Author: Hank Garfield

It’s Earth Day all over the World

Hank Garfield

In June 1989, five months after running aground and spilling its cargo in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, the Exxon Valdez limped home to San Diego, still leaking a trail of oil.

I went down to the shipyard where it was docked, but the public wasn’t allowed in close and there wasn’t much to see. The true costs of the American car culture are often hidden from view. 

Earth Day is now observed in more than 180 countries. Which makes sense when you think about it. Humanity has many religions and nations, but so far only one planet.

The first Earth Day was a response to a massive oil spill near Santa Barbara, twenty years before the Exxon Valdez disaster. Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, an early opponent of the Vietnam War, toured the California coastline in the aftermath of the spill, and thought that the energy of the anti-war protests could be brought to bear on environmental issues. 

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Infrastructure Bill Incentivizes Alternatives to the Automobile

Hank Garfield

“You should not have to own a car to prosper in this country, no matter what kind of community you’re living in.”

– Pete Buttigieg, United States Secretary of Transportation 

How sweet it is to hear what one has been saying for years articulated at the top levels of government. I’m not alone. Independently and by the millions, Americans have begun to recognize that automobile ownership need not be a necessity in their lives, and that we should stop designing communities and commercial areas as though it were.

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What does Baseball have to do with Slower Traffic (other than slowness)?

Hank Garfield

I might pay more attention to baseball this year.

Last year I paid no attention at all. We had bigger fish to fry in 2020. I missed swaths of the previous two seasons when I was overseas. I feel like I’ve been away from the game a long time.

But the start of baseball season seems particularly propitious this year. It is a season of new hope, slow to unfold but glorious in its undiscovered potential. And though baseball is indeed slow, as its critics are quick to point out, it is also the most optimistic of sports. A team has a chance to win until the final out. A second-string shortstop can be the hero of the World Series. In spring training, every player’s a star, every team a contender. This year, we all could use an extra helping of hope. 

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