Four Exhaust Pipes in a Climate Crisis
- Gregory Andrews
- Oct 8
- 2 min read
At the lights, Climate Conscience Man sits on his eCargo-Bike. Helmet on. Groceries in the front storage bucket. He's bit sweaty, a bit proud. A magpie just dive-bombed him. He's doing his bit.
Next to him? A gleaming Mercedes, BMW or Porsche SUV with four chrome exhaust pipes and more horsepower than a country town needs. Brand new. Loud. Idling.
He glances over. Leather seats. Polished chrome. Someone in activewear scrolling their phone while the engine hums. The emissions pump out, quietly wrecking our future.
And for a moment, Climate Conscience Man feels it. Anger. Despair. Frustration. A sense that everything he’s doing - the eBike, EV, compost heap, the veggie garden, the meat reduction, the heat pump, the constant low-key climate guilt - might be a drop in an ocean of apathy.
And here’s the thing: if you’ve got the money to buy a $200,000 car, surely you’ve got the brainpower to understand what it’s doing to the planet?
But then… he catches himself. Judging isn’t helpful. Not really.
So he takes a breath, watches the lights, and lets go (well, he tries to). Maybe they saw him there. Calm. Capable. Not smug, just doing what he can. Maybe they saw the "Climate Action Now" sign on his eCargo-Bike.
Maybe they’ll notice the difference. Maybe they’ll feel a nudge. Or a glitch in the Matrix. Maybe they’ll wonder what it would feel like to drive something just as powerful but much cleaner. More aligned with the world they want their kids to inherit.
Climate Conscience Man knows he can’t change everything. But he can show up. He can model something better. And he can keep riding his eBike.
Too many people breaking the law with modifed exhaust pipes, minus catalytic converters. The noise they make plus the obvious smell in obnoxious. Yet, local police claim that we the citizens need to take photos of number plates. Backfiring noises seem to be the latest trend for attention seekers?
I used to ride to work and was quite dismayed by the thousands of cars on my route all sitting idling with their single occupant cocooned from the 36 degree heat of January in Brisbane, while I sat and sweated on my bike surrounded by the smell of internal combustion engines. I used to tell my colleagues that we just cannot keep doing this. The atmosphere that keeps all of us alive is as thick as the skin on an apple in earth to apple scale measurements. You can'tpump it full of poison and live. Lo and behold it did all change! On a quiet suburban street, a car driver drove into the back of me because she could not…