Posts Tagged ‘hybrid’

Easiest to hardest.

1. Don’t idol needlessly: In a drive-through; waiting to pick up someone; leaving the kids in a running car to watch a DVD. If it’s more than 30 seconds, turn it off.

2. Don’t drive aggressively. Coast up to red lights, no need to have one peddle on the floor at all times. You don’t have to be right on someone rear; it wastes gas and causes the domino effect of stop & go traffic. Accelerate slowly, you don’t save much time. Leave two minutes early, increase your millage up to 30%.

3. Open the windows, turn off the air, especially don’t wait for someone while idling with the air on. Roll down the windows, you’ll live.

4. Walk, bike, bus, train whenever you can.

5. Don’t buy SUV’s or other gas guzzlers. How often do you pack it to capacity and use all that space. Save on payments, gas, insurance, etc. Buy a hybrid or a smaller car and rent a van or truck when needed.

6. Live near your work. Work near your home.

I have a van that gives 18 mpg. It has 170,000 miles on it. The wear shows but it is doing fine otherwise and all othersystems work. I have owned it for 8 years.
My next car will definitely be a Hybrid that gives more than 35 mpg.
My dilemma is:
I could trade this one now and start emmiting less green house gases.
or
I can drive the one I have for another 40-50k miles; thus delaying a cars worth of hard ware and mterial consumption for another 4-5 years.
So the question is: What is more environment friendly – Trading in old gas-guzzlers early for Hybrids or running them out for thier full life? Becaue after I trade this one in now, someone else will buy it and drive it for another 50,000 miles anyway, right?
What is worse: gas fumes of 300 gallons or Meterial for a brand new car?

Ok, so it’s a fact that we’re destroying the environment. My question is, do you think it’s possible to save the environment and reverse the damage that has been done? Are scientists working actively with politicians to disciver alternative sources of energy that don’t cause global warming and excessive pollution? Or do we just not care? I am going to buy a hybrid so that I can do my part. I’m not a granola crunchy environmental freak, but I see way too many stories these days about climate changes and the ill effects of these changes on the world…like tsunamis, heat waves, etc.