In moments of "carbon guilt" I've agonized over this too, and ultimately come to the conclusion--"Hey, it ain't me." For every Vanagon (or RV) there are, what, 100,000 garden variety commuter cars out there, all forced to burn millions of barrels of oil on their long commute to work or school or whatever. The real problem is urban planning or the lack thereof, not the mpg rating of any one vehicle in particular. Which consumes more petroleum, one 8 mpg RV or 10,000 hybrids? As far as birth rate goes, in most industrialized countries it's stagnant or even negative, as in France. The problem is in the developing world, where the last thing on people's minds as they...have babies...is their carbon footprint. Big questions. |
Please note - During the past 17 years of operation, several gigabytes of
Vanagon mail messages have been archived. Searching the entire collection
will take up to five minutes to complete. Please be patient!
Return to the archives @ gerry.vanagon.com
The vanagon mailing list archives are copyright (c) 1994-2011, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the list administrators. Posting messages to this mailing list grants a license to the mailing list administrators to reproduce the message in a compilation, either printed or electronic. All compilations will be not-for-profit, with any excess proceeds going to the Vanagon mailing list.
Any profits from list compilations go exclusively towards the management and operation of the Vanagon mailing list and vanagon mailing list web site.