Re: Toyota: \"No Financial Justification in US for Buying Hybrids\"
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I am curious, you and your wife seem to be willing to take active steps to improve the environment as you perceive it. I understand LV has a bit of a shortage of clean water. What do you do in your personal lives to help the water situation? Or is it not an issue.
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We use lots of water, and don't really do anything about the water problem. There are lots of things we could do to live a more responsible life than what we live. We could stop driving entirely. We could go vegan. We could grow my own food and eschew the entire agricultural system. We could use less water.. less power.
We could buy a small plot of land somewhere off the water and power grids and live a subsistence life and donate the rest of our net worth and future income to charities.
We don't do that, nor do I think that doing any of these things is a moral imperative. We do what we can... what fits for us in our lives. And we leave it at that.
I would never argue that being vegetarian or driving a hybrid makes me a better or more moral person than someone who isn't and doesn't. I think that's BS. I think it's basically ok if people act in their rational self-interests, and have no qualm with people who make other decisions for themselves.
What I do have a problem with is a system of laws and a market that actively refuses to internalize externalities when possible. It's the basic principle I learned when I was five, "If you make a mess, you clean it up." Or, in the case where you can't actually clean it up, you pay for it to be cleaned up. Presently our system allows people, companies, everyone to make mess after mess and then throw up their hands and say, "Wasn't me." That's what needs to change. If you pollute the air three times more than I do, you should shoulder three times the cleanup costs. Or if the air can't be cleaned, then you compensate people for their dirty windows, soot-clogged machinery, respiratory problems, etc.
It shouldn't be a voluntary choice. We shouldn't need uppity movie stars in Priuses to make impassioned speeches about the environment saving 20 mpg in their car, but burning 2000000 mpg in their private jet. The cost of pollution should be BUILT IN to the prices of things.
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