Might perhaps a few hundred biodieselers go stand outside the ED hq and yell "DIESEL!!"? I guess they'd see that as worse than torturing Noriega with Led Zeppelin.
The PDF report won't download, hits 60kb and hangs. Apart from these little quibbles, it's all jolly good excellent stuff. Keith http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=2218 Sinful Emissions - Weighing In on Automakers' Carbon Burdens 07/30/2002 http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/2220_AutomakersCorporate CarbonBurdens.pdf 524kb Acrobat file Sinful Emissions Weighing In on Automakers' Carbon Burdens If you own a mid-size car and drive it a typical 12,000 miles a year, your vehicle annually leaves four-and-one-half metric tons of carbon in its wake. If you drive an SUV or light truck, the amount is approximately 40 percent higher. As far as daily polluting activities go, driving a motor vehicle is probably society's most egregious act. In 2000, 210 million motor vehicles in the United States alone were responsible for emitting 302 million metric tons of carbon dioxide - a greenhouse gas that forms a heat-trapping blanket in the atmosphere. That figure, representing emissions from autos alone, exceeds the total carbon emissions of every nation in the world minus three (China, Russia and Japan). And not all vehicles are created equal. Sport utility vehicles, a popular ride in the United States, have been a huge factor in changing the landscape of American roads and, it turns out, the amount of carbon dioxide released into our air. As laid out in a new report published by Environment Defense, America's Corporate Carbon Burdens: Reframing Public Policy on Automobiles, Oil and Climate, the nation's automakers have been producing ever-more polluting vehicles with stagnant or decreasing gas mileage. Coupling an increase in the number of miles driven with a shift in sales toward SUVs and light trucks, the rise in the consumption of fossil fuels means today's car fleets are posing a greater danger to our climate, to our health, and to our energy independence. A Decade of Damage The archetypal vehicle that set the standard for SUV production by the big six automakers - Chrysler's Jeep Grand Cherokee - looked like good news for Detroit when it first rolled off assembly lines in 1992, but it was bad news for the environment. The amount of oil required to operate an SUV, and its annual carbon dioxide emissions (or carbon burden), lead to the Grand Cherokee emitting three times its body weight in CO2 per year. As the popularity of SUVs grew, the vehicle's fuel economy did not change much, because automakers neglected to incorporate improved fuel efficiency technology in its redesigns. After a six-year run, the Grand Cherokee was only getting one mile more to the gallon than it had at its debut (when it was rated 19 m.p.g.). The typical SUV today has a fuel economy 29 percent lower than that of the average car, resulting in a CO2 emissions rate roughly 40 percent higher. In addition, to satisfy the thirst of these inefficient vehicles, Americans are required to purchase much more oil, sometimes from unstable foreign sources. In 2000 cars guzzled 8.2 million barrels of oil per day, up from 6.9 in 1990. This rise in fuel use corresponded with a 47 percent increase in petroleum imports. It didn't have to be this way. Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were enacted in 1975 in response to the oil crisis and OPEC embargo. And they worked: Between 1970 and 1985, combined fuel economy rates rose from 14 m.p.g. to 25 m.p.g. CAFE policy also accomplished a reduction of CO2 emissions to a 30-year low in 1987. However, light trucks were held to a different, lower standard than passenger cars, thus their fuel efficiency stagnated as they were allowed to consume a third more gasoline than cars. This loophole, which also allowed SUVs to operate at lower fuel efficiency when they entered the market, survived many legislative attempts to raise CAFE standards for all vehicles in the 1980s and '90s. As SUVs and light trucks grew in sales and market share, their lower fuel efficiency pulled the national averages down. The decision by automakers to not change the technical design of their vehicles "locks-in" a statistically predictable rate of oil demand and CO2 emissions, which can help determine the automakers' carbon burden (x metric tons of carbon emitted based on the amount of gasoline a vehicle must burn in order to travel an average 12,000 miles). Business-as-usual projections have U.S. car and light truck CO2 emissions growing from the 2000 level of 302 million metric tons of carbon to 487 million metric tons a year by 2020, a 61 percent increase. Reducing these emissions is essential for stabilizing the climate. Automakers wishing to distinguish themselves as environmental leaders must make their light trucks meet the same emissions and fuel economy standards as cars. By not improving the fuel economy of their SUVs and light trucks - an increasing percentage of the big three's fleet over the last decade - the automakers are polluting more. But improving SUV fuel economy is not the only answer. Fuel economy needs to be improved for cars and SUVs alike. Shifting Gears While SUVs have been steadily increasing their market share of automobiles purchased, Detroit's engineers have lagged behind in making these popular vehicles more fuel efficient. Technologies can make light trucks as clean and fuel-efficient as cars today; in fact, technology has been proven to be five times more important than market shifts in affecting the overall efficiency and CO2 emissions characteristics of U.S. motor vehicles. So simply shifting away from SUVs would not yield large reductions in CO2 emissions compared to those attainable by simply improving the technology in SUVs and other vehicle types. During the past decade, all six of the major automakers increased their average CO2 emissions rates of their product lines, with the overall market average emissions rate rising 4 percent over the decade. The overall new vehicle market had a 33 percent increase in carbon burden between 1990 and 2000. General Motors had the largest overall carbon burden, linked to the company's leading market share; Ford came in second. The merged DaimlerChrysler, which came in third, was the owner of the largest absolute increase in carbon burden over the decade. Among the Big Six, Toyota has had the greatest proportionate increase of carbon burden over the last decade (72 percent) due to expansion of its market share and the company's shift to selling light trucks. But Toyota is also responsible for rolling out one of three hybrid vehicles this year: the Toyota Prius. Honda made the other two - the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Honda Insight. Honda (which only began selling trucks five years ago) was the fuel economy leader and showed the smallest increase in CO2 emissions rate. They were the first automaker to sell a significant portion of its vehicles as low-emission vehicles (LEVs) -- a standard that is 57 percent more stringent than the current national requirement. Honda also led the nation in fuel efficiency, with cars averaging the industry best at 31.8 miles per gallon. As the trends of increasing oil demand and carbon burdens appear poised to continue indefinitely, so does the heating up of the Earth. The 1990s was the hottest decade of the 20th century and probably of the last 1,000 years. If global warming continues, we face the possibility of record heat waves, drought, rising sea levels, flooding and the northward migration of insect-borne tropical diseases. These dangerous greenhouse gas emissions can be mitigated by vehicle design changes that reduce the burning of fossil fuels. Policies ranging from regulations to incentives and public education can push automotive design toward vehicles that emit less CO2. To not implement these changes, and to postpone fuel efficiency in favor of developing and marketing amenities that fail to improve performance, risks losing a valuable opportunity to reverse a damaging climatic trend. By Rose Palazzolo ------------------------ Yahoo! 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