[at-l] red, white and blue

[jbullar1 at twcny.rr.com (Jim Bullard)]

At 07:38 AM 11/10/2004 -0500, Suzie wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Shane Steinkamp" <shane@theplacewithnoname.com>
> > I don't think that SUVs are nearly the problem that some of these older
>cars
> > are.  I bought a Ford Escape, and I get much better gas mileage and
>cleaner
> > emissions than my '85 Chevy S-10 got.  It sure beats the crap out of my
> > neighbors '72 Caddy...
>
>Yeah, but what about him just throwing that Caddy away?  What about our
>landfills?
>
>It's a question I'm struggling with right now - my minivan is now 10 years
>old.  It has 200,000 miles on it.  When I bought it, I had kids at home and
>almost always had a full, or near full, load of people in it.  Now I'm
>driving around in it alone.
>
>I know I could buy something that gets better gas mileage.  But what about
>the other environmental issue of just throwing away things that still have
>useful life?  Is it better to keep driving this thing now until it finally
>won't run at all?  (It still runs ok).
>
>And what about the needs I have as far as winter travel?  I'd love one of
>the new hybrids, but - - can it handle the Notches in winter here in the
>Whites?  (I live uphill on a dirt road in the Pinkham Notch area (5 miles
>from the AMC center there) and regularly have to drive through Crawford and
>Franconia Notches as well).
>
>suzie

The throw away question is a good one. My opinion is to use it until it's 
dead but the metal would probably get recycled if you junk it. I know some 
models are efficient. My wife drives a Subaru that gets 25MPG <>. My 
reference to SUVs was in reference to the car companies building ever 
larger, inefficient models because the CAFE standards make an exception for 
"trucks". Calling a Lincoln Navigator a truck is a joke, and not a good 
one. When I take my wife's car in for service I cruise the lot. The dealer 
sells Chevy, GMC and Subaru. Roughly half the vehicles on the lot are 
trucks, mostly BIG trucks, what they like to call "full size". The window 
stickers tell me they get 16MPG. Many of my neighbors drive these things to 
such rugged places as the post office and the corner store. 99% of the full 
size pickups I see are carrying only passengers in the cab. The bed is empty.

But that was just a cheap shot example in the sense that it was easy. There 
are a zillion ways to save resources if we look around. I like Shane's 
question about every other streetlight. Or... ask if we really need them. 
One of my life goals is to move out of town to get away from the 
streetlights so it's easier to watch the Northern Lights and such.