Are These Hybrid Cars the Answer to Global Warming and Waning Oil Supplies?
Although they are a step in the right direction, the answer to the question is a surprising: No.
Current hybrid cars are designed to use internal combustion engine, electric motor and battery technology to improve fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Which they do. Slightly. Certainly not enough to make any major impact within the time-frame(s) we’re in all likelihood operating under. The double whammy pressures of global warming and declining oil supplies. We have run out of time for tinkering with gas-electric technology that gets less than 150 to 200 MPG. These rudimentary hybrids are a step that is out of step because it is a step that should have been taken 20 to 30 years ago.
Arctic ice, which has kept the climate stable for thousands of years, has now entered an irreversible phase of warming. The melting of Greenland’s ice sheet would raise the oceans by 23 feet! And threaten to submerge cities located at sea level, from London to Los Angeles. (New Orleans?) Even a partial melting of the ice sheet would submerge a substantial amount of low-lying countries like Bangladesh and the Maldives.
Abrupt climate changes may be further exacerbated by a dramatic slowing of the ocean current systems.
The decline of oil reserves since 2000, (and there is documented evidence that American oil fields have been declining since the 1970’s), is projected to enter a drastic irreversible downturn in a decade or less.
It seems obvious that the global auto and petroleum industries are continuing to turn a blind eye to the problem while keeping a fixed gaze on their bank accounts. Even governments, (including the United States government) continue to display more interest in oil supplies, oil reserves and the bank accounts of their oil-rich buddies than preserving the only planet we have to live on.
Existing oil supplies should immediately be earmarked for air transportation, home heating, nuclear infrastructure and manufacturing with the hope that the overwhelming majority of home heating and manufacturing can be transitioned to electric as soon as possible. Emerging industrial economies such as in Africa, China and India should be immediately turned in the right direction or they will most certainly become a larger and larger part of the problem.
Imagine an old pirate with a chest full of gold on a sinking ship and no life raft being so enamoured with his treasure that he clutches it to his chest and jumps into the raging waters below. Does he float to the surface or sink like a rock? What we are doing amounts to taking our chances by tossing away a few hands full of coins before we lash ourselves to our treasure chest and jump.
American car buyers being lured into the showroom with promises of high gas mileage and tax credits are shocked to find out after the fact that the mileage isn’t what it’s cranked up to be (by design) and even the tax credits don’t offset the higher sticker prices, higher insurance, higher maintenance costs and higher depreciation. Instead of trying to provide the consumer with an appropriate and timely product, these apex capitalists seem more concerned with lining their pockets and fleecing the public once again. Instead of approaching hybrid transportation as a drastically urgent emergency technology, car manufacturers seem to be in the mindset of adding hybridization like you would add chrome alloy wheels or a DVD player, like a sales ploy, while intentionally keeping the existing status quo 99% intact.
For example: Instead of all-electric cars being forced upon the public in vastly larger numbers fifteen years ago, which would have been a (very) good thing, they were actually forced off the road which was a (very) bad thing. (A 20/20 report showed a major American auto manufacturer actually refusing to renew leases and confiscating EV’s (all Electric Vehicles) for dismantling in California.)
That was over a decade ago. How much less global warming would we be contending with now if we had pressed in the opposite direction? How much more advanced would the technologies be if the full brunt of governmental, consumer and industrial pressure had been brought to bear back then?
Even though some experts are saying that even non-gasoline fueled cars will not be enough to stem the cascade towards global calamity, others feel we still have time to avoid the most catastrophic problems. Either way, we need to get serious about vastly more sophisticated EV’s, fuel-cell vehicles, solar powered vehicles, bicycles and hybrid combinations of all these alternatives and we need to make these adjustments now. We need to get serious about life on this (finite) planet. In truth, we are talking about the enormous task of re-structuring our industrialized societyâÂ?¦ But the alternative is having no industrialized society at all.
