Buy an SUV, save the world?

I had breakfast with a friend of mine yesterday. It turns out we have both recently purchased hybrids. She moved from a Yukon to a Highlander hybrid. I went from a 3-series BMW to a Prius.

I drove away thinking about our hybrids. She was a bit disappointed with her Highlander's mileage, but it occurred to me that by moving from the Yukon to the Highlander, she reduced carbon emissions by twice the amount that I did by moving from my Beamer to the Prius. These numbers are guesstimates, but let's imagine that we each drive 12,000 miles per year, and that she went from 12 to 24 mpg (actually, I think she's getting more like 28), and I went from 24 to 48 mpg (that's actually pretty close). Those numbers are close enough for illustration, and easy to calculate with. I also found (from here) that 1 gallon of gasoline produces 19.4 pounds of CO2, a pretty amazing number. (Only 5.3 pounds are carbon, the rest is oxygen.)

The Yukon used 1000 gallons a year, producing 19,400 pounds of CO2.
The Highlander (and my Beamer) uses 500 gallons a year, producing 9,700 pounds of CO2.
My Prius uses 250 gallons a year, producing 4,850 pounds of CO2.

So she is saving 9,700 pounds of CO2, while I have only saved 4,850 pounds.

This isn't a trick. It's because the Yukon was using a lot more to start with. But it was illuminating to me. It highlights the disproportionate impact that gas hogs have. And it points out how moving from an inefficient SUV to a more efficient SUV reduces carbon emissions (and fuel consumption) by twice as much relative to the sedan-to-sedan improvement.

Hence the inflammatory title.

Of course, the biggest impact would be to go from Yukon to Prius. But it's interesting how the apparently smaller 12-to-24 change has double the impact of the apparently larger 24-to-48 change. It's all real and explainable, but counter intuitive to a lot of consumers.

Who will change the world?

If you're hopeful about the world's prospects, are you a positivist? Or naive? If you're negative, are you a cynic? Or does that perspective come from the wisdom of experience? I've been asking myself these questions, because I'm not a spring chicken, but still tend to see the world in terms of what can happen, what can be achieved, what things could be like. I tend to see the rest of humanity as having wants and desires and, in many ways, similar values to mine. We want safety, opportunity, good health, basic resources and a fair bit of freedom. We'll make some sacrifices in some areas in exchange for gains in other areas. We would like our children to have good lives, better than ours if possible, but certainly not worse.

Well, I'm lucky to have most of the things I want. The future, where my children will live, is harder to assess, of course, and there are certainly causes for concern. I would like to improve their prospects, if I can. And then there's the 5.5 billion or so folks whose situations are much worse than mine, and whose children are in desperate need. I would like to do something to make their lives better as well. I've wanted that at some level for years, but haven't done much about it. More recently, I've become a little more active. The tricky bit is that, coming from an engineering background, I have a strong bias toward the real world. And yet, it's often very hard to see any clear, quantitative benefit from the efforts I make. Have I gone off the deep end? Am I now a hopelessly hopeful idealist?

Well, I had to think about this. Here's the thing: If you've got a positive attitude, does that make you unrealistic? Are you a realist if you think we're doomed? If that's the case, then maybe we are doomed!

So I thought about those that had a positive impact on the world. I'm talking about people in the blog logo in the upper right. Lincoln, King, Gandhi. Toss in JFK and Roosevelt and maybe Mother Teresa and Albert Schweizer. Even Jesus and Buddha. Where do they fall in the spectrum?

After chewing on this for, well, weeks actually, at some point it clicked for me that there are two dimensions involved: outlook and experience. Most of us start out with a positive outlook and no experience. We're optimistic and idealistic, though someone in our lives may step in to save us from being too gullible. As we grow in experience, we tend to become less positive, even pessimistic, jaded, or cynical over time. It's sad, but some of us actually start out negative and doubtful, and that's definitely a bummer, because I don't think experience will tend to make most people a lot more positive. But let's go back to who makes a difference.

So, going back to the worldchangers: I see them all as positive. But not in a weak way. Instead, I see these folks as being faithful. They had or have faith in humanity's ability to overcome our own weaknesses. And we have people like that still. We have Jimmy Carter, Paul Farmer and Jeffrey Sachs. And hundreds more who are savvy, experience, been through the trenches and yet continue to advocate for positive change. They fit into the upper right of the chart I included. That's where you've got to be if you expect to make positive change!

There are also numerous celebreties, like Bono, Madonna, Angenlina Jolie, etc, who advocate for change, but who may not have the pedigree of experience and who therefore tend to be dismissed as idealists. Funny, isn't it, how a weathered and tested soul can express an opinion and be respected and lauded, but when a young and idealistic person expresses a similar view, they're naive and idealistic? I'm in a similar boat: Older than Angelina, but about the same age as Madonna and Bono, I don't really have much experience in a third world life style, though my mother raised 5 kids solo with the help of AFDC checks. So, if I have positive thoughts about where the world can go, am I a space cadet? Or a visionary?

Who are you?

I believe that each of us can change the world. After all, hundreds of millions of us have changed the world in a small way called "global climate change", so I know that we can have an impact. But who are we?

If you ask me, I say we're visionaries! To hell with the naysayers. Let's work together and, slowly perhaps, change the world for the better. It's our choice, and I'm making mine.

Drop a note. I bet if you've read this far that you've been working on something. Tell us what it's about!

Confessions of a carbon junkie

AUSTRALIANS NOTE: you can see see An Inconvenient Truth for free. Intrepid Travel's CEO explains why he's picking up the tab:

This year Intrepid will carry 50,000 travellers and on average each will fly about 17,000 kilometres to and from their destination. That’s about 850 million kilometres. If you go to the Climatecare website it also works out to about 135,000 tons of CO2. Youch...

As happens with tipping points, Al Gore’s movie was about to be launched and so went to a preview screening of that. I walked out and thought, “Well, if I do nothing else, at least I can encourage people to see that film. That alone will help to change behaviours and start to make a difference.” So we offered to refund the ticket price if people sent us their movie ticket stubs. So far about 1,500 people have – but I’m hoping a lot more will...

I’m planning for Intrepid to become a carbon neutral travel company in the next three years. Call that an epiphany? No, just common sense and self-interest: if we want people to travel, we have to do something to ensure there is a world worth travelling in.

from Confessions of a carbon junkie, on Crikey. (I recommend the full article - it's not very long.)