Editorial: Stop your engines!

Posted 1/5/22

Sharon Gold is a diminutive woman with a big message for everyone — stop idling! The focus of a story in our East Bay Life section this week, Gold is a retired educator and grandmother from …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Register to post events


If you'd like to post an event to our calendar, you can create a free account by clicking here.

Note that free accounts do not have access to our subscriber-only content.

Day pass subscribers

Are you a day pass subscriber who needs to log in? Click here to continue.


Editorial: Stop your engines!

Posted

Sharon Gold is a diminutive woman with a big message for everyone — stop idling! The focus of a story in our East Bay Life section this week, Gold is a retired educator and grandmother from Jamestown. She exercises, goes for long walks and lives an active life, and in her weekly travels she confronts about 20 motorists per week to try to educate them about the dangers of idle engines. Gold knows her stuff, and she can readily tell anyone how parked or idling vehicles burn about 6 billion gallons of fuel annually in this country, shooting tens of millions of metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Gold’s message is so simple, it’s difficult to forget once you’ve met her and listened to her. When you weigh the benefits vs. the costs, there really are no good reasons to warm up the car in the driveway for 10 minutes or leave any engine running in park for extensive periods of time.

And once you’re in tune with the sight of exhaust fumes puffing into the atmosphere from the back of an idle vehicle, it’s difficult not to see them everywhere. They often congregate outside coffee shops, at road or building construction sites, or in a row of driveways on a cold New England morning.

Check out the line of 50 cars idling in a drive-through pickup line outside of a popular Starbuck’s on a Sunday morning — nothing screams hypocrisy quite like burning a gallon of fossil fuel while waiting for the opportunity to buy a $5 coffee in an environmentally-friendly cup.

Most people understand why extensive idling is bad for the Earth, but they also feel like their one vehicle is just a drip in the bucket. Gold likes to tell the story of a man who was idling his car at a beach along Narragansett Bay while his wife took the dog for a walk. When she tapped on the window to talk to him about idling, he pointed out to a tanker ship and told her to go talk to that guy.

So now that you’ve heard her message, who would you like to emulate? Would you rather be a little more like Sharon Gold, or a little more like that guy?

2024 by East Bay Media Group

Barrington · Bristol · East Providence · Little Compton · Portsmouth · Tiverton · Warren · Westport
Meet our staff
Mike Rego

Mike Rego has worked at East Bay Newspapers since 2001, helping the company launch The Westport Shorelines. He soon after became a Sports Editor, spending the next 10-plus years in that role before taking over as editor of The East Providence Post in February of 2012. To contact Mike about The Post or to submit information, suggest story ideas or photo opportunities, etc. in East Providence, email mrego@eastbaymediagroup.com.