Slashdot Mirror
Paris To Test Banning SUVs In the City
thecarchik writes "Paris may be the first city to experiment with such a policy. Next year, it will begin to test restrictions on vehicles that emit more than a certain amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometer — the measure of a car's contribution to greenhouse gases. An official within the Parisian mayor's office, Denis Baupin, identified older diesel-engined cars and sport-utility vehicles as specific targets of the emissions limit. Residents and travelers have responded by buying thousands of electric cars, including the low-speed fiberglass G-Wiz — despite major safety concerns with the vehicle."
electric allows for energy source flexibility
with a gas fueled car, when the saudis decide you are paying $5/ gallon so they can send more money to islamic militant causes, you have no choice. with electric, you can get your electricity from coal plants belching acid rain and CO2, yes, but at least you are only funding mining barons in west virginia. but your electricity can also be from nuclear, or solar, or hydroelectric, or geothermal, or tidal, or wind... or whatever. the whole point being, you can still drive the same car, you have energy independence, as an individual, and as a society. you don't have to worry what gas prices will be in 2011 as demand rises and supplies get deeper and deeper. you don't have to worry about soccer moms in SUVs, when they fill their fuel tanks, funding al qaeda or hugo chavez or russian neoimperialism or.. shiver... canada (relax canucks, its just a dumb joke)
electric cars are just being smart and planning for the future. not that planning for the future is a concept many people are very familiar with. change makes people uncomfortable. well, brazil, and india and china are not shrinking economies, and the global economy is recovering. remember fuel prices before the economic collapse in 2008? if you don't you'll soon get a nasty reminder. buy an electric car now. you've been amply warned, don't be dumb
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You do realise that America gets twice as much oil from Canada as from Saudi, right?
Since oil is pretty much fungible, it really doesn't matter where "we" get it from, we still are contributing to the world-wide demand for oil which keeps the money flowing to the middle-east. In other words, if the US didn't get oil from Canada, current direct buyers of Saudi oil would be able to buy from Canada instead.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
That can be considered as case for banning SUVs, right?
If not for the SUV, the other car occupants would not have died, maybe.
I've sussed it. That chart lists the OPEC countries separately to make them look smaller. If you add up the OPEC countries it comes to way more than Canada and Mexico combined (about 33% more).
No sig today...
People should be able to choose the vehicle they want to keep their family safe.
Yep the result of which is why I hate some Americans. The idea of I will buy the biggest bloody tank I can find and fuck anything on the road that gets in my way is disgusting. Here's a neat idea, if everyone has the fear of death behind the wheel maybe there would be less drunk drivers doing 100 in a 50 zone while talking on the mobile phone. Have you ever seen a bicycle enthusiast in a car pass a cyclist without leaving 1m gap? Or a recent example of mine, when it's pissing down so much that you can't see 10m ahead of you and half the traffic is driving with it's hazards on some impatient dick with a SUV and the worlds biggest bullbar on the front decides to overtake without having a lane to do so. I've seen that and I would have been pissed if I was the first firstaider on the scene in that weather. I would have probably just got out and punched the SUV driver.
If you take away people's safety blanket they may actually put a bit of thought into their fucking driving.
Parent is right. No one is forcing you to buy the G-Whiz, they are saying that the new rules will ban a lot of SUVs in the city, a very good thing for pedestrians and other motorists. Small also doesn't mean unsafe. I've seen an A class merc get hit by an SUV and roll. The driver got out on foot after the car came to a halt with all limbs intact, slightly shaken.
You may sense the attitude here. Well as someone who was hit by a reversing SUV because soccer mommy bought a car that she couldn't see out of just to keep her little shitty kid safe, let me tell you the sooner we can take the keys away from people who buy SUVs for anything other than "sports" or "utility" the fucking better.
Because
1) America basically gets all of our oil because they are a major consumer which is geographically very close. So that figure represents close to 100% of our production.
2) Saudi on the hand is half way round the world and america *still* gets a lot of oil from them. There total production is sent to europe, china, india and the rest of the world.
3) The oil sands are very costly to extract from compared to Saudi oil fields.
Also it doesn't really matter where America technically gets it's oil from. Oil is a global commodity traded on a vast scale and even if America imports zero barrels of oil from the Saudi's they will still be able to set the price. For example if the Saudi's cut their exports to China and Europe what will happen? Those consumers will start buying Canadian oil and the price goes up and Saudi makes more money for militants. America needs to use less oil.