Angry in the Great White North

There is a persistent sense of hypocrisy that pervades the environmental movement, and in particular, the global warming crusade and the Kyoto brigade. 

Carbon dioxide is bad.  We must all cut back.  Soon the rising oceans will inundate us.  Kyoto!  KYOTO-O-O-O-OH!!

Typical Al Gore speak, even as he lives in a mansion that sucks up enough power to run a small town.  Does he cut back?  No, of course not.  He just sends money to some offset scam, declares himself carbon neutral, and makes no significant change to his energy-guzzling lifestyle.

The rest of us, if people like him had their way, would actually pay the real price of killing our economy because someone says a computer model has declared it a good idea.

That is what might yet happen in Europe, where new rules are coming into place to limit car emissions.

The automakers are upset:

BMW said the proposals were "naive" steps that would distort the market in favour of makers of smaller cars.

Peugeot said: "These plans are anti-ecological, anti-social, anti-economical and anti-competitive in relation to non-European Union carmakers."

And Sigrid de Vries, of the European Automobile Manufacturers body, said fines would be "unprecedented" and that industry wanted a realistic system with objectives it could meet.

"If there are penalties, they have to be reasonable with a clear link to the price of CO2 applied to other sectors," she said.

The environmentalists are upset:

Makers of bigger cars can pool their total automobiles sold with other car companies making lower-emitting cars to meet the average 130 gram target.

Green lobbyists are less than happy with aspects of the EU proposal.

Jos Dings, director of the pressure group Transport and Environment said: "If today's proposal becomes law, it will boost the SUV arms race in Europe, rewarding carmakers for their climate-killing strategy of making ever heavier cars.

"In the long term this strategy will backfire meaning heavier cars, more CO2 emissions and more accident deaths."

Regular people are bound to be upset once they see the sticker price:

EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas acknowledged that the regulations could add 1,300 euros ($1,874) to the price of a car.

Well, not all cars are equally affected:

Manufacturers like Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini, which make high-end luxury racers and sell fewer than 10,000 cars a year, would be exempt.

So here we go again.  If you're some idle European rich kid, and you, all on your own, already consume 30 times more energy than an average family of four, what with your jetsetting lifestyle and your huge property with three heated pools and your restaurant-sized refrigerator running day and night to keep a single pack of imported diet yogurt chilled just so, someone might ask just what you did to combat global warming.

No doubt you'd hope the question doesn't come up during an environmental gala you'd been paid to attend.  In fact, you hope no one noticed that you drove up a Porsche Carrera GT, a supercar powered by a 5.7L V-10 engine.  Because at an annual emission rating of 16.6 tons, it is one of the worst cars on the road for emissions.

Only 1,500 were made, and there's a waiting list.  I'm not on it.  But if I was, and I was the sort of person not used to waiting, I could pay an extra $15,000 and have it shipped by airplane to my location.

And I wouldn't have to pay a dime in penalties for the environmental havoc I'd be causing.  If I get tired of it after a year or two, I can by another fast car, maybe an Enzo Ferrari (annual emissions: 22.8 tons), knowing that it'll be exempt from emission limiting rules too.

All because I'm rich and as such I'm not forced to drive a Volkswagen Golf and pay the extra green tax that Al Gore wants me to pay.  The annual emissions of the Golf that I need to pay a penalty for generating, what with driving to my job and such?  A mere 7.7 tons a year.