Monoxitube - Face Your Exhaust

Monoxitube helps you face your exhaust.

The Monoxitube helps you become aware of the carbon monoxide produced when you drive. The Monoxitube is a 25-foot tube that attaches to the exhaust pipe of a car and the other end slides through the driver-side window, sending the carbon monoxide fumes from the tailpipe to the driver's seat. Every time you press on the gas, or idle, you'll be the first to know how much carbon monoxide you'e producing. You'll learn what bicyclists and pedestrians experience every day as you drive by. Buy the Monoxitube today and face your exhaust.

Visit www.monoxitube.com.

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FAKE PRODUCT. DO NOT INHALE CARBON MONOXIDE.

The Monoxitube idea draws attention to the toxic exhaust of gas-powered cars. If people had to bear the total cost of their vehicles, which includes pollution, they would be more likely to seek out transportation alternatives that don't harm others. They would drive (and idle) less and try other ways to get where they need to go: carpooling, taking the bus, walking, telecommuting, and more.

I'm not advocating limiting freedom of movement. To the contrary, in my ideal life of living in a walkable neighborhood--where driving is unnecessary--walking provides more freedom than driving since it's free, doesn't require parking, and you don't have to make a turn signal when you want to go left (no tickets for pedestrians!).

Through the Monoxitube idea, I'm advocating freedom of movement based on polite interaction with other humans, and common courtesy involves not leaving a cloud of carbon monoxide as one passes by another's home. It is my hope that people will read about the Monoxitube and try low-emission transport options and seek out and support walkable neighborhoods where you don't have to leave the neighborhood to breathe fresh air.

The idea was inspired by Murray Rothbard's short history of air and noise pollution. Soon after the invention of the internal combustion engine, people sued engine operators for producing harmful exhaust and irritating noise. For example, farmers sued nearby factory owners. These lawsuits showed a person would logically object to breathing the pollutants generated by another person.

Though it's now customary to endure breathing carbon monoxide car exhaust-in that people don't sue drivers for idling by sidewalk cafes-this doesn't make the pollution acceptable. People used to tolerate breathing second-hand cigarette smoke, and second-hand car exhaust is far worse.

In the cases cited above, the courts ruled the benefits of industrial output superseded the harm caused by air and noise pollution. Rothbard explained that engine operators then had no incentive to create non-toxic and quiet machines because they could offload the "cost" of their machines on to others. Rothbard suggests the solution would be "for the courts to return to their function of defending person and property rights against invasion, and therefore to enjoin anyone from injecting pollutants into the air."

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CREDITS

Producer: Dave Doctor

Actor (Spokesperson): Beth "elizabethany" Ploger (www.loveelizabethany.com)

Actor (Driver): Anonymous