22 SMITHSONIAN | April 2020EARTH DAYprologue
Instead, carmakers developed and embraced the
catalytic converter, which helped drastically re-
duce air pollution and allowed the internal com-
bustion engine to live on.
As air pollution from automobiles dropped, their
footprint on the ground kept growing. In the decades
that followed, disputes about proposed highways that
would cut through city neighborhoods continued
across the country. George Coling, a member of the
teach-in’s steering committee while a graduate stu-
dent at Michigan’s School of Public Health, pursued
a long career in ecological activism, and saw the toll
of these freeway fi ghts up close. “There were massive
intrusions of interstates into urban neighborhoods,
which meant displacement of whole areas, razing of
homes and businesses,” says Coling.
To Coling, the car’s show trial and
violent execution were about
more than just pollution:They symbolized the need to move beyond a car-based
transportation system toward one that off ered better
mass transit, which could be more environmentally
friendly and cost users less.
Still, looking back after a long career in environ-
mental justice, he acknowledges that destroying a
car was not a wholly righteous thing to do. “The act of
smashing a car is quite elitist,” Coling says, because it
fails to consider “the very real need that people have
for transportation.” Americans may not be as psycho-
logically dependent on cars as Dr. Ford claimed, but
they still need them to get around. Even the unnamed
owner of the executed car admitted at the demonstra-
tion, over the arrhythmic clang of sledgehammers on
metal, that he had donated the vehicle after purchas-
ing a new car.101214161820222426283032Sales of electric
vehicles in the United
States grew by81%
from 2017 to 2018.
SEDAN/
WAG O NIn 2017, transportation
accounted for29%
of U.S. GHG emissions,
topping other sectors
(electric power, agri-
culture and industry )
for the fi rst time since
the EPA started track-
ing this data in 1990.1973
saw the lowest
fuel effi ciency in
the last 70 years,
with passenger
cars averaging 13.4
mpg—no better than
the original Model T
Ford of 1908.Between 1970 and
2018 , the total
number of miles that
Americans drove
rose by177%
SMALLER
SUVS
LARGER
SUVS
PICKUPSVANSThe Road More Traveled
VEHICLES TODAY ARE GREENER, THANKS TO GOVERNMENT STANDARDS AND NEW
TECHNOLOGY. SO WHY ARE CLIMATE-WARMING EMISSIONS PILING UP?
By Ted Scheinman
TAILPIPE EXHAUST IS CLEANER THAN
ever, and fuel effi ciency is up, lifted
lately by hybrid and electric vehicles. Ye t
cars’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
aren’t falling because there are more
Americans—and they’re driving more.1975 1980 1985 1990MILES PER GALLON1995 2000 2005 2010 2015BYLINES Kate Wcovering climate change and environmental justice. heeling is a California-based journalistALAMY;^SOURCES:^PEW^TRUSTS,^ EDI
SON^ ELECTRI
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IN
STITUTE,^ THEENVIRONMENTALPROTECTION^AGENCY,^ THEENERGYINFORMAT
ION^
ADMINISTRAT
ION,
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IGHWAYADMI
NI
STRATIONData analysis by Emilio Leanza