Wednesday, January 12, 2005

What would Jesus Drive? the alluring title of a C4 (UK) documentary on the American love affair with the SUV. Hoped it would contain lots of interesting facts. Yes, but as much if not more about the psychology of the Americans, particularly those buying big cars, which we know much about already, being as they come from the dominant culture.

Do SUVs make you stupid?, Blogdext # 51, covers a lot of the ground the programme did.
I was watching like a hawk to see what the price of petrol (gas) was: roughly $2 apparently. The gas guzzling, soon to be SUV owners were crying for a 10 c. a gallon: SUVs do about 11 miles to a gal. Ah, now we know why Iraq.... joke, honestly.

In Britain, I would inform US readers, gas (petrol, from the word petroleum) is roughly 0.88 pence a Litre, making it about £4 a gallon. That's $7.5 for every Imperial gallon: for every 0.88p, about three-quarters, or more, is tax. If the world is one big onion, why am I breaking the bank to drive down the road to Safeway, when my equivalent in the U.S. is using loose change to do the same thing? O.K. , I agree, we are run by different governments with different priorities and agendas. But heck, U.S. folks, you can see why we get upset when you say The Tokyo Accord is for wimps. You can't put your hands up to you're ears and say,"Blaaaablaaaablaaaaa" any longer because we are breathing in your CO2. S'only fair.

What would Jesus drive? went into the business of "where are all the electric and hybrid cars?": a protester claiming only 20,000 Ford hybrids had been sold (2004?). Is that world wide or just in the U.S.? There are cars around which will run on normal fuel and alcohol in any combination (i.e. separately, consecutively, or together if you so wish). Brazil has been producing alcohol for vehicle fuel for many years. The hydrogen fueled car is the ultimate answer.

We should really be thinking about the contribution aircraft make to our problems. It seems they cut out the heat of the sun, thus lowering global temperature. Proved by a cunning scientist who collated all temperatures from all weather stations in the U.S. during the 9/11 crisis, when no planes were flying. I'm confused about how this connects witth warming, but there you are. We Europeans are as guilty as you gas guzzling U.S. long-necked, flightless birds, when it comes to air miles.

Tax, tax and more tax: give it all to the Chinese and Indians to make sure they don't build any more smelly, polluting factories.


Rats Can tell human languages apart
Well Dutch and Japanese.... a Spanish research project. There is a bit to say on this: later.




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