Critical Thinking: Don't get a Prius.

[substitute]

The hybrid car is a lie. Do not purchase one.

1. The only reason the hybrid car exists is to allow auto manufacturers to continue selling grossly wasteful and polluting vehicles to consumers. Because California law requires an overall emissions target and minimum quantity of zero emissions vehicles, a manufacturer has to sell hybrid or electric powered vehicles in order to continue selling large commercial trucks to consumers as toys, and other sins.
   
   
2. Purchasing a hybrid vehicle pays off the owner's conscience in the best American way: with a unique product. The buyer feels a sense of moral superiority, the seller makes some money, and the essential problem continues. It's no wonder the name of the most popular one sounds like "pious."
   
   
3. Buying a hybrid car means buying a new car. Don't buy a new car. It's true that as your hybrid car runs it will put less direct pollutant material in the air and water. It's also true that it will use less gasoline. However, you have just bought a very large machine which was manufactured new. Add up the steel and aluminum, the machining and casting of parts, the chemicals used and dumped, the nonrenewable resources consumed or used to build the car, all the energy used to build a car and carry its materials around, the energy used to move the car around by ship and truck to the dealer, all of it. Making a car is a very top heavy resource-hungry industrial process.
   
   And your car doesn't go away. Unless you have it artfully crushed into a cube as a coffee table, or personally supervise its recycling, your car is sold to another person and stays on the road. And that person's car is sold down the line too, until we arrive at unusable or junked cars, which then go to a graveyard to be broken down. Everything about the car is toxic too, just in case you're curious.
   
   So now you've brought a new car into the world (they'll make more!) and given a nice big fat gut punch to Mother Nature in doing so. Failure.
   
   
4. Keep your old car instead. If it's not so run down that the mileage is shot, and it's passing the emissions tests, it's a better deal for "the planet" and for you also. It is not as demonstrative of your love for the GREEN GAIA to continue with your serviceable older car, but trust me, she appreciates it.
   
   
5. nstead, do things that don't burn fuel, or burn less. If you're physically able, ride a bike more to short drives. Use public transit. Even in Southern Californian Heck, where I live, I can (and now I do) take the train into Los Angeles when I am able.
   
   
6. It will be a great day for this country when Americans can look at a serious problem and do something other than pick up a lifestyle magazine and look for some product guides. Buying things is a terrible solution to so many things.

Comments

[caladri.livejournal.com]

I just about punched this person I saw the other day with a "I'm doing my part! 45MPG" sticker the size of my torso on the back of their Prius. Our 1992 (or 1995?) Honda Civic gets 42MPG. Idiots.

[skepticle.livejournal.com]

I HEAR AND OBEY.
ME WALK TO WORK AND HAVE 12 YEAR OLD CAMRY THAT DOES 33MPG IN CITY.

preachin to the choir, son.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

12 year old camrys are so motherfucking goth.

[daisyhunter.livejournal.com]

I thought 12 year old Saturns were motherfucking goth :D

[dr-strych9.livejournal.com]

I have a '94 Mazda Miata with about 365,000 miles on it. I don't drive it anymore except to keep it from being ticketed on street sweeping days, and I don't plan to replace it. (The primary family car is a recently made Mazda6, gets 30+ MPG, I don't know. We only need one car now that I ride the bus to work every day.)

All that said, do you know where I can have my old car artfully crushed down into a cube as a coffee table? Hopefully, some of that steel will be recycled, because I'd really rather not try to lift 1800 lbm of repurposed Mazda Miata into my living room.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I know the1withtheeyes was very interested in making such coffee tables as soon as it was mentioned, and she's good at artery. Maybe she could start with yours.

[turnip.livejournal.com]

And your car doesn't go away. Unless you have it artfully crushed into a cube as a coffee table.

hey, TOTALLY UNRELATED, but I think I'm gonna open up a furniture store in San Francisco - you want in?


I'm glad I didn't get a Prius.

<3

[substitute.livejournal.com]

TOTALLY UNRELATED I am all over that like a cheap suit.

i like that icon of you. it's how I want my life to be.

[switchstatement.livejournal.com]

can i work there and also crash on your couch? in the store. THAT'D BE AWESOME.

[salome-st-john.livejournal.com]

When you open the Berkeley branch and we convince people to throw away their perfectly good furniture that they already have in order to purchase brand-new stuff because it is ECO-FRIENDLY and GREEN and they all congratulate themselves on this stroke of geniusness they are having, can I please work there because the Berkeley branch will be REALLY BEYOND GREAT.

Also then there will be a Leah at each one. hi!

