Climate Change Change?

After all of the global climate change protests held this past Friday, am I more optimistic about the future of this planet?

No, I'm not.

Because the truth of the matter is that old habits die hard and new movements die quickly, as Occupy Wall Street in the earlier part of this decade (which, thankfully, is ending very soon) proved.  The protests were held primarily by teenagers, who, owing to their age, are too young to vote, and there simply aren't enough people who are old enough to vote for whom climate change is a top priority, If there were, Jay Inslee's presidential campaign here in the United States wouldn't have failed and he'd be the front runner.

It is also because of the United States, the world's most powerful nation and the world's greatest environmental outlaw (there, I said it!), the only country that doesn't recognize the Paris Agreement and the only country run by a climate-change denier - Charles Koch.  But Donald Trump happens to agree with the last surviving Koch brother on the subject, which is why he's been working overtime - or having his aides due the work for him while he plays golf - to roll back environmental regulations and make sure that no state or private corporation can do anything to fight the climate crisis.  His efforts to keep fuel economy standards low helps the profits of oil companies more than even the profits of automakers, many of whom actually support the since-rescinded Obama-era fuel economy regulations and are ready to go ahead with higher standards that California has pursued - including Ford, which is currently pushing SUVs and crossovers in its home market.  

Trump's absence from the climate conference the United Nations is holding this week makes it clear that the U.S. Government, the same government I was taught revere when I was in first grade (Nixon was President then!), is on record as refusing to do anything about the planet's health.  The U.S. corporations who will be represented at the conference only make it even more embarrassing that this country relies on profiteering capitalists more than our elected representatives (including Democrats - remember how Dianne Feinstein tried to blow off young climate activists in her Senate office this past winter?) to do the right thing.

But it's not just the American government, and it's not just lunkheaded American consumers buying Chevrolet Suburbans and eating steak every other night.  It's the French objecting to fuel taxes the encourage them to drive less.  It's the Australians voting in a more conservative government that is more skeptical of climate change.  It's the Chinese still using too much coal.  Oh, sure, the media are taking climate change more seriously.  MSNBC devoted a whole week to climate change stories.  But who cares when America's number one cable news channel is Fox News?

As the old MySpace marital status said, I don't want kids.  This is why.  One of them might even grow up to be a climate change denier.

An Angry Post About Cars and Climate Change

I should have known that something like this would happen.

After Trump promised workers at auto plants that their jobs were secure under his "America First" economic policy, General Motors announced it would be closing plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Maryland (and another in the Canadian province of Ontario), which mostly make sedans.  The ostensible reason for the plant closures was the set of tariffs that Trump imposed on raw materials from other countries, such as steel and aluminum.  Apparently, GM needed cheap imported steel and aluminum to make basic sedans to keep them profitable in an era - still, alas, very much in progress - when everyone in North America seems to want to buy sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks.  So GM is discontinuing no fewer than six sedan models, including the revolutionary Chevrolet Volt (below), the groundbreaking hybrid sedan that debuted for the 2011 model year and lasted two generations.  It's sort of become the Corvair of our time.  Underappreciated while in production, it may be a prized collectible fifty years from now.

And while the sedans GM is ditching are mostly larger cars, the small, economical Chevrolet Cruze is getting ditched too. 

GM CEO Mary Barra says that the company will now move toward developing electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles.  Buffalo bagels.  The company is now joining Ford and Fiat Chrysler in pushing more and more SUVs and pickup trucks to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for bigger, cruder, more obnoxious gas guzzlers.  Unless the foreign brands keep traditional cars in their U.S. and Canadian lineups, anyone in the New World who simply wants a regular, sensible car is going to be out of luck.

But not as much out of luck as the workers in those car factories who will soon be losing their jobs.  I almost feel sorry for Barra, the first woman to lead a car company in the United States.  She made this decision to make GM more competitive, yet Trump is now blaming her for laying off so many people - as many as 14,000 - even though it was his policies that caused it.  Not just the tariffs, but the rollback of fuel economy standards that would have required the automakers doing business in the U.S. to make more fuel-efficient, more sensible cars that you don't need a stepladder to get into.  And Trump also boasts about keeping gas prices low, which he in fact has nothing to do with - even though low gas prices have depressed sales of said sensible cars that most of these now laid-off workers were making in the first place.  And even though GM should be serious about developing electric cars, Trump may actually take away its electric-vehicle tax credits in reaction to GM's cutbacks.  Not that he cares about electric cars anyway.

Is this a total disaster?  Not entirely - as soon as Barra (below) made her announcement, GM stock prices soared.  And that's why I almost feel sorry for Barra . . . but don't.  She still has a job.  And she'll make out fine.

Needless to say, I'm ticked off at how SUVs, which I call BUWs - for "big ugly wagons" - are taking over the American auto market.  I hope to keep my humble little VW Golf for as long as I can, but with demand for small cars dropping like a rock, I may end up having to suffer the indignity of getting a Toyota C-HR, which may yet become the closest thing to a small car from any automaker.  With even Volkswagen emphasizing SUVs in America these days (its most recent ads highlight the Tiguan and the Atlas, with the Jetta thrown in as an afterthought  - but not one mention of the Golf!), even VW isn't asking Americans to think small anymore.   

Which ties in to the equally unpleasant subject of climate change.

The required quadrennial government report on climate change, the most recent edition of which came out a week or so ago, shows that it's getting worse than originally thought, with hurricanes and winter storms - there will still be winters as the planet warms - becoming more frequent and more extreme, diseases becoming more widespread, and economic losses of $160 billion in today's money by 2090.  And while more Americans and even more Republicans believe that climate change is happening, Trump does not.  So even if Congress tries to do something about it, don't expect any climate-change-fighting plan to get any traction with Trump in the White House.

