Anti Idling, We Have A Long Way To Go

By Ben Meisner

The new Anti Idling ambassador , of which part of the job description is to run around town and put a sticky on spots where people idle their vehicles, is about the equivalent of trying to beat a Tyrannosaurus rex  to death with a tack hammer.

When you think about trying to get people to shut their vehicles off to save the air in the city when, for example,  they are waiting in line at Tim’s, you really have to wonder just how honourable are the intentions?

Now I don’t want to take the effort away from them, while it may be very noble in their respective minds, any sane thinking person would quickly come to the conclusion of just how minuscule the impact really is.

If the Idling Fairy really wanted to do something constructive, they might want to try and convince people that the large homes that we have become accustomed to are really not needed and the cost to the atmosphere must be considered. They also might want to talk to the companies and government, including their own, about reducing the amount of heat they use every day in their office. How about a sweater and a reduction of the thermostat setting.

Then there is the matter of the vehicles that we drive. How do you expect people to change the kind of vehicle they drive to a hybrid, it takes money.  Just look around there are a lot of unemployed and people  living near the line that simply can’t afford a new set of modern wheels. They however still need to get to their job and so we are trying to single them out.

The matter of  cooking on your Barb-b-Q, strikes a chord because the smoke from that bar-b is far more harmful than a few seconds of car exhaust at a stop sign. While we are at it, has the Idle Fairy considered talking to restaurants that use grills with vents to the outside world to cook their meats?  That is very harmful and contributes more than Grammas wood stove could ever conceive.

The intention may have been that we are doing something about contributing to the air quality in our city, in reality they have decided to stick the knife in where it will have little meaningful effect. The resulting problem however is that the experiment comes at a heavy cost to those that can afford it the least.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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