[etb.livejournal.com]

If people want to show their Wuv for the Earth, I'd prefer they use the same amount of money to buy their next dozen (or two) pimped-out imoportedimported bicycles. And that's not just my Brompton lust talking.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Leave it to America. We'll somehow figure out how to make a hipster fixie out of 1.5 million barrels of Saudi oil and an endangered species.

[perich.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Ooh! Do "TerraPass" next!

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Oh man I forgot about that thing

I want to buy vouchers that allow me to find and brutally beat TerraPass purchasers. It's what the market wants; it has to happen.

[jactitation.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Exactly.

You can't buy the strategy you don't have

[mr-flippant.livejournal.com]

This seems like a reasonable list and I agree with the theme...but I take issue with #3.

It's true that there are other viable transit options in many situations...even in SoCal. And as peak oil, pollution, gridlock and personal finance become larger issues, we will probably see more people driving (oh crap, a pun) improvements to our transit systems and land use policies. We are already seeing hints of changes to the established way of thinking with the declining appeal of suburban life. The road worshipping philosophies of Robert Moses, at least up here in crunchy Seattle, are also becoming less and less common.

But until we have a system of commerce and transportation that supports these values, we have to deal with an infrastructure that was not developed with them in mind. And I wonder if the issue isn't knotted enough that blacklisting a vehicle, that pollutes less, because of a disingenuous manufacturer washes over some of that complexity.

Re: You can't buy the strategy you don't have

[substitute.livejournal.com]

I'm blacklisting an idea, not a car. the Idea is: Buy a new car to make things better.

[brian enigma (from livejournal.com)]

Also: Flexcar (which is now Zipcar) is a sort of time-sharing car rental sort of thing that I know works really well in Boston and Portland (and other cities, too.) I have a number of friends who gave up their car (and the associated maintenance, insurance, and downtown parking costs, not to mention pollution) in favor of Flexcar. When you have a car in the garage, it's easy to take needless trips. Without a car in the garage, you walk/bike/bus more and save scheduling the car parked a few blocks over for larger-cargo trips.

The good is the enemy of the best

[rpkrajewski.livejournal.com]

Now, some of this maybe company propaganda, but it appears that the environmental impact of a Prius in the manufacture and disposal stages is significantly, if still only incrementally, better than that of conventional motor vehicle:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080512170921AA2Btbz

Also, so far, it seems like that the Prius is well-made and reliable, and should last a long time. It's at least, if not more recyclable, than average car. I really wouldn't worry about the recycling issue for most of the car in general – there's a great market in scrap metal, and economic pressure that kind of reuse is only increasing.

Yes, it would be better if everybody could get around without a car, but even in the relatively dense and transit-friendly areas of the country, it's the only realistic strategy for getting around. It's going to take a while before transit networks and land-use patterns catch up with better arrangements.

Re: The good is the enemy of the best

[substitute.livejournal.com]

That's good to hear. I still think that buying a new car is the opposite of helping the environment. I seriously wonder how many owners of shiny new hybrids could have got away with keeping the one they had and living more car-light.

generally usefulish.

[drieuxster.livejournal.com]

p1: the first problem is that the California Clean Air Initiatives were shot down when GM decided that it wanted to prevent itself from taking advantage of it's lead in the ZEV that it had with the electric cars that it was making. SO they brokered a deal with the California Clean Air Board to stop it from offering GM an unbridled head start.

p2: the Hybrid Car was the Also Ran in the process.

But since you are trying to argue about a process, rather than a type of car, there are some deeper issues that will need to be addressed. This may be a great time to read Kevin Phillip's Bad Money (http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780670019076) as the "Peak Oil" meets the "global warming" trend is only a part of the problem that americans face, given the unwrapping of the FINANCIALIZATION of the american economy.

Unless americans want to back the 'winning side' in the 'resource wars' they may not be in a position to have the money to buy foreign made products that will no longer be shipped to the americans until they have a convertable currency accepted in the rest of the world.

So if Process is the Concern, maybe it is time to step back and really address the core process issues.

Re: generally usefulish.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Many processes are of concern, and there isn't One Solution to Everything except in the Kooks Museum.

I don't see what's so hard about "stop buying products to stop a consumption problem" as a concept, though.

[baconmeteor.livejournal.com]

Related:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1951848/Paul-McCartney-'horrified'-as-his-eco-car-is-flown-7,000-miles-from-Japan.html

[wrecking--ball.livejournal.com]

Yay! Especially about buying things to solve problems created by gross over-consumption of limited resources. Like that whole Product (RED)TARDED thing. What? Stupidity/Bono ensues.

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Stupidity/Bono ensues.

MAJOR WIN