On Yahoo News - EcoGeeks get all the girls

[kags1969]

By Hank Green Posted Wed May 28, 2008 1:59am PDT

Just in case you needed another reason to care about the environment: It turns out girls dig guys who dig environmental technology.

According to a study conducted by GM as part of this year's Challenge X competition:

Nearly 9 in 10 women (88 percent) say they'd rather chat up someone who owns the latest fuel-efficient car versus the latest sports car.
Eighty percent of American car buyers would find someone with the latest fuel-efficient car more interesting to talk to at a party than someone with the latest sports car.
More than 4 out of 10 (45 percent) 18- to 43-year-olds say it's a fashion faux pas nowadays to have a car that's not green or environmentally friendly.
Little did we know we've been fashionable all along! (OK, maybe not me - I'm still tooling around in my old Sentra.) No one seems to have told 80 percent of America that it's actually greener to keep driving your current car than to invest in buying a new one.

Nonetheless, this study is good news. And when I buy my first new car (never!), I'll be sure to let everyone know how green it is.

GM's Challenge X is a yearly competition among college students to make GM vehicles more efficient. This year's competition had students from 17 universities "re-engineering" Chevy's Equinox to make it more efficient and reduce its greenhouse impact, while retaining consumer appeal.

Solutions the students put together included using alternative propulsion systems like fuel cells and hybrid technologies, and using alternative fuels like biodiesel and ethanol.

This year's winners are from Mississippi State. They increased the fuel economy of the Equinox by almost 40 percent with a hybrid-electric biodiesel engine.

That's hot.

[jwight]

So, if you drive a smart and have Geico insurance does that make you an Eco-gecko?

[bull8042]

Originally Posted by jwight

So, if you drive a smart and have Geico insurance does that make you an Eco-gecko?

That would make you a little green! With a funny accent too.

[mmmeat]

Originally Posted by kags1969

Just in case you needed another reason to care about the environment: It turns out girls dig guys who dig environmental technology.

Well, duh. Liberal chicks are easy. It's what my shirt says, and I wear it proudly to every Hillary or Obama propaganda torch lighting in my area!

Your pal,
Meat.

[vwW12]

I, for one, don't see how having bought a new smart makes me any greener.

The car that I turned in 120,000 mi and was generating about $1,000 in annual maintenance, plus 20 MPG @ 12,000 mi/yr. So its annual cost to me and to "society", at $5 a gallon was $4,000 /yr.

The smart cost $21,000 taxes and 4-yr warranty included and let's say its useful life is 10 yrs/120,000 mi. Plus maintenance, let's say optimistically $400 /yr. It does 35MPG @ 12,000 mi/yr after one month of ownership. So its annual cost to me and to "society" @ $5 a gallon is $4,214 /yr.

Therefore, I would be delluding myself if I thought I was being "green". In fact, I enjoy driving a new car that happens to be fashionable. I also like having ABS, ESC, side airbags, a removable roof, and the presumable dependability that comes with a newer machine.

But I am spending more and the extra money I am spending reflects additional use of resources. I don't kid myself. The "green" thing to do would have been to continue driving my 1997 Australian white whale.

[dennyrex]

>don't see how having bought a new smart makes me any greener.

you've lost me here. what's your logic for this "green" example? what are you defining as green? green as in greenback?
600 gallons vs. 342 gallons is what I see. That, in addition to the smaller physical footprint the smart is taking up, represents a couple of the the green benefits to society.
money out of pocket would seem to have little to do with it.

[vwW12]

Money represents resources.

Money is a unit of measure. More money, more resources. If I am spending more money, that means that additional resources were used up at all stages of production to deliver my product.

If I spent $21K on a new car, it means I am paying for part of a plant, for its workers, their vacations (possibly in airplanes), their childcare, their own cars; for the resources that went into making the car itself: steel, aluminum, plastic, lead, zinc, copper; for the coal, oil and nuclear power that was used up mining, smelting, refining, or forging these pieces; for the energy that was consumed transporting this car halfway around the world. Plus a very significant share of taxes to governments in France, Germany, Holland, and the U.S., taxes that will pay for a bunch of bureaucrat's vacations, cars, childcare, etc.

The most universal measure of how much of this world you are using up is how much you spend.

I am spending more (and am pretty happy about it).

[smartass1]

So where they again? LOL!!! I'm a very nice guy and also I own 4 green products directories and a Smart car! I meet very few women around here in beautiful Durango Colorado where people are generally green minded. You can check out one of my green directories at Green Products and Services | Eco Living Directory For Sustainable green products and environmentally safe services I will add that when you have a Smart car you will without question meet many more people. They all want to check out your car and maybe your dog! So I guess maybe your smartie can be looked as as a short fishing pole. LOL!!

[randyzimmer]

Originally Posted by vwW12

I, for one, don't see how having bought a new smart makes me any greener...

VW W12,
Just to gloat a little,
I went with my wife to a meeting she organized for her boss in Dresden.
The Hotel it was at,
Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski Dresden | Hotel Taschenbergpalais Kempinski Dresden | Home
had a fleet of Phaetons to lend and I got a V10 Diesel to run off to a go-kart track in.
Good thing it came full and I could drop it off empty because it got empty FAST!
One of the guys at the track was a streetcar driver and was thrilled to get a chance to drive the car (don't tell the hotel I let him).
I spent a few hours at the glass plant and I'd love a job there. Pretty leisurely pace. Bowling alley floors and all the latest devices to keep effort to the absolute minimum.
Just-in-time parts delivery using the existing streetcar lines for transportation.

[vwW12]

Originally Posted by randyzimmer

Just to gloat a little

I know, I know. Dresden is just so out of the way, we haven't had a chance yet. So I am definitively green with envy! Plus what I bought here in the U.S. is speed-limited and no-one has figured out how to undo that. So you had a very exclusive opportunity. Cheers,