Cars, trucks, SUV's, whatever.
Our political energies would be better spent lobbying our Congress critters to
eliminate
the practice of allowing "under polluting" industrial companies to sell
pollution
"credits" to their gross polluting neighbors.
In case you didn't know, in many instances and industries, a plant that
pollutes below EPA
limits is issued a "credit" by the EPA. These credits can actually be used in
other
company plants or sold to an outsider, allowing the recipient plant to pollute
in excess
of established maximums with no penalty.
I wonder which is the bigger polluter. The smoke stacks at the steel mill, or
the combined
tailpipes of the mill employee's carstrucksuv's? Does it really matter?
Ever think about the amount of crap that is spewed out of 4 huge jet engines
every time a
747 hits the sky? Multiplied by how many tens of thousands of flights each day?
Or pollution created by the local power plant generating electricity to charge
the
batteries in your "non-polluting" electric car.
Etc, etc, etc.
Let's not bash each other too much here (I'm sure I'm not the only owner of a
belching,
guzzling personal transportation device). There are much bigger fish to fry,
pollution
wise.
Andy Litkowiak
erl@unix.mail.virginia.edu wrote:
>
> Actually, a very interesting question!
>
> Yet on the old-car pollution question, my TR-6 ('74 1/2) never had a
> problem passing the Northern Va pollution reqs. I now live in
> Charlottesville, and we don't need to pass these, so I don't know about
> now, but it met the standards when it had 105,000 miles! As I said rather
> nastily, a bit earlier (apologies if I offended,) the real culprits are
> the SUV's, and "light trucks". They represent over 1/2 of all new vehicle
> sales, and got a "by" on meeting pollution standards years ago. In
> addition, the Japanese makers of their versions these, which are
> essentially cars, got to bring theirs in as "light trucks" so they do not
> need to meet EPA standards. In general, these vehicles produce from six
> to ten times the overall pollution of cars (check the data) that are
> required to meet the standards. I would suspect that in California the
> SUVs and their brethern that are sold each day produce more pollution than
> all our British cars (even the "dirtier" ones) plus all the other
> antique/collector cars put together, even if they were all being driven on
> one day! If Cal (and not Gore) wants to reduce pollution, I would suggest
> that the light-truck based vehicles, since they all are essentially
> personal passenger vehicles, NOT work vehicles, be made to meet fuel
> economy/pollution standards. (A friend of mine just HAD to have a GMC
> Yukon. Swears that even if he lived in NYC he would have one. He does
> agricultural work, while his wife uses the Yukon to drive to her office
> job, and he uses a small pickup for his farm work. I don't think the
> Yukon, with its 4X4, has ever been off hard pavement.) This would go a
> LONG way to reducing our use of foreign oil resources.
>
> Cheers...
>
> On Mon, 16 Oct
> 2000, Steven Newell wrote:
>
> >
> > Anyone know how much pollution is created making a new car?
> > Actually, I was going to ask the list, but I found some stuff online.
> >
> > *My apologies for more of this peripheral topic, even w/o politics.
> > I don't care who invented the Internet, without it I wouldn't have the
> > job that paid for my Triumph. ;-) Thanks, Mr. Cerf et al.*
> >
> > Anyway, I've wanted to be able to say that driving my Triumph
> > pollutes less than driving a Miata. I figured once you add up all
> > the pollution created from manufacturing and distribution, it
> > far outweighs the extra gas and lots of oil I burn. Plus no A/C,
> > no CFCs. And my leather seats are biodegradable -- and
> > clearly biodegrading. <g> Anyway, I'm thinking the
> > environmental cost of my Triumph should be 1/8th the cost of
> > driving a new car every 5 years for 40 years, right? Now you
> > can tell your friends *and* critics: "I'm driving my TR for you
> > and the health of the planet!"
> >
> >
> > Here's what I've found. *Disclaimer: I haven't checked sources.*
> > "A car causes more pollution before it's ever driven than in it's entire
> > lifetime of driving." (Cradle to the Grave, Umweltund Prognose-Institut
> > Heidelberg) and http://www.carbusters.ecn.cz/WCFD%20Stats.htm
> >
> > The Environmental Cost of One Car
> >
> > Extracting Raw Materials:
> > 26.5 tonnes of waste
> > 922 cubic metres of polluted air
> >
> > Transporting Raw Materials:
> > 12 litres of crude oil in the ocean
> > 425 million cubic litres of polluted air
> >
> > Producing the Car:
> > 1.5 tonnes of waste
> > 74 million cubic litres of polluted air
> >
> > Driving the Car:
> > 18.4 kilos of abrasive waste
> > 1,016 million cubic litres of polluted air
> >
> > Disposing of the Car:
> > 102 million cubic litres of polluted air
> >
> > --
> > Steven Newell
> > Denver, CO
> > '62 TR4 enviro-convertible
> >
> >
>
> James A. Ruffner
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