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Jewish World Review August 31, 2005 / 26 Av, 5765 Green cars not so Earth-friendly By Jerry Large
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
My son would like for us to buy either a Hummer or a Prius.
You'd think those two vehicles would appeal to people whose
sensibilities were at opposite ends of the political and social
spectrum, but life is rarely that simple.
There are people who care about energy conservation and people who
don't, but there are probably more people who care about being cool.
Our son would like for his parents to drive anything cooler than
what we drive now.
The other day he asked whether I'd had my midlife crisis yet,
because he'd spotted a hot sports car I could buy if I could just
get in midlife crisis mode.
Even people who buy energy-saving vehicles sometimes do it because
they want to be with it. The Prius is hot, at least partly, because
it is cool.
Green people have been dumping on SUVs since the first behemoths
started crowding roadways, but a lot of those greens were
daydreaming about roaring down the highway, jumping curbs, and just
looking swell behind the wheel of their own SUV.
Just look at the Lexus RX 400h, the upscale hybrid SUV that debuted
this spring. In its first three months, Toyota sold 9,486 and had
orders for more.
I remember reading that one California dealership was swamped with
early orders from environmentally conscious Hollywood stars, who
wanted something big, fancy, powerful and green. Dustin Hoffman
drove off with one of the first ones. Take that, Arnold.
All that time Hoffman was suffering SUV envy for his principles. You
have to respect that in a person. After all, who is the most
virtuous, a person who doesn't drive an SUV who has no interest in
one, or the person who wants one, but declines because she wants to
conserve energy, reduce pollution and allow other drivers a clear
view of the road?
It's only sacrifice if you are giving up something you want.
It also turns out that a lot of hybrid buyers aren't doing the
environment much of a favor, anyway.
Automakers sometimes use hybrid technology to make their cars more
powerful. There was a story this week that listed a bunch of hybrids
that accelerate like race cars, save little or no fuel, but still
earn their owners tax credits under the federal clean-fuels program
Buyers are reaping cache and cash, while giving up nothing. That's
like eating fried veggies. It doesn't really count.
The saving-the-Earth news generally hasn't been good lately. This
month, a couple of researchers said we may be wasting time and money
trying to replace fossil fuels with fuels made from corn and other
crops.
They said producing biofuels, such as ethanol, requires more energy
than it produces.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the farmers it subsidizes
dispute the findings. They say the production of renewable fuels has
made a lot of strides recently, and is in fact an efficient process
now. It's still pretty expensive though.
Why does it have to be so hard to get this transportation energy
thing right?
Mass transit was supposed to be another solution, but around here,
we just can't seem to get it together.
There has been a big to-do about monorail financing, but even when
the monorail gets going, it will be only a partial solution.
The one certainty is that oil will run out someday and we'd better
have some solutions by then.
Fortunately, there are more than a couple of alternatives, one of
which goes right to the source, the sun. Solar energy just might be
the thing. I'll have to keep an eye on the North American Solar
Challenge, a race among solar vehicles, which began Sunday in
Austin, Texas, and will finish next week in Calgary, Alberta.
Teams of university students make better cars every year, and some
of them look pretty cool, too.
They're not just tilting at windmills.
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Jerry Large is a Seattle Times columnist. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, Seattle Times; Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
