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#9 was the most interesting one for me from personal experience. a few years ago 2 guys on an email list I'm on engaged in a several week long feud about what was better, buying used cars and running them into the ground, or buying a Prius. You can't believe the amount of debate and venom on that thread. I sided with the used car argument because of the argument that it's better for the environment to not make a new car assuming the used car still runs and conforms to emissions standards.
That's pretty much the argument in Wired for #9 they suggest a couple of cars that can be bought 10 to 15 years old that have high mileage and essentially get comparable mileage to a Prius without the startup carbon costs associated with manufacturing the Prius.
#9 was the most interesting one for me from personal experience. a few years ago 2 guys on an email list I'm on engaged in a several week long feud about what was better, buying used cars and running them into the ground, or buying a Prius. You can't believe the amount of debate and venom on that thread. I sided with the used car argument because of the argument that it's better for the environment to not make a new car assuming the used car still runs and conforms to emissions standards.
That's pretty much the argument in Wired for #9 they suggest a couple of cars that can be bought 10 to 15 years old that have high mileage and essentially get comparable mileage to a Prius without the startup carbon costs associated with manufacturing the Prius.
The #9 argument is basically "just don't build anything new".
Yeah, I didn't go to any links, but there is an economic hit from a vast majority of people buying used cars. The goal from an economic perspective is to keep the car manufacturing going on cars that are much less harmful to the environment. While that might still hit the environment more than buying a used car (I don't know if this is true or not) it can still be the better solution overall.
The #9 argument is basically "just don't build anything new".
If you can survive with something old.
The guy on the list I don't think has ever bought a new car. his argument is it's both cheaper to buy used cars and drive them until they die, and better for the enviroment (if they pass emissions of course). the longer he drives the car the longer it's out of some landfill dump as a crushed car.
I don't buy the financial part of it he fixes his own cars, I don't, so for me it's cheaper to buy new have a warranty and reduce my maintenance costs but hsi argument is interest on a carloan and car payments he avoids, offset the maintenance costs.
It's an interesting argument. I also liked the carbon offsets one since I completely agree.
Yeah, I didn't go to any links, but there is an economic hit from a vast majority of people buying used cars. The goal from an economic perspective is to keep the car manufacturing going on cars that are much less harmful to the environment. While that might still hit the environment more than buying a used car (I don't know if this is true or not) it can still be the better solution overall.
Right if everyone just bought used cars, the economy suffers and then car manufacturers cease to innovate why spend time inventing a cleaner car if everyone bought a used car.
So there's sort of a limit to how far #9 can go before it ceases to be beneficial.
But that works both ways, if everyone dumped their current car to buy a Prius, the average MPG would skyrocket, but the impact on the environment would be horrible because everyone would dump their car and many would end up in scrap yards. California went through this when they changed laws and essentially made 2 stroke engines in boats obsolete(at the time cleaner 2 strokes are still legal today). The net result was you couldn't sell a 2 stroke engine, and a lot of engines(not to mention 2 stroke jetskis) wound up in the dump.
Wow you got one with stickers that's the best of both worlds.
Yep, life is good. I totally lucked out. A 2005 with only 23,000 miles (which is a miracle in California) and HOV stickers for a very reasonable price. I jumped on it.
That's pretty much the argument in Wired for #9 they suggest a couple of cars that can be bought 10 to 15 years old that have high mileage and essentially get comparable mileage to a Prius without the startup carbon costs associated with manufacturing the Prius.
I own a 2007 Prius and a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse.... I'm here to tell ya that their mileage is certainly NOT comparable, nor is it with any other car of this age that I am aware of....
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I own a 2007 Prius and a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse.... I'm here to tell ya that their mileage is certainly NOT comparable, nor is it with any other car of this age that I am aware of....
You have to read the link to get why I said essentially comparable. What they do is figure out the carbon footprint it takes to MAKE the PRius, and then equate that to the amount of miles it would have to drive to make the same amount of carbon footprint. So if that's 100K miles you then essentially reduce the effective MPG the Prius gets. It's a convoluted way of looking at it but it allows for the total impact on environment.
Since a used car was already made the carbon imprint for that doesn't count against you buying it used.
You have to read the link to get why I said essentially comparable. What they do is figure out the carbon footprint it takes to MAKE the PRius, and then equate that to the amount of miles it would have to drive to make the same amount of carbon footprint. So if that's 100K miles you then essentially reduce the effective MPG the Prius gets. It's a convoluted way of looking at it but it allows for the total impact on environment.
Since a used car was already made the carbon imprint for that doesn't count against you buying it used.
#9 has some logic re: old vs new vehicles, but I disagree it serves as a measure that 'allows for the total impact to the environment'. It just attempts to simplistically measure carbon footprint in the life cycle of two cars.
