So I’ve finally figured it out. It’s all about the Christmas tree. Today on the way home from work, I passed no less than 5 giant SUV’s with Christmas trees on top of them. And I’m not talking the little wannabe SUVs, I’m taking the big time suburban fuck you where’s my gas SUVs. And when I thought about it, it makes perfect sense. What better a way to prove one’s MASCULINITY than to tie a DEAD TREE to the top of one’s SUV. No embarrassing driving with the tree sticking out of an open trunk. No, with the mega SUV, you OWN Nature. So BOOYAH!
They should sell inflateable roof-top reindeer corpses for the guys who are too wussy to actually blow something to smithereens but who still want the testosterone-high of looking like they hunt for their families.
Since the tree would have to go on the roof, the reindeer could attach to the hood of the SUV. It’ll blind the driver, to be sure, but one of the nice things about SUVs is that the car’s mass absolves you of the need to worry about where you’re going.
I honestly see no problem with the big SUVs nor so I see a problem with buying an Xmas tree and placing it on your roof. What I do have a problem with are the people who buy the huge SUVs and then complain about high gas prices.
If you want, you can buy a more fuel economy based car. You can even buy a hybrid, but you dont actually save money on those types of cars. Trust me, I worked out the Math, and there is a post about it on my blog. But the problem that we have is people want these giant SUVs and want the gas to be cheap.
My problem with the SUVs is that they use a lot of gas and use it up faster. That makes a problem for all of us. If you’re crossing the desert with someone and the water is limited, would you rather that person bring along a dog or a horse?
My personal and admittedly uninformed opinion is that the only trip people really buy SUVs for is a power one. Unless you’re living somewhere in the mountains, and you regularly transport heavy weapons, you don’t need a military vehicle to drive to work in. It’s the psychological charge of being behind the wheel of a domineering wall of metal that makes people buy SUVs. I think that’s a pretty stupid reason.
What post on your blog are you referring to?
Big Tex’s post can be found HERE.
I disagree with you Chris. While there is a finite supply of oil, we are not even close to runnung out. Most people do not relaize it but the so clalled “dry wells” actually are only 1/4 empty. The rest of the oil is too deep or too imbedded in rock to get to with present technology. If we improve our tech, we can get at that oil!
An SUV isnt a military vehicle at all. An H2 is a declassified military vehicle but an explorer is not. I will disagree with you that nobody needs an SUV. I think SUVs are great to take a road trip with say 5 people. Getting 5 people into a sedan is not exactly the most comfortable option.
Also, when I was moving home after finishing college, my parents, my granmother, my boxes of books(3) and suitcases 5 between the 4 of us all fit in the back of the SUV.
While something like an H2 can be a bit of a stretch as far as usefulness goes, I would say the moderate sized ones like the explorer are very useful.
Actually, we’re a lot closer to running out than either you or I would like to think. Try typing “oil crisis” into Google and see what you get.
And shredding the wildernesses to get at the last few drops of oil so Joe Suburb can drive his tank to work every morning isn’t such a good idea, either, since this scenario leaves us with not only a depleted oil supply but an environment that was even more screwed than it was before: http://weeklywire.com/ww/04-10-00/boston_feature_2.html
I’d agree that SUVs and minivans make moving a lot more easy. But most people aren’t moving every day. The average person would do just fine in a compact vehicle or station wagon. How many times are you on the road and you see one guy behind the wheel of a huge vehicle? Personal power trip. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0212.mencimer.html
And, if you’re interested: http://www.columbia.edu/~eag115/Ethan/Web-pages/SUV_Market.html
Bottom line: SUVs, like bulldozers, have their uses. Since they’re so resource-demanding, though, and since we’re in times where the available resources are rapidly diminishing, they should be reserved for situations where no other more fuel-efficient vehicle will do.
Um, that was a pretty unbiased site Chris. “Big Oil Eyes Rape of Arctic Wilderness” certainly seems an unbiased source!
Actually I will disagree with you. We have a lot more oil out there then you realize. A lot more.
Do you know how oil is pumped out of the ground? It is not a simple procedure of simply sticking a pipe in the ground and having the oil flow out. You need to pump water into one hole, to force the oil out of an adjacent hole. You need to gather the sediment and the other rock and extract the oil that is in the cracks and crevices of rock. It is a time consuming process. But even with these procedures, we still are not able to get at a lot of the oil.
Nobody is suggesting “shredding the wildernesses” to get the extra oil. I think you are now referring to the proposed Alaskian drilling. You know how much area that they want to drill in? 100 acres. People say that we need to stop relying on foreign oil, but they are unwilling to give up SUV’s. Plus, they are also against drilling in the Alaskian area. So essentially they want their cake and to eat it too.
