Bear of ignorance

A logical bear would not hug this dude. About 66% of the world's electricity comes from coal-fired plants. The Nissan Leaf pictured here is more likely than not to be powered by coal, and coal combustion is the single biggest source of carbon dioxide pollution which is understood to contribute to global warming .

My objective is not to rail against electric cars; it is to rail against cars. Indeed, if this were a truly thinking bear, s/he would hug someone who takes the bus/train to work.

The personal car is the second-most dubious of man's creations (religion taking the first spot, of course). It does not make good sense to eat soup using a shovel. It does not make any sense to carry around a bed sheet as a handkerchief. Why then does a car make sense as a method of personal transport? Why is it sensible to carry around 2,500 kgs of metal to take a person weighing 80 kgs from point A to point B? Why does it make sense to fuel 100-plus horsepowers when much less would do?

If you said "safety" or "speed" in response to my rhetorical questions, you certainly have a point. However, the meeting point between pragmatism and purpose has rarely settled so much on the side of purpose, as it has in the case of the personal car. Leaf-owners or not, there are no hugs for us, really.