A recent Gallup Poll shows Americans' concerns about water and air pollution are at an all-time low.

I know, Earth Day is supposed to be a day for optimism, a day to express hope that humankind will see the green light and transform its unsustainable ways.

But me being me – I have a tendency to find the dark lining in just about every silver cloud, I’m just not in the mood for optimistic, Pollyannish declarations about how great the future’s going to be.

Indeed, right at this very moment – and I’ll admit that my own inability to add an electric car to our home solar equation has something to do with my somber mood -- I’m not particularly optimistic enough people, especially enough Americans, are going to recognize that our current lifestyle is unsustainable and that, poof, we’ll suddenly and miraculously leap into a green future where everyone’s driving on sun.

So, what’s the dark lining to Earth Day 2012 Silver Cloud?

A traffic jam in Dehli, India, just one of countless such traffic jams that occur daily around the world. [Photo Credit: Wikipedia.Org]

I don’t get people who believe humans aren’t involved in the climate change equation. Something prevents them from seeing the bigger picture even when it’s right there in front of them.

Take, for instance, the average suburban/urban auto driver in the U.S., or pretty much any suburban/urban area in the world. A large number of these people – hundreds of millions – sit for long periods of time every day in traffic jams while pumping out, and breathing in, lots of noxious fumes such as sulfur dioxide, particulates, carbon monoxide and, of course, plenty of global warming inducing CO2 (unless, of course, they’re driving a solar-charged EV :-)

Somehow climate change denying/indifferent auto drivers who sit, every day, stuck in traffic jams, doesn’t visualize beyond the traffic jam they’re in, if, indeed, they even really see this.

One of the American Petroleum Institute's 'I'm an Energy Voter' ads which have been running recently in major American newspapers.

If you’re a regular newspaper reader, as I am, you may have seen the American Petroleum Institute’s latest ad campaign to drum up support for fossil fuels in America, the so-called “Vote 4 Energy” campaign.

Every time I see one of these ads I wish I had the money to buy my own full-page USA Today spread and take on the API’s smarmy rhetoric not to mention the canned ad models – does anyone actually believe the people pictured in these ads are real, average, everyday Americans?

Since I don’t have that kind of money , I’ll have to settle for a short blog entry on SolarChargedDriving.Com.

So, here goes, my response ad to the API’s “I’m an energy voter” ads. The ad’s original content is in black-colored type, my alterations and additions are in – you guessed it ;-) – green-->