But, that is where the green movement fails.

Look how pissed off you get when someone criticizes you for you choice of suburban life. They may technically be correct when they say it would be more environmentally friendly if you lived in a high rise in the core instead, but it certainly does nothing to convince you to move … quite the opposite. You get ticked off that some holier than thou crusader thinks everyone should live the way they do 😉

It’s much the same with the big SUV’s. People buy those because Arnold drove around in a Hummer. Because it makes them feel strong, powerful, indestructible, or famous and rich. They scream bloody murder when someone threatens to tax their big ride. Now imagine that those same people thought that a green car was uber cool, that it showed they were virile, clever, and oh so chic … that big manly men would come up to one another and say, ” Awesome.” All those people would want, say, electric cars. And imagine the screaming they would make if they couldn’t write off their new toy? Politicians want easy votes, and that would be an easy way to get them… if there is the demand.

“Good for the environment” can be a selling point, but it can’t be the only selling point, and too often when you look at the marketing for damn near anything it comes down to “cool, exciting, fun” vs “good for the environment.” It’s like good food as opposed to “health food.” The latter will only appeal to zealots and hypochondriacs while the former should be healthy, but people will buy it first and foremost because it tastes wonderful. A good example is Windjammer cruises http://www.windjammer.com/ they market the romance and the adventure, not “we know you’d rather be on a big casino ship but hey, we use less gas.” 😉

*shrug*

Anyway, thing that bugs me about SUV’s is that you can’t haul anything in them even if you wanted to. You can fit more stuff in a mini van.

My truck gets used as a truck on average once a week, and sadly has the dings to prove it 🙁 Still, the original plan was for it to be smaller and not to be a daily driver. But stuff happened. Things change a lot in 5 years, but I can’t change vehicles that fast.

It’s why I ( who travel mostly within what is defined as “urban core” wish we had a proper transit system. Because with decent transit for that 95% we are talking about I don’t even need a friken car at all: hydrogen, hybrid, or electric… and even the biggest gas guzzler trumps an electric if it is sitting in the garage with the engine off.