McSweeney’s bringing some hard truths with this one. We could all be doing better.
You forgot to go back in time and tell people that subsidizing the oil industry might be a bad idea.
When the oil and auto industries teamed up to bend public policy to their will, making a system of roads and parking lots that now function as a continuous subsidy and magnificent symbol of the normalization of injury and pollution, you had a lot of options. You could have objected. You could have shifted public opinion. Instead, you weren’t even born yet. And, rather than go back in time, all you’ve been doing is riding to get groceries and occasionally saying, “Please stop killing us.” On the effort scale? 1/10.
That would be amazing, but unfortunately not the case in many places, including Australia where instead a bike rider that gets hit by a car gets told that it is too difficult to prove blame on the driver, even when there is clear video evidence and third part witness statements saying the the driver intentionally rammed the rider.
Don’t ask me how I know…