Many other aspects play into 'total environmental impact' - for cars, emissions is a huge one. A Prius, or any new car like a Civic or Accord, that meets or exceeds the latest California emissions standards, is a much, much 'cleaner and greener car' then any 10 year or 15 year old car with similar gas mileage.
Tailpipe emissions impact smog-forming and acid rain creating pollution (NOx, Sulfur, etc), as well as CO2.
These aspects are why the most respected 'green car' ratings use a formula that includes a combination of gas mileage, emissions standards, and lately, factory production process and efficiency (does manufacturer recycle in making the car, is the car recyclable with low toxics upon end of life, etc).
In addition, older vehicles, even when well maintained, eventually lose efficiency in engine combustion and fuel consumption (ie, mileage), as well as see increased emissions of pollution.
Don't get me wrong - keeping an older car running clean has some valid environmental benefits as well as saving the owner money. But only up to a point. And, those benefits are not a one-for-one trade off to the benefits of a new 'greener' vehicle like a Prius (or a clean emissions deisel, or a CnG car, or other green options) as the article presents.
Think of major appliances and energy use. Refrigerators used to be built like a brick and last 20-30 years. And they sucked down a TON of electricity. Since then, electricity use in new fridges dropped a steady % year over year, due to the Federal Energy Star program, which required improvements over time. Yes, it might be 'green' in one way to 'keep using the old fridge' to avoid a new one being made, but it is very much not green in others.
As a result, most new fridges today are intentionally not built to last as long - maybe 15 years max. There is a benefit to people buying new fridges more often. It stinks on one hand, but adjusted for inflation, fridges are much cheaper today then 30 years ago. There is an environmental impact to building more fridges then before, but a huge savings in getting more efficient tech into peoples homes faster to reduce energy use. If the assembly lines produce them in a more efficient fashion and use recycled materials, and fridges are recycled at end of life, the loop starts to close. Similar story in autos.
All the items in the article have huge strawman elements to them in terms of environmental priorities and technologies, whatever their valid individual logic points.
It looks like Wired just wants to stir up readers with 'cool alt-thinking' on environmental topics.
Read the comments on Wired - people tear all 10 'contrary takes' apart quickly and easily.
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Last edited by TBaslim; May 22nd, 2008 at 12:02 AM.
Yes there are certainly alot of flaws but it's an interesting topic. For example the urban sprawl example, the environmentalist approach in my experience is the exact opposite of what wired claimed it was. Very much a strawman.
I think there are several items that at a certain scope are very true but if they get too big, they become untrue.
The carbon credit thing is already falling apart I read a story just the other day about a European company that was caught selling carbon credits to multiple companies that were essentially the same credit. In other words they were pledging the same planted tree (or whatever the offset was) to multiple companies. So they were getting paid multiple times without actually providing the carbon credit that many times.
The Used Car vs. Prius article is far too simplistic in order to come to a reasonable conclusion. First of all, if we are calculating an individual's carbon footprint (which will likely be different than the car's lifetime carbon footprint), then it is misleading to put the associated environmental costs in producing the car solely on the first owner as it is probable that the car will more often than not change hands at least once. The carbon footprint of producing the vehicle should be partitioned based on something along the lines of the expected value of how many miles the car will be driven by each owner.
The second thing that jumped out at me was "A single gallon of gas contains about 113,000 Btus, so Toyota's green wonder guzzles the equivalent of 1,000 gallons before it clocks its first mile." This is an extremely poor substitute for a legitimate sustainability analysis, as it simply takes the total energy consumed and does not discriminate in terms of the sources of that energy. One gallon of gasoline at 113,000 BTUs of energy has a significantly different carbon content and environmental impact than 113,000 BTUs of energy being consumed by the factory to make the vehicle, yet the article treats them as the same despite having different impacts.
Yes there are certainly alot of flaws but it's an interesting topic. For example the urban sprawl example, the environmentalist approach in my experience is the exact opposite of what wired claimed it was. Very much a strawman.
I think there are several items that at a certain scope are very true but if they get too big, they become untrue.
The carbon credit thing is already falling apart I read a story just the other day about a European company that was caught selling carbon credits to multiple companies that were essentially the same credit. In other words they were pledging the same planted tree (or whatever the offset was) to multiple companies. So they were getting paid multiple times without actually providing the carbon credit that many times.
I hear ya, but isn't your example a simple case of fraud and a poorly regulated/executed system, not a fundemental issue with the concept of carbon credits?
Either way, the Wired authors stretched pretty hard to make contrarian articles to draw viewer eyeballs. Kinda like cable news these days.
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