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Get ready for the post-SUV world!
Stan Cox, AlterNet
As peak-oil enthusiasts keep vigil over world petroleum statistics, they can find comfort in America’s sudden, rapid descent from a different summit: the peak of sport-utility vehicle (SUV) production. In the early 2000s, combined sales of SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans (which together make up the “light truck” class) caught and surpassed sales of passenger cars. But last week, automakers announced that high gas prices have caused their sales of SUVs and full-size pickups to plummet by as much as 50 percent compared with a year ago.
With big-box vehicles waddling off into the sunset, we can expect the nation’s roads to become safer and less crowded. But just as the end of the Cold War failed to bring with it a promised peace dividend, the end of the SUV era is unlikely to bring a “green dividend” — unless it is accompanied by much bigger changes. The numbers show that even the complete disappearance of SUVs from the nation’s roadways, without other fuel-saving developments, would put only a slight bend in the rising curve of national fuel consumption.
Stan Cox is a plant breeder and writer in Salina, Kansas. His is the author of Sick Planet: Corporate Food and Medicine (Pluto Press).
(10 July 2008)
This love that cranks my motor
Emma Tom, The Australian
I’M in a destructive relationship. I know it’s selfish and immoral and not doing anyone any good but I can’t help it.
Every time I try to break it off, the thought of living without the object of my love and lust feels impossible.
So my oversized inner-city car stays right where she is in my undersized inner-city driveway. Together we guzzle natural resources, clog Sydney side streets and scrape bits off smaller vehicles that are silly enough to get in our way when were trying to park.
… Since then, there have been so many, many cars. Fast cars, slow cars, cars with guillotine electric windows and dodgy passenger door speakers and the hair of long-gone Rhodesian ridgebacks bristling from their leaky rears.
Each has offered the same, heady pleasure: the ability to move myself from A to most other letters of the alphabet without the assistance of anyone else.
This, you see, is the reason I keep hanging on when I know it’s wrong, when I read about peak oil and pollution and petrol station pumps getting fatter to fit in all the zeros.
Because whenever I feel like I’m trapped back in a fibro farm shack on the outskirts of shitville, I know I can just get in my car and go. And for the life of me I just can’t give thatup.
(10 July 2008)
Humor
California to shame the owners of gas-guzzlers
Guy Adams, Independent
As if sky-rocketing petrol prices weren’t already hurting them enough, the drivers of America’s fleet of Hummers, monster trucks, and gas-guzzling SUVs are about to suffer sustained public humiliation, courtesy of the green lobby.
The state of California has announced plans for all new vehicles to carry “global warming” stickers next to their number plate, giving car owners – and their fellow motorists – an instant assessment of their carbon footprint.
Under the scheme, which became law this week, a “global warming score” and “smog score” of between one and 10 will appear on green information labels. The higher each score, the more environmentally friendly the car.
In the short term, authorities hope to help consumers choose vehicles with low carbon footprints. In the longer term, it is designed to turn SUV driving into a social taboo on a par with smoking cigarettes.
(9 July 2008)
Emissions deal may add to cost of long-haul flights
Dan Milmo and David Gow, Guardian
Passengers could face a further increase in air fares after the European parliament yesterday approved a carbon emissions trading scheme that will include airlines from 2012. Green campaigners said the plans were not harsh enough.
The airline industry is expected to pass on the extra costs, which will be at least €39.60 (£31.50) for a long-haul return flight and €9 for a short haul return trip, according to a European commission report. Airlines say the cost of the scheme could be even higher because the commission’s estimates pre-dated changes that have made the emissions trading programme even more expensive.
… Airlines are already suffering from a record oil price, which has caused a series of bankruptcies in the US and sank Silverjet, the UK-based all-business class carrier. According to Iata, only a handful of airlines will make a profit if oil stays at those levels, with the entire industry expected to lose at least $6bn this year.
(9 July 2008)
