Environment

How Many SUVs Are on Your block? Crowdsourcing Vigilantism or Creative Conservation?

by Actual News Geezer | July 26, 2007 at 10:36 am

613 views | 20 Recommendations | 3 comments

Now here is a very interesting crowdsourcing project: How Many SUVs Are on Your block? Do you hate SUVs? think they are bad for the environment? Go out and report them to the Brian Lehrer Show!

The Brian Lehrer Show is broadcast on WNYC in New York. It's a public radio station. The central idea is to use the audience to actually do a census of the cars on each block and report the results back to the WNYC website. Is this a creative approach to promoting conservation or an example of Internet Vigilantism?

The results are coming in and they look like this:

Posted by: Harlan July 26, 2007 - 10:38AM

Inwood! (manhattan)

1) Neighborhood: Inwood

2) Block: 217th street between Park Terrace East and Park Terrace West

3) Number of SUVs: 3

4) Total number of cars: 15

Participants are requested to take photos and to upload them to Flickr (they should really be doing this to NowPublic, to get maximum impact, IMHO) and to tag the photos blsuv.

Here's the pitch:

We want you to go outside and count the number of SUVs on your block, as well as the number of regular cars. This is our experiment in “crowdsourcing,” where we employ you, the listener, in an act of journalism. We’re trying to find out just how much gas-guzzling SUV use there is throughout the New York area, with all the talk of environmental sustainability in the city. We’re giving you until next Thursday to do the counting, but please, just count the cars once. Most trucks and minivans are not SUVs, so we're trusting your judgment. Also, please count the cars on both sides of the block (i.e. the section of your street between intersecting roads).

If you want to take photos, feel free to upload to Flickr and tag the photos blsuv. Post your results in the comment section below and we’ll analyze the results next week.

I am assuming that Brian Lehrer is making a point about global warming and the idiocy of owning a SUV in a place where offroad vehicles are about as useful as waterwings in the Gobi Desert.

What's your view? Is this a creative approach to promoting conservation or an example of Internet Vigilantism?

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:12 on July 26th, 2007

It's an interesting idea, but if the issue is fuel economy, it makes sense to look at other vehicles as well: vintage cars, pickups (in a city like NYC, where nobody'd ever leave anything in the back), and even the S-class Mini, which gets disappointing mileage for its size. The larger issue would be car ownership in the NYC area at all: it's far less expensive to rent one when going out of town than to maintain one throughout the year. Having said that, one of my friends used to rent out his car on the side to pay for insurance/parking/fuel costs... he more or less broke even!

Actual News Geezer

at 15:09 on July 26th, 2007

I think the purpose is to create a kind of public humiliation. Good idea? I dunno. I used to do a series for W5 a long time ago which was called Social Misdemeanors in which I humiliated people on TV for parking in handicapped spots, littering at the mall, not pulling over for ambulances, etc. It was pretty cruel. Wouldn't do that again.