Last week I drove through (in an EV, BTW, so Ye Old Hypocrisy Police can go back to your coffee 'n' doughnuts) the sleepy town of Gibsons, BC—and in this little burg of ~4000 people, was aghast to see from five to ten cars chugging away around each of its several drive-through-equipped fast-food joints.

At that moment, I was listening to a CBC radio feature about climate change, where a prominent researcher was saying the latest data made him feel like he was "watching a catastrophe in slow motion".

Let me get this straight: We _know_ the Earth is heating up, and we _know_ what terrible things we'll be doing to our children, and their children, and so on, if we don't avert it. Yet we're _still_ encouraging people—at the corporate level—to sit in their idling cars, waiting for meals?

Thus, my idea:

When you enter the restaurant, you have the option to request your order at a kiosk just like the one that'd be outside (but it's not anymore, see, because we finally got rational about that).

You and your party then board an electric themepark-ride-type car (perhaps made to look like sportscars, muscle cars, monster trucks—you know, all the stuff gas-burning peeps still love), which you operate along a track, at typically low drive-through speed, toward a special counter. (To prevent bumper-car inferences, each radar-equipped car stays a safe distance from the one ahead of it.)

Once you arrive at the counter and pay for and receive your order, you get to trundle to an unload area, where you disembark and exit, and your car automatically returns to the start position.

People who use this swell "hey, I'm doing all this in a car" system not only get to feel like they're still at the wheel, but are permitted to make driving sounds with their mouths at acceptable volume levels. And maybe their grandkids won't have to starve—everyone's a winner!

(NB: Ideally, power for this system would be generated by solar cells on the restaurant's roof, or wind power, or by somehow collecting the copious methane people generate from fast food... I'll leave such details to the annotators.)
-- Ander, Jun 16 2023

You're on fire.

No, wait, that's the Atlantic coast, isn't it?
-- pertinax, Jun 16 2023


Gibsons! My old stomping grounds for few years. The sunshine coast where the sunshine is liquid.

Do Not drink the Robert's Creek water or you 'will' turn into a granola-thumping hippie selling bongs at a craft fair.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 16 2023


1. Do not use cars 2. Cook at home

Problem solved
-- pocmloc, Jun 16 2023


Greenhouse gases, and CO2 in particular, are great for the environment. Anything that gives Ma Nature more of a fighting chance gets my thumbs up. So rev a little harder while you're stopped in line next time, the trees and flowers will thank you!
-- 21 Quest, Jun 16 2023


So ... you hadn't noticed all those rivers drying up, and Canada catching fire, then? OK, carry on.
-- pertinax, Jun 17 2023


pertinax> You're on fire... No, wait, that's the Atlantic coast, isn't it?

We're taking turns.

2 fries> Do Not drink the Robert's Creek water or you 'will' turn into a granola-thumping hippie selling bongs at a craft fair.

Yes, it's even happened to people we know!

21 Quest> Greenhouse gases, and CO2 in particular, are great for the environment. Anything that gives Ma Nature more of a fighting chance...

"There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure." – Agent Smith

pertinax> So ... you hadn't noticed all those rivers drying up, and Canada catching fire, then? OK, carry on.

Hey, dry humour!

["heart" and "croissant" emojii, converted to senseless numerical codes by the board]
-- Ander, Jun 17 2023


// Do Not drink the Robert's Creek water or you 'will' turn into a granola-thumping hippie selling bongs at a craft fair.//

//Yes, it's even happened to people we know!//

Strangely though they grow the most potent weed on the planet. As though the plant is teaching them.

Even dudes in Jamaica be like; "Oh you from BC? did you bring any with you?"

Just don't drink the water...
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 17 2023



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