Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, said in 1928 that "the slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner plate to the full garage." Soundbite culture had taken hold even then, and Hoover's words were quickly paraphrased as "a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot."
Americans took heed like no one else. Today there are 210 million vehicles in the U.S., releasing 1.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases a year; almost 20 million barrels of petroleum are used per day. And as we all know only too well, the current U.S. president is crazy about oil, opting out of the Kyoto Protocol and (if many commentators are to be believed) going to war for oil.
Which makes this statement all the more surprising: