Drive without guilt

Yes, global warming is real, the polar icecaps are melting at astonishing rates and worldwide sea levels could rise as much as 20 feet over the next several decades, engulfing major cities worldwide. But it’s not totally your SUV’s fault-or any car’s fault, for that matter.

Cars have been getting a pretty bad rap over the last several years as the evidence for global warming has mounted. Gas guzzling SUVs have been accused of being planet killers and driving one, in the eyes of some activists, is akin to mercilessly clubbing a baby seal to death. But that is simply not the case.

If cars aren’t the culprits then who, or what, is to blame? The real answer is power generation. The burning of coal and other fossil fuels on a huge scale to generate power is currently the world’s largest contributor of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Cars in comparison are much less guilty.

Why do cars, specifically SUVs, get blamed then? Perhaps it is because, unlike coal-burning power plants, you see cars every day. You see the smoke coming out of their tail pipes, you smell the exhaust, and smog looms overhead on hot summer days. But just because you don’t see the coal or other fossil fuel burning plants doesn’t mean they’re not there. There are over 600 of them in the U.S. and more are being built all the time. Coal is cheap and abundant and burning it is very easy. Over 52% of the United States’ power comes from coal-burning alone. That percentage does not include other fossil fuel-burning plants such as natural gas, which are detrimental as well.

Currently, the U.S. is the biggest contributor of CO2 emissions in the world, but that won’t be the case for very long. As China experiences its huge economic growth and as more rural populations move into the urban centers, the need for power generation will increase exponentially. While China’s demand for power grows, so does their number of coal-burning plants. Unfortunately there is no end in sight to China’s coal-burning industry, or our own for that matter.

New coal burning technologies, like “clean coal” which has been touted by GE, are farcical. Though they are able to wash away pollutants from the coal and then capture the CO2 produced from burning the coal, there are still no viable ways to dispose of these remaining hazardous products.

American consumers concerned with their carbon emissions look to hybrid or vehicles as a solution. Increasing your vehicle’s miles per gallon rating with a hybrid from 20 to 40 is relatively insignificant due to the large amount of energy required in battery production, which hybrids require to lower gasoline usage. Only 14 percent of our overall CO2 emissions come from transportation. And if the average American were to change their vehicle’s power from gasoline burning to electric they would only be transferring their emissions to fossil fuel-burning plants, which is essentially like having a longer tailpipe.

As it stands now for the average American, there are no more environmentally viable options than gasoline for powering your car. But there are better ways to generate our electricity than burning coal and other fossil fuels. So stop turning your nose up to SUVs and their drivers. If you really want to make a difference, go online to PGE and switch your power source to 100% green and renewable resources, for a relatively small increase in your monthly bill. Or go to the Bonneville Power Administration’s website and purchase their green tags which completely counteract your carbon emissions by investing in wind and solar power. Better yet, do both and tell your friends to do the same.

Reducing our carbon emissions and reversing global warming are our generation’s two biggest hurdles to overcome. We can do it, it will just require a few changes in life style and most of them don’t require much effort. The ways in which we can accomplish these goals are many but ignorance or the automotive elitism isn’t one of them.