“Does it count if I have a "Save the Planet" bumper sticker on my truck?”

A comment that has stood out to me from a past housemate (she was from Germany) was:

“If Montanans are so into being environmentally-friendly, then why do all of them drive cars -- especially massive ones?”

This contradiction reminded me of our ZMET exercise. During the ZMOT exercise, I experienced several occasions where a person brought in an image and started to talk about it and halfway additional questioning it seemed they had completely switched opinions.

A ZMET interview

I find a similar interesting behavior when it comes to Americans / Montanans and our love of cars and the environment.

In Europe, everyone having and driving a car is not the norm. Biking is much more common and public transit works well and is frequently used. However, in the US, especially Montana, everyone has a car and uses that at their main mode of transportation.

USA transportation vs. European transporation

What do we have in common though? We both boost of being eco-friendly.

It is surprising to me that most people do not realize how addicted and obsessed with cars we are. I had a business professor once tell the class that “everyone in the world wants to own a pick-up”.

An American Symbol: The Pick-Up Truck

From my experience living and traveling around the world, I have not found that the case. Most people are looking for smaller cars as they use less fuel, take up less space, and are easier to drive. My European friends even consider my Honda Civic as a large car.

European-sized cars 

One argument is that with all of this space in our country, each of us can drive our cars. However, just because we CAN does it mean we SHOULD?

According to National Geographic, cars are America’s biggest air quality compromisers and produce more than one-third of all U.S. air pollution.

Graph showing the CO2 emissions of different transportation modes

Even though, cars are becoming more eco-friendly. It is difficult to trust these statistics after the recent VW scandal.

I am not suggesting we all need to give up driving cars or that you are hypocrite if you drive a car. However, I do think we need to start thinking as a nation about the impact of our love of driving cars and ways we nudge people towards car usage.

For example, in Bozeman, large cars are readily sold and marketed while small cars are looked down upon. Our public transportation of the Streamline is unreliable, inconvenient, and infrequent. Biking and walking is dangerous with the lack of developed bike paths as well as sidewalks and sidewalk lighting.

The Streamline, while it provides alternative transit options, is still unreliable

To nudge people to take up more eco-friendly transportation, we could:

• Market and sell more small-sized cars
• Invest in our public transportation and increase their convenience and frequency
• Make cities and towns more bike and walker friendly

A great example of bike lanes, sidewalks, and street lighting

What do you think: Do you think America can be nudged towards these more eco-friendly transit or are we too set into our car-loving culture? What are some nudges you can think of to nudge people to take up new transit options?