Ah Yes, The Green Hummer

In today's Green Lantern article in Slate online magazine, Brendan Koerner addresses an urban myth that I have heard several times myself from environmental contrarians and not known how to counter. The question is:

I'm shopping for new wheels and was considering a Prius. But one of my co-workers insists that the Prius isn't nearly as green as Toyota boasts, due to the energy required to manufacture the car's battery. The guy also claims that scientific studies have shown that a Prius is more environmentally harmful than a Hummer is. Really?

The Lantern yanks up and dissects the roots of this myth and calmly proceeds to show it for the nonsense it is.

As someone who is in the beginning stages of looking for a vehicle to replace our ancient Mazda pickup (going on 200,000 miles) before it leaves us stranded by the side of the road one day, a vehicle that we can use for the ever-rarer occasions when we travel some distance and camp along the way, and/or at our destination, I appreciate all the information I can find about the relative merits of the new hybrids. And please, don't think for a minute that a Hummer is anywhere on either the long or short list of vehicles we're checking out. It's a very short list at present, and we're taking our time in hopes that more and better choices will be available by the time the rebuilt transmission actually falls out of the pickup as we ascend the back of the Sandias one day soon.

Technorati Tags: environment, The Green Lantern, Hummers, Prius, scientific nonsense

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