> Interesting fact is that as driving increases, the pollution
> from automobiles continues to drop rapidly.
=v= Even more interestingly, that's not a fact at all. That's
more whatcha call an inaccuracy, or an outright lie, paid for by
the highway lobby (whose website you proferred as a "source").
> The reason is that as cars are driven more, they wear out
> faster and are replaced with newer cars. Pollution levels
> in cars is dropping quickly with pollution technology in
> cars continues to improve quickly.
=v= How blissfully utopian. Here in reality, we've got a
few more variables to contend with that the highway lobbyists
somehow always forget to take into account:
(1) Manufacturing cars takes a lot of energy and causes a lot
of pollution. For some models, it's pretty much equivalent
to the energy and pollution impacts caused by running them.
CNW Marketing Research concluded that manufacturing hybrids
pollutes more than manufacturing ordinary gasoline cars.
(2) While newer cars are better for *certain* emissions, there
are others that aren't measured at all. Carbon comes to
mind (what with the title of this thread referring to global
warming and all).
(3) The emissions that are measured have loopholes in them, so
that SUVs are officially categorized with and compared to
old utility trucks (which they pollute less than) even
though they were were purchased to replace old cars (which
they pollute *more* than).
(4) The emissions numbers are garbage, and the rating system
is being overhauled for next year. The ones that are
supposedly the best are actually the most inaccurate. So
the highway lobby's whizbang PowerPoint slides are based
on bogus numbers.
<_Jym_>
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