The problem I am having with your argument is that you are essentially claiming that all SUVs are the same. You use the broad term of “SUV” and condem everything that falls within that category. As you very well know there are different kinds of SUVs which have different fuel economy levels. Some like the H2 have a 10mpg rating, whereas the Ford escape nets 28mpg. This is a signifigant difference.
In response to your station wagon reference, I looked at the numbers. Most Suv’s have a fuel economy of say 20-21 mpg while most station wagsons were about 24-25mpg. That is not a signifigant difference.
WHile there a a couple very outside the +5 mpg range, the vast majority lie within +-5 of 24-25. It does not appear that a station wagon is that much more effective then a SUV.
But then, here is another interesting situation becuase I am going to revert back to an argument that made B chuckle a few weeks ago:freedom of choice. I choose to buy an SUV and to pay the neccesary gas prices for my fuel. If I want to buy an SUV I do not want anyone to prevent me from doing this. I might have my own reasons for purchasing an SUV. I do not want some group to prevent me from purchasing an SUV if I so choose. The car that I buy is my personal choice and is based on many factors. Cost, personal interest, and many other factors determine what kind of car I will get. I dont want anyone telling me what car I can get and what car I cannot get. People can have their opinion, but at the end of the day, its my choice, not yours.
(As you know I actually drive a 95 camaro, but I said SUV for purposes of discussion)
Interesting to see the debate on a topic which was, initially, intended as a joke. But valid points are raised on both sides of this coin. The way I see it is that SUVs are here to stay in American culture. For whatever reasons, people like them, and, as BigTex says, the truly liberal should not regulate taste. My concern with these vehicles is the fact that they are very fuel inefficient, coupled with the fact that we are at war. What’s so fascinating about American life is that, even when we are off fighting battles half way around the world, our level of well being does not change much on the homefront. Do you have a victory garden? Have vacuum cleaners been rationed? I didn’t think so.
That said, it seem that for us to be driving around vehicles with sub 20mpg ratings is wrong. So, what I’d like to see is SUVs that have better fuel economy standards. Of course, if you take a look into the history of the SUV, they were created to breathe life into the faltering American auto industry in the face of stiff foreign (mainly Japanese) competition. Since SUVs and light trucks are not subject to the same strict standards as are small passenger cars, the technologically behind the times American plants could continue to produce a product which would attract an audience. Grandfathered in this way, the auto makers seized on the possibility (which applies also to light trucks) and started selling SUVs left and right.
It’s only now that these companies are grudgingly embracing alternative fuel concepts. However, the method with which these vehicles are being marketed is flawed. Take for instance Ford, which offers both the Escape and Escape Hybrid SUV. The former gets at 20/25 city/highway mpg rating. The later, 36/33. The difference here does make a difference. However, whereas the regular Escape sells for about 20K, the Hybrid will cost you 27K. That’s a seven thousand dollar premium for the hybrid technology. Although I am a fan of the environment, seven thousand dollars is simply too steep.
If the technologies are there, I think that corporations do have a social responsibility to attempt to get them in use. But, it is unlikely that this will happen, because the auto and petroleum industries are basicaly hand in hand. More fuel hungry Fords make Shell happier. Texaco hates the hybrids, because they don’t swing by often enough…
I’m fascinated to see what the long term prospectus of alt.fuels will lead to. Will the established oil companies open hydrogen stations across the country, or is the time ripe for new businesses to take over what could soon be soon outdates behemoths? Regardless, at least on the American front, alt.fuels will be embraced slowly and with high premiums. Perhaps when the auto industry and the oil industry strike a deal on the distribution of future fuels, will we see the innovation unleashed and prices made competitive.
Here’s a more scientific look at the oil shortage:
http://www.unesco.org/imc/mmap/pdf/prod-lindgren-oil-e.pdf
The breakdown of the article is this:
– World population is only going up, and demand for oil is going with it
– Known sources of oil are decreasing. US oil production peaked in the 1970s and has been going down ever since. World oil production has peaked right around now and will be steadily dropping in the course of the next few years.
Bottom line: we have oil. Some oil. It’s being used up at a scary rate which is only going to increase. Given this, I can’t see the sense in desperately scrabbling for oil so we can maintain a wasteful and extravagant lifestyle. If you have figures that suggest otherwise, I’d like to see them. At least if we conserve oil now, we might have time to come up with an alternative before things really get bad.
I only believe in your freedom of choice so long as it isn’t detracting from the quality of my life. You’re free to buy a red car, or use a PC, because neither one of those decisions harms my ability to live. But if the steadily diminishing oil reserves are being eaten up faster than they need to be because you think it’s your right (hypothetically, since I know you drive a Camaro 🙂 ) to drive something that gets ten miles per gallon, then, no, I don’t think you should have the freedom to drive a car that makes an already bad situation worse. You don’t have the freedom to dispose of your sewage wherever you choose. You don’t have the freedom to go into a national reserve and cut down trees or hunt wildlife. And you shouldn’t have the “freedom” to drive a machine that raises oil prices and devours fuel for no good reason.
