5 ELF v. SUVs

A faction of the Earth Liberation Front destroyed twenty new H2s, worth about $50K apiece, on 22 August in West Covina. I like the fact that the dealer responded by saying that driving a Hummer was patriotic and that twenty-odd Hummer Club nuts showed up for a "gas-guzzle-in" to protest the ELF's actions.

Um, people, this ain't a discrimination issue. Driving SUVs in protest isn't terribly convincing, especially when the pilots are fat-cat Hummer Geeks. "Ooh, now I'm convinced they were wrong."

I don't condone domestic terrorism -

Who am I kidding? I wouldn't have burned them because it's not my thing, but I won't say I don't wriggle with glee at the visual image of the SUVs roasting. I live in So Cal: half of it is unlivable because of the pollution and H2s are so big they don't fall into existing vehicle classifications so they don't have to be 'smogged'. That's right, eight to ten miles to the gallon, no smog controls, in the Air Pollution Capitol of North America.

Guys, when So Cal governments recommend people not go outside during daytime hours without breathers for some 40-odd days of the first 69 days of the year, I gotta say I have a serious problem with H2s and with autos in general.

I know, let's solve our growing transportation problems by building more highways instead of trying to force people into using public transit!

You laugh, but the above statement is EXACTLY the response of the same governments to the smog problem. Don't worry: the solution is at hand. The same thing happened in Britain during the early Industrial revolution. The air got increasingly foul and no one would do anything about it. Then, on one fateful week, the air became too poisonous to breathe and all these people died. Suddenly, England's coal pollution problem cleared up really, really fast - say, practically overnight.