a proven raw power which Vanderbilt was the poster boy. Think of life if we did switch to alcohol in the early 1900’s. Would our energy needs be less complex? Would we still depend on foreign energy? Would we have the pollution problems that we have today from our cars?
Ford would rather build a car that the common man could afford. He wanted to build a car that would last a life time. What a concept! He wanted to build a car that could be easily and inexpensively repaired. I think we all wish that he could have fulfilled his dream. How many times have we had our cars break down to find out that only a specially trained mechanic could fix it, for a very outrages price? We can thank Sloan and GM for wrecking Ford's dream. GM made cars more fashionable and stylish than Ford. GM created an automobile market that would persuade people to buy a new car before it’s time was up. For the first time in automobile history the consumer was caught up in the material world of what’s new and what’s different. Ford stood his ground until he realized he needed to start updating his cars to stay in business and to compete with GM, which is when Ford came out with his Model A. With cars starting to change annually, it was model and year to be the cause of retirement, not the mechanics of the vehicle, which caused more unnecessary environment waste and damage.
Then the Cadillac became America’s obsession. Ford and Chevrolet were both forced to transform their cars to resemble the Cadillac. Cadillac was a status symbol; it was a symbol that told others that they have achieved financial freedom. After World War II, Americans wanted more for more, not more for less. More for more meant, more horse power, more chrome plating, more steel, and more pollution. The Big Three and the consumers were forgetting about the environment and instead, thinking of status and success.
The water pollution always received the most publicity because of the sportsman who hunted and fished, but the air pollution couldn’t be ignored. Henry Ford’s Rouge was the biggest polluter. The Rouge was then how a lot of China factories are today. Many of their rivers have no fish to be fished, because of the toxins. Their air is so bad they had many of their factories shut down during the Olympics. You would think that we as humans would learn from our mistakes. Maybe that thought should be in our heads when we purchase our next material object from China. The Environmental Protection Agency, which was formed in 1970, was in charge of enforcing the 1970 Clean Air Act and the 1972 Clean Water Act. The Clean Air Act is considered the most controversial law ever passed. Thanks to these laws it put pressure on the automotive industries to produce a better product, they had no interest in reducing pollution or increasing fuel efficiency on their own.
After the Clean Air Act was passed into law the auto makers knew they needed to clean up the exhaust from their automobiles. One of the steps to cleaning the exhaust was to get the Tetra ethyl lead out of the gasoline. Lead in gasoline is absurd, it is poisonous to humans and our environment. Lead in gasoline meant lead in our atmosphere and permanently in our lungs. The sad part is they knew how dangerous this was and still kept manufacturing it. Auto Mania was a very informational read. It did have a lot of scientific facts and governmental statistics, but I feel McCarthy had to put the data in to get the whole feel about just how massive and powerful the automotive industry is. It also shows how the automotive industry was the cause for some of our big government. I could ramble on about so many other areas, but I will save the rest for class.
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