Why I Don’t Believe in Cars, Page 2
“This is the power of choice! This is Capitalism at work!”
By the way, Heroes Con 2007 was the first comic convention I tabled with my future husband Joe Komenda at. I was so absorbed in my own personal drama, I would have been floored if I knew!
Some of the comments on this comic frustrated me. Most were encouraging, but others underscored the “Driving Divide” in America. It’s this “us vs. them” mindset that makes some truck drivers sneer at me in my smart car and that makes some hybrid drivers feel superior. It shouldn’t be like that. What you choose to drive is your own business. If you buy a gas guzzler, I will pity you when the prices rise. If someone in a truck thinks I’m not safe in my tiny smart car, they can pity me and m family when I die in a car crash (which is not likely, since smart cars are much safer than people think). Those are our decisions. When we antagonize each other, though, it makes it harder for either side to compromise when they need to. I’d much rather someone in an SUV be open to living closer to where they work and making better choices for future generations than stubbornly refuse to consider environmental issues because they see them as an assault on their character.
One commentor said she wished I hadn’t used the phrase “right wingers” since it alienated half my audience, including her. I get that. Now that I’ve gone forth into the world, I have learned that there are many kinds of conservatives with many different views, and that some are more informed and thoughtful than others. So my apologies for my grand generalizations of ignorance.
And then there was a commentor who had seen some graph on some site who knows where and told me to keep politics out of my comics because she didn’t come to read about my political agenda. To which I can only say, if you don’t like it, don’t read it. It’s not like I’m forcing you.
Lastly, I have learned that climate change is not a political issue. Politics and policy are involved in how we respond to it, yes, but what is actually happening to the planet, the realities we face and how we can address them, these are scientific issues. What your president says is happening has no bearing whatever on what scientists around the world agree is happening, on what farmers and refugees see is happening. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and arguing about whether or not climate change is happening isn’t going to matter one iota when the scientific majority’s “98% percent chance of precipitation” falls out of the sky and onto the heads of future generations.
Damn I like to mix metaphors. Anyway, chin up, be cooperative, try not to mess the planet up! We’re in this together!