It occured to me the other day when we were driving in the car with the three year old and talking about biking and driving and “saving” gas that I’ve still been buying into this lie.
A while ago I realized how ridiculous it is to come home from a shopping trip and say I “Saved $143.52 today!” The truth is a spent a bunch of money, regardless of how on sale the item I purchased was. That was step one in my reality check.
Today I realized, biking to work doesn’t “save gas” it rather keeps gas from being used that doesn’t need to be used. In the same way, when I choose not to eat red meat (which I grew up not eating), I don’t walk around saying, “I’m saved a pig’s leg and a cow today!”

Very little in my life are necessities, and this is probably true for you as well. I think we can probably make a case for our “need” to go to our job and/or school, and therefore I can understand a “need” to drive to those locations if they aren’t in walking or biking distance.
What I’ve realized though, is I’ve been hoping in my car for far too many “wants.” If using too much gas is a problem, then I need to work on changing my lifestyle and my choices.

That’s I think one of the reasons I find this place the MinusCarProject so inspiring. Here’s the mission statement:

The MinusCar Project exists because I believe people that think that the globe is warming because of human activity, specifically carbon emitting human activity, might be right. Because I think they might be right, I think humans need to change. And because I think humans need to change, I think I need to change.