80 Series carbon footprint - I lose (1 Viewer)

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musthave

Doc says I'm 1 in 120K. Lucky?
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A relative of sorts was at our house over the holidays and noticed all of my land cruisers. Hard to miss I suppose. She started in with her first comment that I had a "hybrid sticker" on the back of my one that is decked out with solar. I smiled and said it's almost a hybrid and laughed it off. 30 minutes later I am getting the run down on why it's wrong to put that sticker on my cruiser. Apparently I am getting "noticed" by others for being something I'm not, "hybrid". Heck, I just did it to get better MPG I told her, not to get noticed.

The chat and digs continued throughout the day and each time I just smiled and laughed. But then things changed after she had a drink or two. Now not only was I a fraud for having my hybrid sticker, I am a carbon whore for driving all of these land cruisers. The land cruisers, I was told, should be outlawed in favor of economical cars. Well that was the breaking point for me, and I spewed my rhetoric. I've got one bottom and it can only drive 1 cruiser at a time so having a bunch of them at my house isn't hurting anyone.

Fast forward, and now I am being accused of ruining the earth because the carbon footprint of my cruiser is WAYYYYY more than her Chevy volt.

So now to the technical part.

How might one determine what the "carbon footprint" of driving a Land cruiser is vs. driving a chevy volt thing, or any other vehicle?
 
I mean, you can look up however much carbon is in a gallon of gas and use that to figure out your CO2/mile but I'd just drink a beer and laugh at the crazies myself.
 
Driving an old vehicle uses less resources than what it takes to manufacture a new one. Also as you mentioned you are only driving one of them at a time.

I like to think of myself as a "practical environmentalist". I care about the big picture, such as modernizing our power plants, increasing mpg's across the fleet of newly built vehicles, reducing harmful emissions on a large scale, reducing overall pollution, etc... I don't understand why some people get so narrowly focused on one little thing such as an old landcruiser and freak out.
 
There are some calculators if you google carbon footprint calculator... If you dare to have cookies on your computer related to that...
 
And ask how many Volts she'd have to buy to match the life time of your 23 year old 80 series.

But the real answer is Carbon Dioxide isn't a pollutant so who cares what your "carbon footprint" is.
 
Land Cruiser:
Mine the ore
Smelt the steel
Fuel burned for the smelter
Fuel burned for the ships shipping Japan to USA
Manufacturing of the tires, pollution, fuel burned, trees drained of their sap
Oil used throughout it's estimated life span
Fuel used throughout it's lifespan
Smelting of the aluminum parts made for all the rebuild parts to keep it on the road
Burning of the rubber to make the wiper blades it will use its entire life
Total mileage estimated before it's no longer able to operate
Total number of years estimated to operate: 30 years
Recycle fuel used to grind and melt the LC into a new Volt.



Prius:
Mine the ore
Smelt the steel
Fuel burned for the smelter
Fuel burned for the ships shipping Japan to USA
Manufacturing of the tires, pollution, fuel burned, trees drained of their sap
Oil used throughout it's estimated life span
Fuel used throughout it's lifespan
Smelting of the aluminum parts made for all the rebuild parts to keep it on the road
Burning of the rubber to make the wiper blades it will use its entire life
Mining of the ore of the lead for the batteries
Total mileage estimated before it's no longer able to operate
Total number of years estimated to operate: 6 years
Recycle fuel used to grind and melt the LC into a new Volt.
Recycle of the hazardous material encased in the batteries of the Volt

Times (5) since the Volt will only last 1/5 the number of years a Land Cruiser will.
I based the above initially on a Prius. Now that I realized it is a Chevy Volt, it's most likely more replacements than 5.


Alternate answer:
Cost of the bullet to the head from the pissed off Land Cruiser guy.


There is no way to calculate accurately the "carbon footprint" of either. You COULD do it just based on COST. Include maintenance, initial cost, battery replacement (as often as it occurs), but you'd have to do realistic estimated life spans for both. Those life spans vary with use, level of maintenance, and the final determining factor that it is no longer useful, then the value of the final "carcass".

In other words, it is a completely moot argument that that side wants to play the emotional tree hugger game on.
 
Another uneducated person who thinks a new car produced today has a smaller impact on the environment that it really does. Especially an electric hybrid car.....

Tell her to do the research on the mining and process of producing the batteries for her "environmentally friendly" car! Ask her does she know the real facts?!

I bet you the answer would be NO!!
 
I found this on the internet a few years back. When people criticize my cruiser I just point at their dogs and tell them I will get rid of the cruiser when they get rid of their dog. That usually ends the discussion.

"Their most startling conclusion is that dogs are significantly more damaging to the planet than SUVs. The authors claim that keeping a medium-sized dog has the same ecological impact as driving a 4.6 litre Land Cruiser 10,000km a year. ... Two big dogs have a bigger carbon footprint than some British citizens."

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I've been driving electric for about :edit: 5 years now (chevy volt and tesla 3).

If you look up the mpg(e) numbers for an electric or plug-in-hybrid car, that is intended to be a reasonable approximation of the distance the car will go with the energy equivalent of a gallon of gas. So, not surprisingly, a chevy volt (82mpge) is more fuel efficient than a land cruiser. :hillbilly:

One thing the eco-snobs often overlook is that the electricity source of the grid in your neighborhood (or wherever you're charging), may not be of the cleanest source (coal). In fact, I've seen a chevy volt with a bumper sticker that said "powered by coal", and thought it was pretty awesome :)

Second thing the eco-snobs overlook is the mining of materials used for the battery often has some pretty terrible environmental effects. Most lithium is strip-mined. Not good.

Everything has trade-offs, and there is a good argument for running an old car into the ground rather than getting the newest fart-sniffing hippy-mobile. I have to have a newer vehicle because of my job, so I thought about the impacts, positive and negative, and chose what I thought was the lesser of two evils. Another consideration was the amount of driving I do and frequency of ozone alert days in the Denver metro. Basically everything we do on a daily basis has some environmental or climate impact--even those carefully thought out eco-conscious decisions still have a net carbon effect. Basically, unless you want to live like a caveman, you are harming the world around you in some small way. Oh well.

And finally, that chick is a fart-sniffing eco-snob. My hometown is full of them. They care more about the "feeling" or "intention" of their actions than their actual impact.

If you don't get the fart-sniffing reference:

 
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If I had garage space or could justify spending $300 a month for an extra spot on top of two I have already, I’d totally buy a Prius C. Loved that car.

10 gallons from empty to full makes refueling feel like a pit stop. 450 mile range every time urban roads. Best selling car in Tokyo.
 
When talking about the carbon footprint, it's hard to beat recycling versus buying something new. This applies to damn near everything.
 
Hmmm...just a relative of sorts? Tell her to mind her own business and stuff it. :cool:
 
Just remind your relative of the 3 r's of environmentalism, reduce, reuse, and recycle. Buying a new chevy volt doesn't satisfy any of those. Plus the volt is almost entirely synthetic and made of petroleum(carbon). Also remember the carbon load of manufacturing and shipping the car and its parts. And last but not least more than 70% of domestic electricity comes from fossil fuels....
 

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