Environment & Energy

My wife gave away her old car and bought a used Prius last year. She's gotten 66 MPG since.

My old truck is lucky to get a third of that but I drive it less than 1500 miles a year so I've got no real incentive to replace it with an expensive hybrid truck.

But the actual problem is cars themselves. It doesn't matter much what powers them, they are environmentally destructive. The problem with our society is that we are not considered fully functional adults unless we own a car. There are very few places people can live comfortably without a car.

If we had any sense we'd turn our cities into affordable attractive places where car ownership is unnecessary. Unfortunately we're taught from a very early age that owning a car is a sacred right and some kind of freedom when it's actually a burden, especially for people who are not affluent.