The Writing on the Wall: Reality rains on the green parade
Who knew saving the world could be so hard?
By Brian Goodman, opinion editor
Posted on March 1, 2007

It may be politically expedient; it may be conscience soothing; it may be pride stroking. But one thing’s for certain: it ain’t easy being green.

These past two weeks in particular have been tough for the environmentally conscious. First came the news that contrary to popular opinion, all the carbon dioxide produced complaining about automobile emissions may have been ever so slightly misplaced. According to The Christian-Science Monitor, livestock are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than “transportation.” Bovine flatulence and manure, combined with the requisite deforestation and water usage to feed and slaughter the animals, produces more greenhouse gas emissions than every car, truck, bus, train, airplane, scooter, boat and Panzer on the planet. If getting people — Americans in particular — to stop driving in order to save the planet was nearly impossible, good luck trying to get us to forego burgers.

And a few days after that story was published, the news of Al Gore’s not-unexpected victory in the Academy Awards’ “Best Documentary” category for his controversial “An Inconvenient Truth” was tarnished by the revelation that global warming may not be the only “inconvenient truth” Al Gore could talk about.

According to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, the former vice president’s suburban Nashville home uses more than 20 times more energy than the average home. The gas and electric bills for the 20-room (eight-bathroom) home and pool totaled a whopping $30,000 a year for the last two years, and actually increased after the release of his pedantic and pretentious documentary was released.

To cap it all off, media outlets then started to get wind of the new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy ratings for vehicles, revised Feb. 13. For those that don’t know, the EPA is responsible for the prominent fuel economy ratings posted on the window sticker of every car under 8,500 pounds (which is why the portly Hummer H2 and discontinued H1 do not have their miles per gallon numbers published). And as expected, most every car in the United States took a hit in the gas tank.

The significant changes to the EPA tests used to calibrate MPG ratings represent the first real overhaul since 1984, more accurately representing real-world driving situations — and therefore more accurately representing real-world MPG returns. For example, the EPA has spent the last 22 years calculating highway gas mileage by driving the cars at 55 mph, though the thought of traveling at 55 mph on Interstate 81 is equal parts laughable and horrifying. We travel 55 mph down Port Republic Road. The EPA also did not use air conditioning and accelerated slowly from stops that, among other things, made their numbers entirely unachievable in the real world.

The new tests have incorporated a “high-speed” test to correct the most glaring of the errors, complete with jackrabbit starts and 80-mph highway driving. It also formed a test with air conditioning use appropriate for a 95-degree day, and started a “cold-temp” test (automobiles get far worse gas mileage when they are cold started).

As the EPA admits on its Web site detailing the changes (fueleconomy.gov), these new tests will likely reduce mileage ratings for most cars. However, the tests had the most dramatic effect on hybrids, the vehicle of choice for the greenies. The old tests artificially augmented the battery performance of most hybrids, resulting in severely over-inflated mpg ratings. The Toyota Prius, the reigning champion of the hybrid market, saw city performance drop from 60 mpg to 48 mpg, highway from 51 mpg to 45 mpg; the non-hybrid Toyota Corolla, for comparison, went from 30 mpg to 26 mpg in the city and from 38 mpg to 35 mpg on the highway.

 Of course, the actual performance of the cars hasn’t changed, only our ability to more accurately measure it. Most of us who drive were already well aware that our cars did not return the gas mileage the EPA claimed it would. But this “inconvenient truth” will not help the burgeoning hybrid market, nor will it help stymie the vociferous critics of hybrids and the “eco-fascists” who drive them.

From cows to cars to civil servants, environmentalists have taken a pretty hard beating. But, as the brilliant 20th-century philosopher Kermit the Frog reminds us, no one ever said being green would be easy.

Brian Goodman is a senior communications major.