Eco people hate me. I don’t know why because I recycle, I bring my own bag to the supermarket and I rarely ever turn on the heat or anything electrical. All I know is that whenever I am at a stoplight next to someone in one of those green eco cars I get the same gesture every time. I can tell you every person in my city that has a hybrid, and whether they have a manicure. No matter who I see, they all are ready to kill me.
These people seem a little uptight, and I think it has to do with all the pressure on them. They are not just looking to get better mileage, they’re charged with saving the world. Instead of just buying a car that provides cheap and reliable transportation they are forced into a group that must single handedly reduce out dependence on foreign oil. This belief is promoted by the automakers, the government, the media and every environmental group out there. The poor owners just start out wanting to do something good for themselves and the country but then something happens. Not long after, they are composting on the front porch and tacking solar panels to their adobe addition roof. Everyone doesn’t have to be completely nuts about the environment, that’s what we have Ed Begley Jr. for.
I know how crazy they can be because I drive a Jaguar XJS Coupe with a humungous V12 engine. They know about the engine because of an equally huge V12 badge on the back of my car. As they are driving up beside me, that badge is like a billboard for seal harvesting. The engine is something like 7 feet long and I am sure the tailpipes look like a coal plant belching out plumes of Black Death. I’ve thought about removing the badge, but I don’t want to ruin the car, plus I know BMW and Mercedes have big V12’s too, but they hide that fact. I wish everyone in a hybrid just tried to understand us as being sad people consigned to drive our ancient Hummers, Jags and Escalades because we can’t buy a new car.
It’s not like my car runs on sliced polar bear, it just drinks a little heavier at the bar, like Mel Gibson. What’s funny is that I am probably doing as much to help the environment as they are, at least for the next 10 years. That little Honda or Prius has to be created from nothing, and in order to do so it will need steel (strip mining and CO2 emissions) and plastic (drilling and petroleum product manufacturing) using energy (coal) to put it all together. My energy was used ages ago during the renaissance by English people who burned peat, so something called my “lifecycle CO2 emission” is low. The idea is that in the 15 years I’ve owned the car, I would have normally bought at least two new cars. Therefore I have a smaller carbon footprint, of sorts. In fact, my car is at this moment trying to recycle itself back into my driveway it’s so green. Plus, I don’t use Biofuel, so I am not contributing to the massive escalation of corn crops for fuel.
Is it selfish, and just rationalization? I don’t think so, in fact I’m thinking of going even greener…Didn’t Lincoln make a V16?
Photos courtesy of Ridelust.com and Freakingnews.com and blog.infinitylimited.net
Article courtesy of Chris Raymond