The devil is in the SUVs
"Of all the choices we make as consumers, the cars we drive have the
single biggest impact on God's creation,"
The devil
is in the SUVs
Which of the following bold environmental initiatives is the Bush
administration considering?
A. Outlawing toothpicks in deli sandwiches less than 2 inches tall.
B. Requiring Americans to watch the Channel 11 Yule log rather than
burn real wood.
C. Asking Detroit to boost sport-utility vehicle fuel efficiency by
1.5 miles per gallon by 2007.
So far, my friends, only C is on the President's agenda. But A and B
probably make more sense. Why?
Because what the administration is asking for is less than what the
automakers already were committed to doing two years ago.
Yes, back in 2000, the Ford Motor Co. pledged to raise the fuel
economy of its SUVs by 1.8 miles per gallon over the next five years.
The other car companies vowed to meet or exceed that. "So," says David
Friedman, an engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, "the
automakers are already committed to doing more than the administration
is asking for."
Kinda makes Bush's proposal look a little weak, no? That's why perhaps
it's time to trust our environmental policy to someone with a bit more
integrity, not to mention long-term perspective:
God.
"What Would Jesus Drive?" is the headline of a new ad unveiled by
Evangelicals for Social Action, a group of more than 50 evangelical
Christian leaders.
Together with senior leaders from Jewish and mainstream Protestant
groups, they've formed the National Religious Partnership for the
Environment with one simple aim: making a moral issue out of what we
drive.
"Of all the choices we make as consumers, the cars we drive have the
single biggest impact on God's creation," says the WWJD? ad.
In a two-pronged approach, the umbrella group is calling on Detroit to
make cleaner cars - and congregants to drive them.
On Wednesday, the group met with the Big Three automakers - itself a
coup - and, says Chris Preuss, a General Motors spokesman, "We had a
very good, honest, constructive meeting."
By this, Preuss means that he explained to those gathered that GM
would really love to make cars that get better mileage, but people
don't want 'em. With gas still relatively cheap, "The customer keeps
demanding more powerful, less fuel-efficient vehicles."
In other words: Don't blame Detroit for gas guzzlers. Blame Americans
for demanding them.
He has a point. But as Bob Edgar of the religious delegation points
out, our piggish predilections are at least "partly the result of the
$13 billion the auto industry spends on advertising."
Another good point. Not too many ads for SUVs discuss their impact on
global warming, climbing asthma rates and, tangentially, the push for
war in a region crucial to us only for its oil.
Thus it is a real blessing that the clergy is making us think about
such unpleasantries. Because if we really did demand cleaner cars, we
could get them.
"Right now, the technology exists that could give us a
40-miles-per-gallon fleet of vehicles in the next 10 years," says Kate
Simmons, spokeswoman for the Sierra Club. These cars would cost more,
true. But that increase would be offset by savings at the pump. By
2020, Simmons says, clean cars "would save us more oil than we
currently import from the Persian Gulf and the projected yield from
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge combined."
Wildlife vs. pipelines. Clean air vs. asthma. God vs. Detroit. Put
this way, gas guzzling is truly a moral choice we must face.
Even if our President won't.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/37985p-35868c.html
