Austrailia rules

If you can judge an entire country on one news article that is. Actually, I'll judge it on the kind people I met while I was there over a decade ago.

This article starts off with my mantra for alternative fuel technology:

As an armada of doomsayers, zealots and those with vested interests promote blurred visions of the future of motoring, it's becoming difficult to separate genuinely viable alternatives to fossil fuels from the snake oil and dead-end technologies.

Of course, a wrangle over which fuels are better or worse, cleaner or dirtier, expensive or cheap is inevitable, and ultimately productive, because in the end the best technology will win. It usually does.

Brilliantly put... cutting through all the crap. The whole article sums up very well my thoughts on the industry as it stands.

Whatever we drive over the horizon, Lamb says the way to make a difference now is simply to use our car less. "By 2050, we need to achieve an 80 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to stop global warming becoming irreversible," he says.

"I think we can, and as a rich nation we have to show some leadership, but at present we just encourage waste. Large six-cylinder cars produced by the Australian industry are just so far away from what the rest of the world is talking about, and now we're going to get the Hummer. If that isn't an obscene way of doing business, I don't know what is."

Biggerbetterfastermore is now seeing or will soon see its twilight. Our culture goes through shifts and changes constantly. Right now, our country is very selfish, very narrow-minded. Everyone is an expert, we all want exactly what we want and have decided that it is our absolute right to get it. My country looks like a nation of 5 year olds sometimes: grabbing at everything, ignoring everyone else, delighted by shiny things and bright colors. Let's all grow up a bit, shall we? Let's act like adults instead of spoiled children.

... I think someone pissed in my rainbow lucky charms this morning...