I’d like to see the government do the following: regulate a minimum fuel efficiency that must be observed by all cars on American roads, and then ban the manufacturing or importation of cars that don’t meet these standards. They already do this for safety – I can’t buy a car without an air bag, even though I don’t trust air bags and would feel safer without one. There’s no reason not to regulate fuel consumption.
Especially with a war on that gobbles about 750,000 gallons of fuel a DAY (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5084609/).
Here is somethign interesting from
“http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3159/is_12_222/ai_80932891”
“The Energy Information Administration reports that discoveries in western states and the Gulf of Mexico have produced an increase in U.S. reserves. Crude reserves totaled 22.0 billion bbl at year-end 2000, up 1.3% from the previous year. Proven dry natural gas grew 6% to 177.4 Tcf, representing the largest increase since the agency began tracking annual reserves 24 years ago. Due to diminishing frontier (drilling) areas, “such unusually large (gas) increases should not be expected very often,” said EIA. The gas reserves came from Texas and New Mexico, along with states that have large increases in coalbed methane reserves.”
Well, actually Chris, are you familiar with the Immenent Domain law? This is the law that says that if it is good for the state, they can take private property(and pay you for it). It is what happens when a city wants to expand a freeway and they need to use private property.
So, your statement,”I only believe in your freedom of choice so long as it isn’t detracting from the quality of my life” is one that many times is unable to be attained. The public good comes before the individual in the society that we live in.
So, how does this work in our discussion: simple. Society has determiend that SUVs are going to be the popular vehicle of choice. Your property, in this case is your piece of the oil reserves. At some point the Alaskan 100 acres will be drilled in. Again, an example of immenent domain.
Dont you love how I use abstract concepts to backup my stance?! I do!
imminent means something is impending
you mean eminent domain
~Matt
Thanks Matt. I wasnt a hundred percent which it was, but yall get my meaning.
That’s okay… I think we’ve learned to lower the bar a bit for most Texans… 😉
Matt:
What an astute observation. I would suggest that as our society moves increasing towards an era where people settle things with a quiet lawsuit rather a noisy altercation or even a good old fashioned “I’m callin’ you out stranger” moment, men’s urge to fix things with a quick, decisive and violent confrontation go further down in the soul and turn into other things. I.E. I can’t wear a gun like a western sherriff, but I can wear my BlackBerry and Cellphone in holsters on my belt. I.E. I can’t challenge my co-worker to a duel over Ms. Right’s affections, but I can sabotage his email, make him miss the memo and get his ass publicly kicked by the boss. I.E. I can’t be a threatening, overbearing jerk-ass because someone might sue me and win, but in this menacing and impervious fuel-swilling tank I’m totally anonymous and able to kick ass at will. Honestly, the fellows up in the SUVs are probably dinks miserably sat on by peroxided, pilled-to-the-gills overbearing suburban wives and saddled with kids that hate them. It’s the quiet guys in the Volvos you’d better keep your eyes on…..
Here’s how it works:
We send our fuckin kick-ass army into pathetic third world countries like Iraq and have them kill a bunch of worhtless terrorist Iraqis. In a few million years, they’ll turn into oil like the Iraqi dinosaurs that came before them. So we’ll always have oil. So Big Tex can drive his SUV. It all works great.
Jim, you’re overlooking a few points I made:
– We have oil. I didn’t say we have no oil left, I said we don’t have enough oil left to be wasting it. Period.
– I don’t think eminent domain is relevant as a point here. The fact that, as a legal practice, it exists, doesn’t mean that it’s a reasonable course of action. It’s idiotic to tear apart yet another natural area in an ever-more-futile search for oil, instead of enacting legislation that preserves oil by, among other things, making it less cost-effective for people to buy or use SUVs. People want all sorts of stupid things. That doesn’t mean they should get them.
Like I said, you aren’t free to choose to dump your trash wherever you want. That’s because your actions detract from the quality of other peoples’ lives. By driving an SUV that you don’t need, you’re raising oil prices, wasting what oil there is left, and bringing on the oil crisis faster than it would otherwise arrive (“you” being magnified on the order of the 200 million SUV maniacs out there today).
So I go back to what I said before. It doesn’t matter to me what you want, or what society wants. What matters to me is the effect that your demands have on my life.
Matt,
I could make a Yankee/Boston/New England joke, but I will refrain from doing so. You got a quick jab in there, and I acknowledge it.
Chris,
I understand your point, but what do you wish to do about the situation? Do you want to ban all SUV’s on the road? Do you want to make it mandatory that everyone drive those shitty european “smart cars”. I would be completly agaisnt that type of regulation, and if you were in favor of it I would be a bit surprised.
