Sunday, May 25, 2008
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Obama's Carbon Footprint
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Posted by:
Amanda Carpenter at
11:19 AM
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I got a kick out of reading some Q and A from a recent Obama press avail.
He says he has a hybrid, but doesn't drive it. (Too busy flying around in jets while campaigning.)
While Obama's busy emitting extra greenhouse gases trying to become president he says President Bush should do more work to advance alternative fuels. Hah.
Here's the excerpt:
Q: When will you, would you, ask the American people to stop buying SUVs? And what do you do in your own life? Obama: Well these days I don’t drive much. I bought a hybrid but we keep it in the garage mostly. This is part of the reason why it’s important to continue to raise fuel efficiency standards on cars. One the advantages if we do so is you can see a gradual hike in fuel mileage standards, as opposed to these abrupt jumps, and that would probably smooth out increases in oil prices. Obviously that’s not an immediate option for this summer, and I think, as I’ve said on the stump, the most important thing we can do right now is provide some relief potentially in the form of an additional tax stimulus, and make sure that the next President starts immediately on implementing the kinds of alternative fuel strategies and gasoline savings strategies that can help reduce our oil consumption over the long term.
By the way, there's a great feature in Wired magazine this month that explains how making hybrid cars is bad for the environment. "Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer largely because of the nickel in the hybrid's battery," it says. Making a Prius takes about 113 million Btus. A gallon of gasoline is about 113,000 Btus. Wired calculates a Prius drinks about 1,000 gallons worth of gasoline energy before it makes its first test drive. Real conservationists would be sticking with their beaters, rather than buying the Lexus hybrid like Al Gore. "A used car on the other hand, starts with a significant advantage," Wired says. "The first owner has already paid off its carbon debt"--meaning since it was more energy-efficient to produce the older car, it doesn't hit the road with such a huge energy deficit. The article estimates it would take the Prius 100,000 miles to close the carbon gap with a 10-year old Toyota Tercel.
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The answer to everything is to spread poverty and deprivation. How about innovating our way to future prosperity? It's always more taxes, bigger government and lowering our expectations for the future. Welcome to the future: one-world without borders where sovereign nations are reduced to mere markets to be exploited while giant sovereign funds owned by hostile non-free nations use capitalism to steal our hard-earned profits. If we continue to defend this one-party system, we can all expect to be poorer and less free. Think about that as we transition to an economy based on cheap labor. YOU can be made to work for less too. |
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'"Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer largely because of the nickel in the hybrid's battery," it says.'
Isn't is somewhat dishonest to omit the fact that the VERY NEXT SENTENCE says "Of course, the hybrid quickly erases that carbon deficit on the road, thanks to its vastly superior fuel economy."
Or failing to mention that a conventional internal-combustion car takes about 100 million BTU to manufacture, meaning that the Prius is only 13 million BTU more, or 115 gallons of gas.
And I like the way you snuck in "pound for pound." Of course, the Hummer weighs much more, and actually uses 200 million BTU to manufacture.
Finally, over a lifetime driving 160,000 miles, the Hummer uses (manufacture and driving) of 13,913 gallons of gas and the Prius 2,883. That's a difference of $44,120 at $4/gal, more than doubling the purchase price.
I guess a little honesty would be dangerous to your point. |
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Not really, she goes on to talk about buying a used car, which WIRED does also. The Hummer was just an extremem example from the opposite side of the spectrum from a Prius. She then talks about the Toyota Tercel. So, actually, you're not being honest. |
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"She goes on to talk about buying a used car, which WIRED does also. ... So, actually, you're not being honest."
No, she's being dishonest start to finish. The Wired article says that the Prius will need to drive 100,000 miles to catch up with the Tercel. That means that the Prius will be better for the environment over its total lifetime. Moreover, the article that the Wired feature is based on comes to the firm conclusion: "Continuing to drive an older car with poor fuel economy is less environmentally friendly than getting a new car that gets drastically better fuel economy."
Finally, she says plainly: "there's a great feature in Wired magazine this month that explains how making hybrid cars is bad for the environment." It does no such thing; her statement is what's called a "lie." |
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"Better yet, buy a three-cylinder, 49-horsepower 1994 Geo Metro XFi, one of the most fuel-efficient cars ever built. It gets the same average mileage as a 2008 Prius, so a new hybrid would never close the carbon gap. Sure, the XFi has no AC or airbags — but nobody said saving the planet would be comfortable, or even safe."
This is the actual end to the short passage on hybrids. I'm not sure where you get the conclusion you wrote about. Not to mention you have to drive the Prius 100,000 just to catch up to the Tercel, that doesn't necessarily mean it surpasses it. The WIRED article proves that environmentalism is almost a religion and you can't touch the sacred cows. Just look at the comment sections on those articles. |
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"I'm not sure where you get the conclusion you wrote about."
From the article pointed to by the Wired article. It's here: http://tinyurl.com/33t94a
"Not to mention you have to drive the Prius 100,000 just to catch up to the Tercel, that doesn't necessarily mean it surpasses it."
Well of course it does. I don't even know what you're not understanding.
"The WIRED article proves that environmentalism is almost a religion and you can't touch the sacred cows."
It's more that you can't say a bunch of things that aren't true and get away with it. As Carpenter tried to do.
"Just look at the comment sections on those articles."
I did. They both seem to contain reasonable discussions of alternatives, interrupted by occasional right-wing trolls. Is perhaps the level of technology or science in the discussion too much for you? |
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Carpenter is referring to the WIRED article, not to an article linked by the WIRED article. The WIRED article clearly says that a hybrid would not catch a Metro. So you can't claim she is lying because of a linked article that she is not referencing. On my other points, 100,000 miles is a long time, depending on how much you drive, and a lot of miles regardless of the time it takes to rack them up. Many things can happen during that time including a failed nickel battery. In the perfect world that may not happen, but the world is hardly perfect. My point on the comments is that there are ones that deride America, one in the nuclear energy portion of the WIRED article call the author a paid hack of the energy industry... So while there are substantive comments, there are others that are ridiculous because some people don't dare think outside the box. |
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Carpenter: "By the way, there's a great feature in Wired magazine this month that explains how making hybrid cars is bad for the environment."
That's a lie; clearly and irrefutably. |
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Clearly there will be no agreement between us. That being said, the WIRED article does state that the manufacturing of a hybrid, due to the nickel battery, is not good for the environment. You can argue that in the long run it's better than a pure gas car, but the article clearly says the manufacturing is not good. Also, keep in mind that the nickel has to travel around a lot to be made into a battery, that adds more carbon to the atmosphere. So, while you can argue for the hybrid, Carpenter is not lying. There are also many scientists that say the hybrid really isn't the best for the environment because it still relies on gas and the push for hybrids keeps back the push for hydrogen or just pure electric. |
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