The new ad for the Chevy Volt claims the car “can go 40 miles before it uses any gas at all.” It also shows a time lapse of the evolution of the automobile and the gas station, before eventually watching it all decompose and turn back to earth. It ends on a pristine field between two mountains, without a visible sign of the humans who once existed there.

It’s pretty deep stuff. It reminds me of the poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sarah Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Wikipedia: “The poem deals with nature reclaiming the earth after the disappearance of the human race, and the small overall impact humanity left on the planet. It illustrates the unimportance of humans.”

So thanks, Chevy. Now I’m all freaked out.