Driving Internal Combustion Engine cars

This week we worked on our 1991 Honda Civic to give it to my mother-in-law, so we were driving it around.  Now that electric cars are a real possibility, it felt anachronistic to be driving a car that still uses gas, pumping CO2 into the air, requiring drilling in the Gulf, pipelines in the Arctic, wars in the Middle East, and costing more than an electric car. 

I always used to feel bad about all the down sides of using gasoline, but it seemed that there was no alternative--did I want to go to chorus rehearsal?  did I want to go to a Democratic Club meeting?  did I want to go to the movies?  All of these things are possible on public transit or bicycle, but they are so much more difficult and time consuming that these environmentally sound travel options would really limit my activities. 

But now, with solar panels and the Volt, it feels really good to have the freedom that an automobile offers without the worst side effects (there are still the negative considerations of lack of exercise, urban sprawl, and resources used to build the car, but solving global warming, stopping pollution of air/sea/land from oil, and ending wars for oil are such great benefits, that I am an enthusiastic backer of electric cars.