Why is it that when you seek to do the morally right thing, more often than not, you find yourself in a catch-22. On the other hand ‘hell with ’em attitude’ will often leave you with no regrets. This is the exact situation that one finds himself in, when he’s debating the pros of buying a new vehicle when he already owns one.
Follow the latter attitude and you’ll end up with a Buggati in your garage and your Ford Torino at the dumper. Try to be a nice guy and you will end up calculating the environmental costs of your decision. The main question that haunts the thoughts of anyone pondering over buying a new vehicle is: ‘What is greener?‘
Fuel efficiency or emissions during manufacture…the eternal quandary!
The new vehicle, obviously, claims be more fuel-efficient and consequently promises to lower your carbon emissions. But, hang on, think deeper. What about the energy used and carbon emitted during its production? Shouldn’t you tax your mind and somehow compare the two to arrive at a more informed and unbiased (read green) decision?
This is the exact thing that was bothering the guys over on triplepundit and they have done some serious calculations to help us mortals arrive at better decisions. Pablo Paster has compared various car models to arrive at a verdict that a new car is undoubtedly a better choice on the ecological considerations. Here is what he has to say:
Continuing to drive an older car with poor fuel economy is less environmentally friendly than getting a new car that gets drastically better fuel economy. You can take my factors above and calculate the exact energy use for your old vehicle and a new vehicle to see the comparison. Keep in mind that these results are for the energy used, not the carbon dioxide emissions, but the two are highly correlated since most of our energy comes from fossil fuels.
Clearly, he has used the energy used, while comparing the two alternatives instead of the actual carbon emissions. But, as he rightly puts, the energy used and emissions generated are correlated to a high degree. The GREET model developed by the Argonne National Laboratory has been used to perform these calculations.
Other considerations
The results are clear and loud, buying a new vehicle represents an ethical and environmental-friendly decision. Nevertheless, if your vehicle will continue to be driven on the road by somebody else, I guess, the entire debate is fruitless. Or maybe you would do well to shift over to public transport. Better still, why drive at all? Just walk. But that would be too minimalist.
So it’s back to square one…again.
