Last fall my husband Mike and I visited London, Scotland and Paris. It was a hastily created trip designed to celebrate Mike’s victory over cancer. I was awaiting a total knee replacement that would not come for many more months, so to say I was limping all the way would be an understatement. It did not take long for the two of us to realize that walks to and from tube stations to the various sights were out of the question for me. Our solution was to surrender to the idea of catching rides from Uber that left us on the doorsteps of the sights that we wished to visit.

Those Uber rides ended up being one of the more fascinating aspects of the trip. The drivers were more than ready to engage in friendly and informative conversations as we rode around town. We soon learned that London is attempting to make all public transportation in cars and buses gasoline free within the next few years. Laws require taxi and Uber drivers to switch to hybrid or electric cars with those hybrids eventually being phased out as well. As a result we enjoyed test rides in a wide variety of electric cars from Tesla to Mercedes Benz.

Among the most interesting electric autos were the BYD electric models from China. I have to admit that I was rather surprised by the comfort and luxury of the cars from BYD which seemed to be the best made of all of various brands. Not only were they incredibly luxurious but their cost was much lower than other brands according to the drivers. Soon we were seeing BYD automobiles almost everywhere that we went.

Just this week I read that BYD automotive had invented a charging system that is as fast as pumping gasoline into a car. It is rather exciting to imagine traveling down the road and spending only a few minutes recharging for the next leg of the trip. The innovation of BYD automotive is rather stunning, especially since I had no idea that they even existed before that trip to London. 

As I pump sixty dollars worth of gasoline into my truck I find myself wondering why we are so adverse to taking advantage of the expertise and low pricing that BYD has given to drivers all over Europe. Our country is not only far behind the idea of weaning ourselves from the use of gasoline but blatantly against the idea of using more and more electric cars. We act as though doing so would be impossible and yet it is already happening across the pond. Surely we would do well to wake up to the fact that alternative ways of providing energy are the wave of the future while we cling to our old ways of sticking with fossil fuels. 

There is something rather prideful and perhaps even a bit ignorant about being so unwilling to investigate alternative ways of living. We all hate the cost of the fuels that keep us moving and living well but when provided with alternative ideas we are reluctant to even try the new ways of doing things. Additionally we are unwilling to have real competition by creating tariffs that make it certain that we will be mostly bound to products created in the United States. 

In modern times there is a world market in which different nations offer their products but we have turned away from the idea of participating in that freedom. Instead we pay more for everything than we did a couple of years ago and we turn our backs on innovations that are not American made. In the meantime much of the world is moving forward and away from fossil fuels that pollute the air that we breathe and are becoming more and more rare and hard to produce. We even go to war with nations who have an abundance of such things making our day to day costs rise. 

My brother has Parkinson’s disease and his wife has a number of health problems as well. For well over two years they had to depend on family members and Uber drivers to get them from one place to another. Recently they purchased a self driving electric car and are now feeling free again. Life has suddenly become fun again as they are able to travel anywhere they wish without having to wait until someone is available to take them around. It has transformed their lives in more ways than one because when the price of gasoline spiked after Trump embarked on a war with Iran they were getting their fuel from electricity for a much lower cost. 

Instead of investing in foreign wars that rarely lead to positive changes Americans would do well to begin trying alternative ways of living. Our nation should be investing in research that will free us from the need to use energy from fossil fuels. We should see more and more wind farms and solar panels lighting up our homes and businesses and schools. We need to be sharing ideas with other nations and bringing down the cost of electric vehicles. Creating charging stations that take the same time to charge as filling a tank should become as important as building a transcontinental railway once was. The future could be so exciting and promising if only we were willing to invest in new technologies instead of pouring money into wars. 

It’s time that we looked toward world wide cooperation with each other for the good of human kind. It is time to live in peace on this earth with the idea that we are all the same and each of us is deserving of a comfortable life. That never happens with force or tariff wars. We are at our best when we work together for the betterment of all.