Actually imminent (thanks Matt) domain is an issue here. Think about this: The government is able to go into a private area and confiscate it for the good of the whole. Say a freeway wants to be expanded (like the Katy freeway section of I-10 in Houston which I am very familiar with). The government analyzes what they thinkt he property is worth and then pays the person for it. The person pretty much must accecpt it becuase the government is coming in anyway. This helps the larger landscape of people becuase it provides a bigger freeway theoretically causing less traffic jam. So, how does this relate to what we are referring to? Well the property which we are speaking of is owned by someone. Who, I am not sure. However in this case the requsitioning of that 100 acres will allow there to be more oil. More oil means lower prices as well as a larger surplus available. This helps the larger group of people. As far as your comment of “It’s idiotic to tear apart yet another natural area in an ever-more-futile search for oil”, remember people make their decisions in a variety of ways. One way is by voting, and this November we had a little vote and a majority of Americans voted in a certain way. Whether you like that vote or not does not really matter. They have voted in a certain way, and they thus defined what they wish the governmnet to do. From where I am sititng, they spoke loudly, effectivly, and decisivly. You might not like their politics, but you have to agree with that last statement.
Andrew:”So Big Tex can drive his SUV. It all works great. ” Allright, as I have already stated before, I do not drive an SUV, I drive a Camaro. My camaro has a beige interior and burgendy exterior. It currently gets about 26 mpg on the freeway. It used to give about 28 but it is a 1995 model(originally sold in 1994) so it is almost 11 years old. I stand behind my car with pride! Do you stand behind your car with pride? What kind of car do you drive Andrew? What kind of mpg does it get?
Nate or Mate: An interesting point you seemed to be on the surface of but not quite say. Instead of retaliating directly and getting sued a person, we instead use a more indirect approach and save ourselves a lawsuit. However, we are only deceiving ourselves, becuase when we sabotage email, conviently loose a memo, or another non direct attack, we are many times setting ourselves up for a bigger lawsuit. Instead of a lawsuit garnered by an individual, we are now getting sued by 1) the company, 2) the indivudual, 3) probably the boss too, 4) anyone else that was was affected. So, by saving one lawsuit we have actually brought on three extra! So what is the solution, simple: let all these feelings fester for about say 4 more years. Then in four years come drop by Dr. Big Tex’s office and Dr. Big Tex will take you on for psychological help. See, in that way everyone wins! You dont get sued, you dont hurt anyone else, and you even get to help ol Big Tex. It’s the guys in the camaros, who yall should turn to when you are encountering life’s difficulties!
Yes, I would be completely in favor of banning from the roads all vehicles that get, say, under 25 mpg. You don’t have to own an electric shopping cart to have more environmentally friendly transportation.
My Honda is a ULEV (ultra-low-emissions vehicle) and gets 32 mpg city and 38 mpg highway. It’s a pretty nice looking car. It’s roomy. Has great pickup. I arrive at gas stations where SUV owners are filling up, and the same guys are still standing there with their fuel pumps in their hands by the time I leave. It’s gotten me everywhere I need to go so far, and it will continue to do so for the next fifteen years. Unless they’re hauling rocks for a living, I think most people would do fine with a car like that.
Based on what you’ve said so far, I would be surprised if you didn’t support banning certain kinds of vehicles. You evidently support the government making decisions for the good of the nation, because you keep referring to eminent domain. Banning the more egregious models of SUV would definitely be better for the nation, for all the reasons I’ve said so far.
Actually I am simply explaining a legal term to you that I thought was an interesting concept to the discussion at hand.
I wouldnt be in favor of more governmnet regulation. I prefer the government to stay out of my business in the majority of my life’s decisions. I do not need the government to tell me what kind of car I can drive and what kind of car I cannot. It is understood that buying a more fuel economy car means that you will have to fill up less and a car that gets less fuel economy will require more gas. That is an obvious statement and inherent within the purchase of that kind of vehicle.
I also would not force people to buy hybrids or the ULEV that you have. I am glad that you like your car, I like mine as well. I dont think mine will last another 15 years(it is alrready 11), but I am sure I can get at least another 4 out of it. 26 mpg is fine for me, and from where I live gas is not particularly expensive. I am not sure what a better compromise would be. I was thinking that each state could make its own determination, but what would happen if a person moved? Or, if a person purchased a vehicle in another state, could they bring it into the first?
I see your point, I really do. I just cannot make that step that says the government needs to get involved at this time. I have a feeling that as time goes on, hybrids will become cheaper. People tend to buy in cycles, and the current cycle seems to be the tail end of the SUV age. As hybrids become cheaper, they might become the “new” car that everyone gets.
I honestly do not think it will matter too much anyway. I fully see fuel cells as the energy source taking over in the next 20-30 years, and we certainly have more then enough fuel to last much longer then that based on our current usage, so I wouldnt worry too much.