Overheard:
Person 1: Ya gotta admit; Al Gore’s a kook.
Person 2: You’re a Republican; you’d have that opinion.
And this past weekend:
Darling child: (about An Inconvenient Truth) That was a stupid movie.
Older-type person: Why would you say that? It was important. You don’t care about our environment?
Darling child: (from behind disaffected bangs) It was a documentary; it was boring.
Last weekend I saw An Inconvenient Truth; it did its part to make me feel guilty for being a U.S. consuming, reckless-with-the-environment slob. It happens that I’m also thinking of getting a new car. Gore’s little movie rings through my head when I do this.
Fuel efficiency has always been important to me, and I’m a Honda loyalist. (You’ll see in few sentences why I’m thinking of jumping from the Honda ship.) I would love to buy another Civic, but the biggest problem with both of my Civics is the road noise; I have to turn up my stereo to teenager volumes in order to hear the music. Or I have to make a choice between listening to my music or listening to a passenger. I often choose the music.
So, an Accord. They look beautiful and they’re comfy. While their fuel efficiency isn’t horrendous, they’re not stellar either. Al Gore said I should aim for stellar. The Accord hybrids are retarded when it comes to fuel efficiency. They get maybe 2 miles per gallon more efficient than the regular 4-cylinder for $4,000 -$5,000 more.
Let me break down the compare/contrast thusly:
- Civic: Headaches from a low, constant groan coming from under my butt when driving down the freeway but receiving warm fuzzies from polar bears.
- Accord: Riding in blissful comfort but feeling like I’m clubbing baby seals.
How about a Nissan? I think they’re swell. The Nissan Altima hybrid, my next favorite sedan gets great gas mileage, justifying the hybrid up-charge. A person can’t buy it in Texas. I called a dealer; they just plain ol’ don’t sell them here. You have to live in a blue state apparently.
So fuck you Nissan, and fuck you Honda. You both win today’s Shitty Company Award.
crumpet | 07-May-07 at 5:57 pm | Permalink
I don’t normally do this, but I’m going to this one time because it seems appropriate.
The single most important thing anyone can do to help the environment is to go vegetarian/vegan, or at least reduce their consumption of animal products. Here’s a couple of articles and a study to back up my claim.
Vegetarian is the new Prius
Fighting global warming by going vegetarian
Diet, energy and global warming
Also, I don’t know much about cars…
crumpet | 07-May-07 at 7:14 pm | Permalink
your blog ate my comment!
alex | 07-May-07 at 7:36 pm | Permalink
That’s the first I’ve heard that one. I wish I knew what you said.
crumpet | 07-May-07 at 8:13 pm | Permalink
I think it was because I had several links in there. I’ll make a blog post.
m_rturnage | 07-May-07 at 8:30 pm | Permalink
If you can wait until 2010, Honda will be coming out with a
diesel accord. So you can use biodiesel and get 62+ mpg when driving on the highway.
http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9712548-1.html
-RT
Junior | 07-May-07 at 11:31 pm | Permalink
I always thought that Hummers were the most gas efficient cars you could have. You got those huge tanks, so it hold a lot of gas. And since Hummers can fly…you get what I am saying here.
alex | 08-May-07 at 8:10 pm | Permalink
Crump, found your comment. There it is. Thanks to everyone for coming back and commenting. I thought I had lost all my friends.
Squozen | 09-May-07 at 4:30 am | Permalink
Alex, get a diesel. Hybrids are a fad and an expensive one at that. You could do much, much worse than a Golf TDI.
Or, get a Mazdaspeed3 like mine - being vegetarian cancels out the extra fuel usage.
Squozen | 09-May-07 at 4:32 am | Permalink
And it’s a link! Yes!
http://www.transmitmedia.com/golfTDI/
karlwinslow | 09-May-07 at 11:11 am | Permalink
also, you should get a manual transmission, if you can drive it, and if they even make em anymore.
owen | 09-May-07 at 10:29 pm | Permalink
Hi, it’s Jen-An (not owen). Just get rid of your car and walk. Oh and change your light bulbs to those special ones that are friendly to the environment. And you should probably wear shoes made of hemp.
alex | 10-May-07 at 12:42 pm | Permalink
I like the contrast in these last two comments. One is sincere, and the other is bitter, ironic, and ugly. I wonder which is written by a 19 year-old humanitarian and which is written by a walking, talking prune.
Mr. Crump, I checked into the VWs and only one of their models come highly recommended by Consumer Reports. And as I said, I’m struggling with comfort v. social responsibility.
jen-an | 23-May-07 at 9:31 am | Permalink
Walking talking prune, here. Don’t pretend to be more environmentally concious than you are. It’s not attractive in an affluent, luxury apartment-living, high end restaurant frequenting, red meat eating, non-green designing architect. hurrumph.