Critical thinking skills

[cjsmith]

I've been amusedsaddened by the "No Blood for Oil" bumper stickers. Bumper stickers, that's right, on cars, all of which (that I've seen so far) have been the standard gasoline-burning variety.

Seems to me anyone who can boil down the current situation to such a simple essence would have no problem reaching the logical conclusion that driving a car is inherently evil. Unless, of course, such a conclusion would be personally inconvenient.

Comments

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

I've always found those a tad hypocritical, myself. Like you say, it would be rather different if those bumper stickers were found only on hybrid cars, for instance. But one usually sees them on regular cars, most often ratty old clunkers from the 70s that very nearly can't pass smog. I don't think I've ever seen one on an SUV, anyway--that would be just the ultimate in hypocrisy.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I wonder if a car that old gets any better gas mileage than a new SUV. Ten minutes of Googling didn't give me much on that.

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Dunno. But most people driving the old clunkers can't afford anything else, really. Whereas those driving new SUVs often COULD afford to buy a smaller, less fuel-hogging vehicle.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah. There is that.

(Me, I drive something that's reaching clunker stage, but I'm just too lazy and too ticked at the whole car buying schtick to go get a new car. Call me irrational...)

[ptor.livejournal.com]

Well, I remember my brother used to drive a wonderful rattlebox Datsun in the late 70's. It probably got ~25 mpg. Probably good economy compared to most modern SUV.

And around 1980, my dad had a little white diesel Volkswagen Rabbit. It got about 45 mpg. Lots of window glass, fairly comfy upright seats, a decent stereo. I could drive it around all night with my friends, without the fuel gauge moving.

It's sad that all these years have passed, but the lessons learned then, seem to have been unlearned.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Two seconds of Googling tells me the 2003 Toyota Rav4 is 25/31 MPG. Finding stats on old cars (well, what old cars get NOW, not what they got THEN) really stumps me. Hmm, let me try something truly enormous... heh: the 2003 Navigator is 11/16. That's pretty bad.

I agree that the lessons learned then have been unlearned. In fact, it's worse: we've learned even more since then, and we COULD make much more fuel-efficient vehicles -- even large SUVs -- but the technology isn't coming to market because there is no market pressure for it. Great article in Technology Review on that, few months ago. Their example was how to make a 50MPG SUV with technology we understand already but have never manufactured in bulk. Buyers just don't want it enough for the factories to tool up.