The environment will thank us, part 2.

As the title suggests, this is the second post about the environment on Earth Day (today, April 22); if you missed the first, it's down there somewhere, and I'm sure you are smart enough (being a reader of this here blog) to locate it yourself.

I got sidetracked on the previous post talking about recycling in Socorro. But what made me want to blog today was some exciting news I read today.

The Bush Administration is doing its Earth Day duty and releasing some environmental news. This news is that they are going to raise fuel economy!

Wow! That's exciting! What do you think these new levels will be, considering that we currently have cars that can get 48 MPG city/45 MPG highway under the new EPA rating system? And considering that individuals have modded those very cars to produce a 100 MPG version (with about $6,000 in upgrades)? And considering that these standards do not have to be met until 2015, which is like 7 years away, plenty of time to refine techniques and change assembly stuff and work toward more efficient cars? 35? 40? 50 MPG? It could be done! What will it be?








New Fuel economy standard will be 31.6 mpg

You dicks.

There are a lot of things that really bother me about our president. Not the least of these things is that he unabashedly claims to be an environmentalist, while also constantly proving himself wrong. He's like the boy who cried wolf, except that it's more like Bush is the boy who cried "I'm awesome!" so many times, and it was shown to be a blatant lie, that even if he did something that helped the environment, I would just be completely skeptical. However, I think that it is pretty clear that 31.6 MPG by 2015 is a piddly goal.

But let's not just listen to me. The proof is in the blubbering, so they say. The auto industry has no desire to increase fuel efficiency. Therefore, any real, proactive stance taken toward actually doing something about the ridiculously low fuel efficiency of our vehicles should piss them off, right? Thanks, logic! Well, here's a quote from them:

“These numbers are very challenging. They will stretch the industry to innovate in ways they haven’t had to do in the past and will continue to set us on a course to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new autos,” said Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. and others.

Anything that would actually be helpful should have resulted in something more like:

"Oh my god, holy shit, what are you people doing to us? We're going to lose our houses over this! Won't somebody think of the children?!

Instead, we get "ooooh, that'll be really hard" which is what you would tell your teacher if they wanted to know whether they should add more questions to your homework set. It's not that you couldn't do the extra problems, it's just that you would really rather not because you think that time could be better spent surfing the internet and finding things like this and this.

Note that Ford produced the first Model T back in 1908, and it had a mileage of 13 to 21 MPG back then. There is no reason that we shouldn't be leagues ahead of where we are today. Europe is already ahead of us (keep in mind that we have a lot more automotive engineers than they do), and will institute a 47 MPG requirement by 2012. Of course, in Europe they don't have so many SUV's.

Check out this article entitled "U.S. ‘stuck in reverse’ on fuel economy." Included is this gem:

Adding insult to injury is the fact that nearly two-thirds of the 113 highly fuel-efficient models that are unavailable to American consumers are either made by U.S.-based automobile manufacturers or by foreign manufacturers with substantial U.S. sales operations, such as Nissan and Toyota.

America's "me first" attitude is going to come back to bite it one day. What can we do to change society in time to save it from itself?