Starting with 2009 models, the California Air Resources Board will require all new vehicles sold in the Golden State to carry a sticker which shows a CARB-determined "Smog Score" and "Global Warming Score." The Toyota Open Road Blog's editor Jon Thompson is all excited over this "because our Prius Hybrid is listed by CARB as one of its top 10 cleanest cars" and "Camry and Camry Hybrid are right behind Prius with scores of 9, and Highlander Hybrid follows closely along with a score of 8." Funny thing, though, he doesn't mention where Land Cruiser, Sequoia, Tundra, Tacoma or any of their other large trucks fall in those ratings. And all he says about the Global Warming score is that it's "based in part on the vehicle's greenhouse gas emissions." The part he doesn't mention, according to the CARB EP Label Fact Sheet (click here to view): the greenhouse gases resulting from "fuel production." So when the Prius PHEV hits the market, will the score reflect the coal and other fuels burned to produce the electricity to recharge it? That could be an eye-opening addition to what Thompson terms the "growing amount of information that's available to help you make a studied automotive choice." So I put Thompson's closing question to our Best and Brightest: "Should this sort of labeling be adopted by all the states?"
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Nice idea, but I don’t agree with the wording “Global Warming score.” Be objective to avoid speculation or politicization. Something like:
1. CO2 emissions score
2. Nitrogen Oxides emissions score
3. Particulate emissions score
Ridiculous poitical pandering. We already have mileage ratings which are equivalent to CO2 releases and we have emissions scores as well. This is just a way to include some buzz words and feel good carp for the masses of Kalifornia. I seriously doubt that it will be applied in an even handed fair manner either. Will it take into account production and disposal “costs” for the environment? How do you determine the life of the vehicle to determine these “costs” on a per year or per mile basis anyway? Will these scores be determined by some bureaucratic comission of governor appointed cronies? Gee, no possibility of a little greasing of the palms there to make sure that your new environmentally friendly vehicle gets a good score.
What happens in Kalifornia should STAY in Kalifornia.
And how will you figure out how to measure “smug” emissions?
The states can put on whatever they want. Being Canadian, I don’t give a shit.
But, I also, to quote Stuckey and Murray, don’t care about the air: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHmnRuBcDIg
Considering that in all probability, our earth is going into a mini-ICE AGE over the next 80 years, the idiocy and fallicy of this global warming foolishness is going to slap everybody up side the head within about 48 months.
As it stands right now, it’s mid August and here in Michigan (after having record snow last winter, virtually no spring and little summer), the trees are starting to turn color.
For those of you who don’t know, that’s getting towards 6 to 8 weeks EARLY.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milenio.com%2Fmexico%2Fmilenio%2Fnota.asp%3Fid%3D651680&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=es&tl=en
And how will you figure out how to measure “smug” emissions?
By the amount of tofu consumed per year by the driver…
Is this going to show the energy and environmental impact in making the car. That would be more meaningful than this garbage.
Keep it contained in California along with many other things.
If electricity contribution figured into the score, it would have to vary by locale since the fuels used in power plants vary. I suppose carb could do this just based on California…
This opens up a whole new world of scoring. Arkansas can require a road-kill score, Tennessee can require a moonshine score, Ohio can require a football score, New York could require a Broadway score.
While I’n not agreeing with it, it should be any state’s right to do so or not to do so. The rights of states need to be preserved even if they use in ways we may not approve of – the alternative is that the feds control everything which would be much worse.
menno,
I hope we’re going into an ice age. The polar caps are virtually ice free now.
Orian: Don’t believe everything the MSM tells you.
No. States should assess registration fees based on environmental scores.
Window stickers are pointless.
I agree with carguy. The states should have the right to do things like this. That doesn’t mean that they should, but it should be their decision.
That said, this is ridiculous. The “Global Warming Score” in particular, since it implies that the vehicle so labeled, or any other, can make the planet warmer, a claim spouted by many but proven by no one.
Orian :
August 19th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
menno,
I hope we’re going into an ice age. The polar caps are virtually ice free now.
If the polar caps were virtually ice free, Florida would be virtually under water.
Nice idea, but I don’t agree with the wording “Global Warming score.” Be objective to avoid speculation or politicization. Something like:
1. CO2 emissions score
2. Nitrogen Oxides emissions score
3. Particulate emissions score
Agreed.
