I have to wonder how many Warmists have given up their own SUVs? How about the employees at the Financial Times?
We should regulate SUVs out of existence
About 15 years ago, travelling along an eight-lane highway in Alabama surrounded by SUVs and trucks, I thought: we aren’t going to stop climate change. At least back then the problem was mostly an American one. Now huge cars have gone global. SUVs last year accounted for a record 46 per cent of the world’s car sales, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). If we’re serious about keeping the planet liveable, we have to regulate and tax huge cars out of existence.
Let’s not turn this issue into anything so boring as a culture war. If you feel an automated rant coming on about metropolitan elites persecuting ordinary folk, remember that huge cars are mostly driven by the rich. In the UK, for instance, the average SUV costs more than the median full-time pre-tax salary of about £33,000 — leaving aside petrol. Generally, it’s the rich who emit most CO?. Getting rid of huge cars is about reducing emissions first and road accidents second. (snip)
Petrol-fuelled SUVs still massively outsell the supposed big new things on the roads, electric vehicles. Even electric SUVs won’t do much to prevent dangerous climate change because they require outsized batteries, given their bulk and relative inefficiency. And manufacturing a car battery consumes as much energy as making the e-car itself.
In short, we need to legislate away huge cars such as the Ford F-series truck, the US’s bestselling passenger vehicle for 41 years running. After all, we ban other dangerous substances, and sometimes even not very dangerous substances, such as marijuana. We already regulate cars themselves in all sorts of ways. Jurisdictions from California to France have scheduled the end of sales of new internal-combustion-engine cars, while cities like London bar dirty cars from certain zones. In the US, efficiency regulations apply to the range of vehicles sold by a manufacturer. But why not limit the size and emissions of individual car models? Some European countries already tax big cars, but in a climate crisis we need more radical action.
But, see, this really wouldn’t be green authoritarianism, because you can drive around in tiny Approved vehicles
It’s true that regulating away huge cars would be a restriction on freedom. Many people want huge cars. Psychologically, an SUV is a second home. But eliminating these civilian tanks wouldn’t exactly be green authoritarianism. Even with smaller cars, people could still drive wherever they wanted, as quickly as before. SUVs hardly qualify as a necessity compared with two other big emitters, planes and cows. If we banned planes, which account for only about a quarter of the emissions of passenger vehicles, longer-distance travel would practically cease. Banning cows will become a serious option once we can deliver large quantities of cheap, nutritious plant-based milk and fake beef, but we aren’t there yet.
See?
Why are there so many pickups (Chevys, Dodges, and GMCs), trucks (Fords), and SUVs on the roads? Because that’s what buyers want! Why have American manufacturers mostly given up on sedans and smaller cars? Because those aren’t what most buyers want!
So, now comes the Financial Times writer, telling us that what people want must be regulated out of existence, and force everyone into tiny cars. The left tell us that they are pro-choice, but as I have pointed out, they are actually pro-choice on precisely one thing.
Commenter:
BS!
Leftists ARE pro-life for everyone and pro-choice for reproductive rights, women, history teachers, LGBTQ people, protesters, science and books. The American right denies that global warming is an existential threat to human societies. Extremists only respect their own choices and this includes extremists on the left, too. Unfortunately, the once respected GOP has been overrun by a minority of the extremist right, still led by their strongman idol, Trump.
Societies have all kinds of rules, mores and laws that interfere with peoples’ desires! Conservatives should understand this better than most!
Funny thing is they’ve been right so far.
Go on, dumbass, deny that.
#TheScienceIsSettled
Bwaha! Lolgf
We cannot deny that DickBreath is a dumbass.
Do you have anything of substance to discuss?
That’s because being on the right requires that you actually think about things, rather than just following your instructions.
More breathtaking irony from Jeffty.
Perhaps they should regulate those big houses too. ” If you feel an automated rant coming on about metropolitan elites persecuting ordinary folk, remember that huge cars are mostly driven by the rich”. Guess what? Huge houses are all owned by “the rich” that’s who builds them. So are yachts, Rolls Royce’s and private planes which should all be banned and cars should be regulated to size of about a Mini Cooper and houses should be under 1000 SF.
I just love the argument that “huge cars are mostly driven by the rich”. I figure to the progressive (Communist) mind it’s okay to fuck the rich. Just like it’s okay to fuck the Whites, Christians, straights and men. Politics that take on religious fervor do so without the needed moral foundation and lead to disaster. Socialism/communism is atheism masquerading as a political philosophy. IOW a fake religion.
I wonder ? How many climate change deniers are actually devoting their working lives to secretly sell cars made by the manufacturer that makes the highest mpg cars?
Those are the cars that produce the least of our plant life needed CO2
Carbon Boy-who is actually denying that the climate changes? I thought so, yet the alarmists continue to hide behind the skirt of a Holocaust slur. Anyway, if you’re scared of the CO2 molecule, this action will have absolutely no effect because China is building new coal plants like every two weeks or so. That the cult doesn’t understand this, or ignores it, is astounding…
People buy pickups and SUVs because Obama’s EPA pushed automakers to build sedans that get 50 mpg. People won’t buy Lincolns and Cadillacs with tiny four-cylinder engines.
“I’ll give you my Suburban when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!”
Like the proverbial frog in a pot, we have hardly noticed how America has incrementally become a totalitarian ‘state’! THEY have forced mufflers, catalytic converters, seat belts, air bags, anti-lock brakes and even electronic stability control upon WE, THE PEOPLE! Stop signs, and speed limits and LATCHES, oh my! What’s next, mandatory back-up cameras? Already here!
Mandatory tire pressure monitoring, here! Mandatory traction control, here!
What’s on the horizon? Mandatory blind spot monitoring, pedestrian detection, night vision, forward collision monitoring, land centering assist, lane departure warning, driver attention monitor, active fizzucking head-restraints and dozens more Artificial Intelligence driven seizures of FREEDOM. You want to drive your 1969 SS396 forever? Sorry grandpa, the state will seize your ride!
The STATE’S objective is to infantilize us all to be totally dependent on the STATE, to be suckling at the teat of the STATE, so when they take away our only means of self-defense they can farm us like chickens. If WE, THE PEOPLE are lucky THEY will only make us their slaves.
ELOI unite!! It’s time to put a stake in the ground! Keep your hands off my EXPEDITION (V6 starting price $55,000)! Take to the streets while THEY let US!
How ironic – Jeffty comes closest to understanding things when he attempts sarcasm. Then again, he sees giant pink rabbits.
Oh Stormy!
Oscar Wilde said sarcasm is: “the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence.” You should try one or the other!
BTW, Harvey is a 6’3.5″ WHITE pooka resembling a humanized rabbit. Dowd’s sister Veta and Dr Chumley also saw Harvey.
Dowd told the story of advice from his mom: “’In this world, Elwood, you must be oh-so-smart or -oh-so-pleasant.’ … For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me.”
It’s a splendid movie from 1950. Well worth watching.
Oh no! I misremebered a detail of a movie I saw decades ago!
Since you neither have nor recognize either one, your comment is just adorable.
Oh Stormy! – Classics IV (1968)
Your ignorance is just too cute.
Like most right-wingers you contradict yourself constantly! LOL.
Each ‘thought’ in the conservative brain exists independently of every other ‘thought’, allowing them to simultaneously hold two contradictory ‘thoughts’ without suffering too much psychic pain.