Live from Austin!

There’s a US car industry you don’t hear much about. Over 100,000 Camry hybrids have been manufactured in Kentucky. The State of Ohio has cited Toyota Motor Sales for environmental excellence. Over a billion dollars has gone into building a state of the art Tundra manufacturing plant in Texas. There are over 36,000 people working in the USA for Toyota. Yet somehow, there’s a perception that US vehicle manufacturing means Detroit.

True, General Motors employs a lot more people. In fact, they laid off 34,000 people between 2006 and mid 2008. During the same period of downturn, Toyota laid off… zero workers. Even while production has been halted, they’ve kept workers on payroll and used the time to train them. Ford, meanwhile, continues to shift production to Mexico.

True also, Toyota is non-union labor. All Toyota employees get medical coverage from day 1, plus tuition assistance, 401(k), paid vacation days, flextime, short-term and long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and an on-site medical center with $5 co-pays and free generic drug prescriptions. With all that and no layoffs, I wonder why Toyota workers aren’t rushing to join the UAW?

For years, GM and Ford ignored the oil markets and the growth of environmental concerns, and filled dealer lots with huge gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs. They lobbied for fuel economy standards to be relaxed. Chrysler actually opted to pay fines rather than comply with the standards, and classified the PT Cruiser as a truck so they could get away with 20MPG fuel economy that requires premium gasoline.

GM killed their EV1 electric car program. Ford pushed ethanol fuel, which was economically unworkable, and fuel cells, which require a hydrogen infrastructure that won’t work with current technology. Yet here we are, with GM and Ford angling for billions of dollars of taxpayer funds as a reward for their stellar work over the last decade or two, and Toyota to get nothing. If I were Toyota–or one of their employees–I’d feel a little aggrieved.

As with the $700 billion banking bailout, I don’t believe for a moment that the proposed auto industry bailout will actually solve the problem. I’ve seen what happens when government props up a motor car manufacturer; we called it British Leyland, and it was a running joke for a decade–albeit not a very funny joke for people like my dad who bought one of their cars and several of their gearboxes.

I think GM and Ford need to be allowed to file for bankruptcy. Maybe they can be restructured, the idiots in management can be removed, and a workable business can be salvaged. If not, then we should just let them shut down; there’s no point artificially propping up a business that makes cars nobody wants to buy. Shut it down and use the proposed bailout money to pay unemployment benefits to the workers while they find other jobs.

Proposal:

Instead of giving hurricanes and tropical storms the same boring names time and time again, we should sell naming rights to the highest bidder. Tropical Storm Scion xA! Hurricane X-treme Cheddar Doritos!

Weather maps could show the corporate logo in the middle of the storm.

And here’s the best bit: money raised could go towards relief efforts.

You may think corporations wouldn’t want to be associated with life-destroying disasters, but we’ve already seen the Chevrolet Avalanche and Oldsmobile Tornado, no doubt soon to be followed by the Mitsubishi Tsunami, the Toyota HSN1, and the Ford Wildfire.

British Airways gave us the option of paying extra for carbon credits to make up for our air travel. We didn’t take them up on the offer.

There are a number of reasons why I feel carbon offsetting is a bad thing. The first is that by removing the guilt, it encourages people to continue a profligate lifestyle, rather than actually changing their behavior.

For example, if Al Gore genuinely gave a crap about the environment, he would stop flying by private jet so much. But no, he’s rich and can simply buy carbon credits to salve his conscience. Similarly, John Edwards will happily lecture to ordinary people that they should give up their SUVs, then get into his own SUV secure in the knowledge that he’s bought carbon credits to make up for his own indulgence.

(In fact, Edwards owns 3 SUVs — a Ford Escape, a Cadillac SRX, and a Chrysler Pacifica — plus a pickup.)

The second reason why I dislike carbon credits is that there are much more effective ways to reduce emissions. For instance, if British Airways really cared, they would stop painting their aircraft. A fully painted 747 weighs 443kg extra, compared to around 100kg for me plus my luggage. That’s before you factor in the increased wind resistance from cracked and peeling paint, the chemicals needed for stripping and repainting aircraft, and the disposal problem of the dissolved paint and chemicals. [Update: BA could also stop flying empty planes across the Atlantic.]

The third reason why carbon credits are a dubious idea is pointed out by spiked online. When you buy carbon credits for your flight from Climate Care, what you’re actually doing is paying a bunch of Indian families to dig in the dirt via back-breaking manual labor, and pump water manually, rather than using modern farm equipment. Now, it might not be a bad idea if I personally spent some time stomping on pedals to pump water, but I don’t see why Indians should be bribed to do it so I can feel less guilty about air travel.

But my favorite argument against carbon credits is the parody site cheatneutral. If the logic behind carbon credits is really valid, why not buy some infidelity credits and cheat on your partner with a clean conscience?

I have an ear infection. I’m not really sure how I got it. The only thing I’ve stuck in my ear recently is a finger, so I must have nicked my inner ear with a sharp bit of fingernail or something. So now my lymph nodes are swollen and my ear aches and my head is throbbing in sympathy.

It’s my right ear. This presents a problem, as I generally sleep on my right side. Last night was largely sleepless. I went to the doctor today and got prescribed some eardrops and a course of just-in-case antibiotics.

The Prius is being repaired; the perpetrator’s insurance is paying. This meant I had the excitement of driving a Ford Taurus, and once again being reminded of how much I’ve been spoilt by having the Prius as my first car. Still, the Taurus is undeniably better than that Chevy Cavalier was.

On Sunday I made a totally fruitless attempt to purchase a Nintendo Wii. Everyone was very nice about it, though.

Nice ad from Google and 7-11:

I have no joke here, I just like saying “Turn your Slurpee into Wii.”