The current verbal spaghetti (ULEV/SULEV/PZEV/Tier2Bin5) isn’t consumer friendly, and real numbers are hard to come by and difficult to collate/compare. A quick “this is how this car compares to other cars of the same year” would be helpful.
But for goodness sakes, make them “real” numbers, not fictional, manufacturer-derived ones like Europe’s CO2 ratings.
I’m glad to see that the discourse on this topic is significantly more civil than when it was brought up on Autoblog, but I still think that if the label was “Horsepower” and “Torque”, and the question who (SAE, manufacturers, government) should measure it, that we wouldn’t see these same points. Because it’s the environment, though, people of a certain political bent get twitchy.
It’s just an informational sticker: no harm, no foul.
That said, this is ridiculous. The “Global Warming Score” in particular, since it implies that the vehicle so labeled, or any other, can make the planet warmer, a claim spouted by many but proven by no one.
If you want to look biased, use the work “spouted”.
People on both sides of this are guilty of oversimplification. “Global Warming” and “Greenhouse Effect” are easy to understand, and thusly are the kinds of terms (along with helpful pictures) that make it into the Sunday paper. Calling it “Global Net Climate Change” doesn’t make good copy.
Now, that doesn’t mean they might not be right: a net global increase in temperature has all sorts of effects, some of which could include decreased local temperatures and an icing over of temperate areas, especially as precipitation increases or gulfstreams are interrupted.
Do you want to bet that accelerating this process is a good thing? Because releasing previous-locked carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in bulk is going to do something and that something might not be good. It could be more erratic weather patterns, rising (or falling) water levels, creeping climate zones (more/less desert, tundra, temperate or tropic zones). It could eventually mean civil strife in reaction to these shifts.
Me, I’d like to keep that sort of thing from happening, or at least slow it down.
And yes, it’s all theory. So are gravity and economics. It doesn’t mean that it should be ignored because of ideology.
meh. The green lifestyle is a privileged one. If you want to pay extra for the state to tell you what you can find out independently, that’s your choice, but its not mine. MPG is a decent yardstick for carbon emissions – you could split it into two or three sets – MPG for gas, MPG for E10 and a carbon emission scale factor and MPG for E85 and a similar carbon emission scale factor. Seems like a decent high school chemistry student could knock this off in an afternoon. Sure you want to pay an eternal (and looking to expand) gubmint bureaucracy to do this?
I think its a good idea for the privileged (that’s the first world) to look for efficiency and lowered pollution, and to promulgate those solutions, otherwise here in the US we’ll be choking on that exported chewy gritty ‘mist’ that was temporarily banished from Beijing for the Olympics. But I don’t see this idea as having any effect.
No.
Orian,
Go to Antarctica. It is a polar ice cap. It is not ice-free by any means. See Greenland as well for similar results. Northern sea ice (which is seasonal) is at a lower summer volume than normal.
Considering that in all probability, our earth is going into a mini-ICE AGE over the next 80 years, the idiocy and fallicy of this global warming foolishness is going to slap everybody up side the head within about 48 months.
As it stands right now, it’s mid August and here in Michigan (after having record snow last winter, virtually no spring and little summer), the trees are starting to turn color….
48 months to a little ice age? Now that I just cleaned up my beer off my computer screen, care to place a bet on that? Since I had the joy of cleaning up the leaves every fall, I have an interesting observation. In the mid seventies, I clearly recall that by Halloween, the vast majority of the leaves were off the trees. I know because it was my responsibility to make them “go away.” Our heat was also turned on by mid October, and the local ponds froze over most every winter. Fast forward to recent history: The trees still have at least half their leaves by Halloween, I turn my heat on starting November, and the local ponds rarely freeze at all, let alone enough to skate on. This trend has been going on for the past 10 years. Global warming? Absolutely, in my opinion. All due to man? Not 100% sure but I would be willing to put money on it.
So, Menno, here’s the deal. If over the next 5 years global temperatures trend downward, I will give $100 to a charity of your choice. Conversely, when they continue to trend up as they have since the start of the industrial revolution, you have to give $100 to a charity of my choice. Care to take the bet? I strongly suspect this site will still exist, although a new nemesis will have to be found after GM goes C11, so we will still be blogging away. Up for it?
who cares?
I think its great, it makes car buying all the more easier. All the real interesting stuff will be 1’s and 2’s while the granny wagons and the peacenic cars will be closer to 9.