One big reason climate change is happening, of course, is because Americans love their big ugly wagons and keep buying the hell out of them.  Autos accounted for nearly 29 percent of America's too-high carbon emissions in 2016.  More fuel efficiency and smaller cars, though, would mean that our cars would have less of an impact on the environment. Gas prices would have to go up to about six dollars a gallon to make people think small again, but asking Americans to give up their cheap gas is like asking the French to give up sex - and, incidentally, the French aren't exactly ready to pay a higher tax  on their petrol, either, as demonstrations in Paris proved.       

But at least already high fuel prices in France mean that the French get to have nice little cars like this Peugeot 208.  

Conclusion: The planet is doomed.  Even Europeans are buying SUVs (or BUWs) now.  Avoiding them is like avoiding the plague that's going to emerge as a result of global warming. >:-( 

Our only hope is to get Trump out of office in 2020 and replace him with a Democratic President who puts the automakers on notice by reinstating the higher fuel economy standards that Trump scuttled.  And the message will be this - start making more fuel-efficient cars and make more electric vehicles.  

Oh yeah, that will be easier said than done.  Although the job layoffs at General Motors are Trump's fault, he's likely going to blame GM and possibly foreign countries for mucking things up in the auto industry, and his supporters will believe him.  Many of them still believe him when he says that climate change isn't a problem. 

I'm sorry.  I can't take it anymore.  When Mikie Sherrill, my incoming congresswoman, holds her first constituents' meeting, I'm going to go and plead to her to bring up climate change and reforming our transportation policy - with an emphasis on mass transit as well as small cars - on the floor of the House of Representatives.  I'm ticked off now.  

Blowing Smoke

The Trump administration has gone ahead with its plan to roll back gas mileage standards that would have set corporate average fuel economy standards at 54.5 miles per gallon and set them to stay frozen at 2020 levels - 37 miles a gallon - well into 2026, after Trump is out of office (unless he nullifies the Twenty-Second Amendment).

And get this.  It's because they say old cars can kill you.

The White House and its stooges in the Environmental Destruction Agency and the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration argue that increased fuel economy standards would make newer cars more expensive and force people to driver older vehicles with fewer safety features. Hence, more fatalities in older cars.

You know, I would accepted the old argument that higher fuel economy standards would have led to people driving smaller cars and that small cars are not as safe as big cars and SUVs.  I wouldn't have agreed with it, but I would have accepted it.  But this irrational rationalization that Trump offers is so ludicrous that you don't need safety experts to refute it (though they have).

And here's another spectacularly dumb argument against the old standards.  The Trump administration is afraid that higher fuel economy standards would allow motorists to drive more, because they would buy less gas, and therefore cause more tailpipe emissions as a result of more driving.

So never mind that the lower standards would lead to more gasoline being refined and used - because more people would buy gas-guzzling vehicles.

Neither of these arguments - I won't even dignify the argument that the reduction in greenhouse gases would be too negligible to make a difference in combating climate change -  address the real issue.  Automakers will be able to sell more large vehicles with the proposed Trump standards, and that means bigger profit margins. As Henry Ford II once said, big cars mean big bucks and small cars mean small bucks.  The Trump administration can argue that the old rules, initiated under President Obama, impedes consumer choice by making gas-guzzling SUVs more unfeasible, but the truth is that two SUVs are sold for every traditional car not out of any real demand for SUVs but because of effective marketing of gas-guzzling truck-based passenger vehicles and lack if incentive to make more efficient vehicles. The Obama rules would have set the auto industry on a more sustainable course and encouraged both automakers and consumers to embrace sensible cars.  Like electric cars, which the Trump White House has no desire to promote.

Oh yeah,  the cost of meeting the Obama standards would be higher for domestic automakers than for the foreign automakers who have to design cars for customers back home who have to spend the equivalent of eight U.S. dollars a gallon on gasoline.  Because Toyota and Volkswagen already know how to make more fuel-efficient cars. They've been doing it for years.  So has Ford, in fact, in Europe and even here in America to some extent - but of course Ford's North American lineup will soon be devoid of small cars and traditional sedans (I talked about this before).  

Ironically, the automakers had been preparing to meet the tougher Obama standards and are more than happy to meet them.   

Meanwhile, Trump wants to take away California's waiver for tougher fuel economy standards despite ample evidence that the state's climate - which is being choked right now by wildfires - is vulnerable to more gasoline consumption and the tailpipe emissions that it produces. Governor Jerry Brown has vowed to keep the standards in place and fight the White House in court to preserve the Obama standards.  Eighteen states and the District of Columbia are joining in that suit.  This isn't over yet.

I'd better not get used to seeing any new mini-car models at auto showrooms, though. 

You know what's missing from this discussion on how to reduce auto tailpipe emissions?  Mass transit, of course! 

A Little Doesn't Go a Long Way

I'm very happy that President Obama has decided to bring fuel economy standards up to 39 miles per gallon for cars and 30 miles a gallon for light trucks, coupled with stricter emissions standards to reduce gases that cause global warming. My problem with the plan is this: Does it go far enough?

Sure, stricter fuel economy standards will give us more fuel-efficient cars, and it may well indeed reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent, but will Americans go for cars like this as long as gasoline remains cheap? Americans don't but small cars unless they have no choice or simply like small cars. Because there aren't enough Americans in the latter category, it makes sense to start reducing subsidies on gasoline and raise the gas tax to make driving more expensive, which would encourage greater usage of public transportation and lead to more compact neighborhoods and developments that take up less space. As long as cars are simply more fuel-efficient, we'll merely be burning less gas to get to the shopping mall or office park, and we'll get stuck in traffic in the process.

We need more public transportation. The Obama administration owes the country some more talk on what kind of mass transit network America needs and how to achieve it.