The addict and his new sourcerer!

Sir, Paulo Sotero and Edward Alden wrote about the United States and Brazil “Building a Biofuels Alliance”, Washington Post, March 8 and which in these days of climate change sound as far as it can from being a holy alliance. What a shame, when the United States should be cutting down on its addiction to cars, it is only looking for a new supplier, and when Brazil should be putting forward proposals to the world of how to keep the Amazon, they are just thinking of cutting it down in order to be that sourcerer.

What we really should fear about the green cars is how little we know about them

Sir, John Gapper writes “Carmakers are turning green with fear” January 15, arguing the dangers for Detroit, GM, Ford and others to sit on the sidelines in the production of more environment friendly cars. This might indeed be true but the real surprising and fear-inspiring fact is really how little we know about how efficient these green cars are in tackling our global warming problems. Yes, they do indeed consume less petrol per mile, but, at what costs? These new green cars could just be postponing some more fundamental changes that are needed; they could be creating new environment problems, for instance with the more intensive use of batteries; there could be many much more cost efficient solutions, etc, and so those on the sidelines might turn out to be the real final winners. Also, since for instance in Europe all these green cars are not sold on the basis of how much petrol the save but because of how much tax on the consumption of petrol they save then, if the society wishes Detroit to behave differently, perhaps it should be sending clearer signals, hopefully in a more timely fashion.

Which green is best for the environment and our pockets?

Sir, on January 8 FT carried on the same page stories about GM’s plug-in car and Toyota’s hybrid petrol-electric car, both of which have a market niche primarily because they are environmentally friendly, though in fact no one really knows how friendly they really are or how much that friendliness really costs. A world that is in so much need of sounder environmental behavior, which costs money, also urgently needs some truly neutral environmental advise to help it navigate and pick among all the green tonics that are currently peddled. Perhaps the best thing an environmental conscious motorist could do is to buy himself a traditional car and invest whatever he saved by not buying a green into something that is in environmental and economic terms, more efficient. The World Bank could perhaps have a role to play as that wise green arbitrator, of course as long as it can avoid being captured itself by windmill and solar panel-producers.

hybrid plug-in petrol environment global warming

Let the willing consumer in on the carbon trading principle!

Sir, James Macintosh in “The car industry needs carbon trading”, July 3, puts the full responsibility for carbon-trading on the car manufacturers and also mentions the problem that “automotive carbon trading might not provide politicians with the image boos they get from driving a hybrid car or filling up a car with ethanol from Iowa’s cornfields”. Well, he misses the most important part of the story. As the environmental conscientious consumers are the ones actually purchasing the hybrids and the ethanol, the most important thing to be done is to make them aware that there are more efficient ways for them to help out. Let them get their real image boost by placing a sticker on their window shield stating that though they drive normal cars, with normal fuel, they are contributing all of their cash savings from not using hybrids or ethanol, to smart and cost-efficient environmental projects, like for instance a reforestation of a couple of acres in Tanzania, and that they could perhaps even watch growing on the web.