Who produces the fewer carbon emissions, somebody who drives a Prius or somebody who drives a Suburban?
It’s a trick question. You can’t determine the answer from the information you’re being given in the question. It depends on miles driven, driving conditions, driving practices, and even the temperature. Recent models of Prius seem to be getting 40-50 mpg in the real world and recent models of Suburban seem to be getting 15-20 mpg in the real world. Consequently, all other things being equal a Prius driver who drives 300 miles per week will drive will use more gas and, consequently, produce more emissions than a Suburban driver who drives 50 miles per week.
Consequently, if your objective is fewer emissions, policies which result in people driving less might be more effective in achieving your goal than getting everybody to drive hybrids. Driving less will result in fewer emissions whether you’re driving a Prius or a Suburban.
In a digression a Prius can’t remotely be considered a green vehicle unless you limit your definition to consumption of hydrocarbons. If you include, for example, the amount of rare earth elements used in its manufacture, how noxious some of them are, and the lack of any way to dispose of them properly, we might think twice before subsidizing a rush to hybrids. In a digression within a digression, China is one of the major producers of rare earth minerals if not the major producer. Would you like to trade oil dependency for rare earth dependency?
In another digression, have you ever heard of the Jevons paradox? It’s the principle according to which the more efficiently a resource is used, the more of it is used. It was proposed in 1865 by William Stanley Jevons who observed that improvements in the efficiency of the use of coal had lead to more coal being consumed in England.
In my view there are two sorts of political opinion polling. The first is scientific, an attempt to acquire knowledge. The other is a form of advocacy, an attempt at justifying what you want to do.
I have no objection to the former but I think the latter is almost always pernicious. It relies too heavily on narrow and probably misleading questions. So, for example, issue polling in which the benefits of the policy being promoted by the pollsters are divorced from its costs is, essentially, meaningless. It is a form of deception.
Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?
Updated
Another example of questions that are misleading based on how they are structured occurred to me. Which is better for you, a diet in which 10% of its calories are from fat or one in which 30% of its calories are from fat? I think that most would answer that the diet in which 10% of its calories are derived from fat is better for you but it ain’t necessarily so. A better answer is “it depends”.
It depends on lots of things including your genetics and how much you eat.
Most of the statements about diet are based on the assumption of a 2,000 calorie per day diet. Unfortunately, many Americans eat significantly more than that. To put it in perspective for most people, if they select the foods they eat with a certain amount of care, a 1,200 calorie a day diet can be nutritionally adequate. A Big Mac Value Meal has about 1,200 calories but it’s not nutritionally adequate. In addition to having far too much fat it has far too few of most nutrients including vitamins A, B complex, and C.
I don’t think I know anybody who limits their daily calorie consumption to one Big Mac Value Meal per day.
Do I need to point out that somebody who’s eating 10% of his or her calories from fat and consuming a 3,600 calories per day diet (40 grams of fat) is consuming the same amount of fat as somebody who’s consuming 1,200 calories per day of which 30% is derived from fat (40 grams of fat)? Now to be completely honest and fair, it’s darned hard to have a nutritionally adequate diet at 1,200 calories that’s 30% fat. But it’s possible.
And there’s some recent scholarship which suggests that some people do a better than others on a diet composed mostly of carbohydrates. Some people do better on Atkins (high protein). Some people do better on Pritikin (low fat). Some people find it practically impossible to lose weight on diet that’s proportionally high in carbohydrates. One size does not fit all.
Here’s an example of an article that’s undoubtedly well-intentioned and, presumably, reasonably well-informed but nonetheless wrong. It’s just too simplistic.
More importantly, the lifelong environmental footprint of a person depends heavily on the extent of his breeding behavior. A woman who drives 20,000 miles in a Ferrari every year has a far lower footprint than a breeder who drives a Prius and a non-breeder with a LearJet might well pollute less than a breeder with 3 kids..
Proof that the Prius damages the environment. 🙂
so, malthus, you’re “handle” ain’t a coincidence?
My point exactly, Andy. Glad that there’s documentation of it.
That’s a problem in the most popular way of manufacturing solar panels as well, if I recall correctly.
That might already be happening, albeit not with rare earth metals. At least according to this article, there’s a greater effort to find and mine Lithium for use in batteries (particularly the batteries in hybrids and electrical cars). Guess where more than half of the world’s estimated Lithium supplies are located?
Correction: “Almost half” rather than “More than half”.
I’ve beaten my head against the wall any number of times on some of these issues, including in one set of acrimonious exchanges with Paul Scott, the “godfather” of the electric car. The point on “the total cost of battery manufacture” is an excellent one, as is the Prius vs M3 comparison. Powerful cars sip gas at low output. In noting some of these issues to Mr Scott I eventually was accused of being a murderer, and a bad economist, seeing how – in his view – the total cost of manufacture included the death of our young men and women in the Armed Forces “fighting for oil.” Naturally, when I asked him if he therefore would be an ardent supporter of drilling for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico, or other non-Middle East venues, he reiterated that I was a murderer and exited the forum stage left. Talk about “lively.” In memory, I always park my 911 in the “preferred parking for fuel efficient cars” section at Whole Foods. That’s good for a laugh.
Brett –
My understanding is that there is a considerable amount of controversy concerning reserves of lithium. Some point out that they are mostly in hostile or politically unstable countries such as Bolivia and China. Others claim there are huge untapped sources in friendly countries. I’m not sure who is correct. That all said, I focus more on the total cost of production, and the fact that you have to plug an electric car battery into the wall at some point……….with electricity produced by a coal fired power plant.
BTW – for anyone fighting the battle of the bulge..
As I understand it, one of the reasons that low carb diets work for some is that they have overloaded their liver’s ability to process fat with carb intake, a core liver function. So it may not just be “genes” It is in fact an eating habit.
Google things like “fatty liver” or the liver’s 450 conjugation path and you will find various discussions, some worthy, some not so much.
AIUI rare earth elements aren’t necessarily rare, but they are rare to find in locations that can be inexpensively produced, particularly since they generally are located around radioactive and other hazardous substances. China is undercutting foreign competition on production costs, probably with substantial disregard for environmental concerns that are its to bear. So, I don’t know that I feel the same concerns about rare earth from China as I do oil from the Middle East; we can produce it here. But I certainly agree that mining is a significant environmental concern that should be part of any. . . er . . . environmental calculation.
BTW/ the U.S. exempts mining from much hazardous waste law, so it’s not that our regulations are necessarily strict.