The triple bottom line

The what? The recent tendency to express mor ethan just the financials in corporate annual reports. Just popped into my head. Good thing. When you drive your car you tend to forget that the community built the road. Not the car company. The fuel you use is heavily taxed (in Australia and most other nations, anyway) and we make a mental note that it's bad, however at least some of it will build better roads). But the road is potholed and inadequate. Always has been. It's someone's fault - or some thing's. Let's blame the government. Not the car companies, oh no! It's "the government". Not ourselves, either.

My father had a car, and his father before him. Now when my grandfather had a car it was the only car in the street. It was the 20s and 30s, and it was rare. It was a luxury. In about 75 years we have gone from barely any cars to umpteen of the damn things. Meanwhile the roads (new highways and freeways excepted) are still based on the original roadworks - designed for few cars. And cars have gone from not many to bewilderingly common. And they have gone from an average of (say) 600kgs to maybe an average of 1.2 tonnes. Now we expect "the government" to rebuild the roads to meet our desire for smooth and comfortable travel...

But what about the car companies? They are involved, too. Where is the social responsibility in creating massive cars in huge numbers? They will say that the buyers demand fat cars, but how do we know that? Do we realise the impact of these overweight , overwhelmingly present metal monsters? Of course not. It's happened too fast, and we just have accepted that conspicuous consumption of cars is good. It's easier than walking or riding a bike and much more convenient than catching public transport. It's flawed, fatally, and has happened in the blink of an eye. We have subsidised this folly and literally handed our money - if not our lives - over to the car manufacturers. So where, I ask you, is the logic and the corporate responsibility in all of this?

No-where near me. I have 3 of the damn things.