I'm currently rewriting the long introduction about myself. In the meantime, you can find a shortened version on the front page.
Hello, and welcome to my website on senslessly produced exhaust fumes.
Depending on why you found this website, it could prompt feelings of deep bewilderment or uncanny familiarity. Most first-time visitors will probably find my thoughts and descriptions very strange and difficult to relate to. But I know that for some, the surprise will come from how much they recognise themselves in these texts.
It's precisely because these feelings are so bizarre that most people keep them a secret, and assume that they're the only ones in the world who experience them. After having run this site and its predecessors for many years, and having had the chance to chat with many visitors, I can confidently say that visitors from the first group probably underestimate how many like-minded people there really are. Something about human nature and our society seems to favour developing a fondness for senseless air pollution.
My name is Daniel, I'm Swiss, and in my mid-thirties. I grew up with a very strong environmental consciousness. Among my earliest memories is how sad and angry it made me to see how humans pollute and destroy the environment. Seeing how people cut down healthy trees, or rode motorcycles which polluted the air with toxic exhaust fumes, shook me to my core. Especially if they were, in my eyes, doing it for no good reason, out of indifference, or maybe even just for fun.
The persistent, overwhelming man-made pollution made me feel hopeless and powerless. As a little boy, I swore to myself that I would fight against it for the rest of my life, and never contribute to it myself.
These pages are all about how that young, naïve tree hugger could have turned into the person from the picture on the left. If you had shown this picture to me when I was 8 years old, and told me that it was my future self, I would've shaken my head in disbelief and been utterly heartbroken. Needless to say, I have since broken my scout's honour of never using a gasoline engine.
I'm writing down my story and thoughts for anyone who might recognise part of themselves in them, but also to try and improve my own understanding of this development. How could a deep hatred and disgust towards exhaust fumes turn into a desire and passion for gasoline, oil, combustion engines, and needless, pointless air pollution?
I'm glad if these thoughts are interesting or fascinating enough for you to read along for a while, whether it's out of a feeling of familiarity and kinship, or just puzzled curiosity.