Buy a Hummer and squash a Prius with it

[BusyBody]

Another article that discusses the impact of the battery pollution associated with Prius production.

Let's think globally -- and clearly


George F. Will, Special to The Leader-Post

Published: Monday, April 16, 2007
WASHINGTON -- In a campaign without peacetime precedent, the media-entertainment-environmental complex is warning about global warming. Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans, 83 per cent of whom now call global warming a "serious problem." Indoctrination is supposed to be a predicate for action commensurate with professions of seriousness.
For example, Democrats could demand that the president send the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate so they can embrace it. In 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 in opposition to any agreement which would, like the protocol, require significant reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in America and some other developed nations, but would involve no "specific scheduled commitments" for 129 "developing" countries, including the second, fourth, 10th, 11th, 13th and 15th largest economies (China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Indonesia). Forty-two of the senators serving in 1997 are gone. Let's find out if the new senators disagree with the 1997 vote.
Do they also disagree with Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist? He says: Compliance with Kyoto would reduce global warming by an amount too small to measure. But the cost of compliance just to the United States would be higher than the cost of providing the entire world with clean drinking water and sanitation, which would prevent 2 million deaths (from diseases like infant diarrhea) a year and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill each year.

Nature designed us as carnivores, but what does nature know about nature? Meat has been designated a menace. Among the 51 exhortations in Time magazine's "global warming survival guide" (April 9), No. 22 says a BMW is less responsible than a Big Mac for "climate change," that conveniently imprecise name for our peril. This is because the world meat industry produces 18 per cent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, more than transportation produces. Nitrous oxide in manure (warming effect: 296 times greater than that of carbon) and methane from animal flatulence (23 times greater) mean that "a 16-ounce T-bone is like a Hummer on a plate."
Ben & Jerry's ice cream might be even more sinister: A gallon of it requires electricity-guzzling refrigeration, and four gallons of milk produced by cows that simultaneously produce eight gallons of manure and flatulence with eight gallons of methane. The cows do this while consuming lots of grain and hay, which are cultivated by using tractor fuel, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, and transported by fuel-consuming trains and trucks.
Newsweek says most food travels at least 1,200 miles to get to Americans' plates, so buying local food will save fuel. Do not order halibut in Omaha.
Speaking of Hummers, perhaps it is environmentally responsible to buy one and squash a Prius with it. The Prius hybrid is, of course, fuel-efficient. There are, however, environmental costs to mining and smelting (in Canada) 1,000 tons a year of zinc for the battery-powered second motor, and the shipping of the zinc 10,000 miles -- trailing a cloud of carbon -- to Wales for refining and then to China for turning it into the component that is then sent to a battery factory in Japan.

more at link

http://www.canada.com/reginaleaderpo...9-1d266cb1ff6b

[betron02]

that is my plan get a Hummer H2 and squash a prius

[dratnol]

It is crazy to think that a company could get the raw materials from Canada, ship them to Wales, then to China, and finally to Japan and still make a profit on it.

[Mr. Burns]

but why would you get a hummer? why not just a regular family sedan?

[banzai79]

Because a regular family sedan can't drive over a prius, which, purportedly a Hummer can. Har har. I believe the article is just having a bit of fun. It is a bit questionable how hybrids are going to end up helping anybody.

[john1701a]

The misleading fed from the CNW nonsense is getting way out of hand.

Fortunately, TCC is helping to set the record straight...

http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto...2220.html?pg=1

[FordFan]

No problem, heck why not an H1 or an Excursion? that will annihlate the Prius!

I am all for that!