Are we a product of our environment? I believe so, often both socially and physically. As a child in Southern California’s smog-shrouded Los Angeles Basin, I found it an eerie wonder that our local mountains would disappear in the haze every summer, as if they were never there. I was concerned that taking deep breaths was no longer possible after an hour of outside physical activity on days with smog alerts, though this was accepted as normal. Years later, following the massive Santa Barbara oil spill that prompted the world’s first Earth Day, I enrolled in our high school’s first-ever ecology course to learn more about the consequence of our interaction with the natural world, concerned as most were that environmental protections were failing us.

Fast forwarding two decades ahead, after many years as an automotive writer and now feature editor at Motor Trend, I harmonized my love of cars and care for the environment by making electric, alternative fuel, and more environmentally positive vehicles my beat. This led to founding my own auto enthusiast publication, Green Car Journal, exclusively focusing on the intersection of automobiles, energy, and the environment.

Here we are today, more than 50 years since the first Earth Day and 30 years after the founding of Green Car Journal, and environmental worries continue. In fact, they have heightened and taken on new urgency. The automobile’s impact on the natural world is well documented and cause for justifiable concern. Decarbonization of our personal and commercial mobility systems is a crucial goal and a change in direction is needed.

Our goal at the Green Car Institute is to analyze and strategize ways to move forward that are more environmentally positive and achievable. Our mission is also to inform, educate, and demonstrate advanced mobility concepts with the aim of motivating individuals, companies, institutions, and government to embrace change that will quickly and realistically bring more environmentally compatible transportation to better our world, and our lives.

Ron Cogan, President
Green Car Institute