Professor Garrick surprised me.  He started off his presentation asking how many of us (including our families) owned a Prius or other fuel efficient car and followed up by asking why the majority of us don’t own one if we care about global warming and improving the environment.  Both questions made me upset.  We are college students: most of us don’t have thousands of dollars lying around to give to our parents so they can buy a Prius, nor do we have any right to tell our parents or other family members which car they should buy and drive.  Their priorities are different from our own, and I respect my parents’ decision to drive a minivan and jeep even though it is much less fuel efficient than a Prius.  Secondly, Professor Garrick is speaking from a position of extreme privilege.  His reasoned that families could spend an extra couple of thousand of dollars buying a Prius and the cost would be offset with car loans as well as a Prius’s fuel efficiency.  This simply is not true.  I can buy a great second hand car for under $5,000, and automobile loans can cause you to spend a couple of thousand dollars overpaying for your car as a result of interest.  It is illogical for me to spend $20,000 extra dollars to buy a Prius than a second hand car, and then pay an extra $2,000-3,000 as a result of car loans because it will save me a few cents on filling up my tank.  I understand that driving a more fuel efficient car will reduce my carbon footprint, and I want to leave this world better than when I entered, but the majority of US citizens do not have the funds or resources to be “environmentally conscious”.  Further, these people need a car the most.  They often commute to work, and in order to do that, they often need a car.

If you truly want to make a difference and have the funds, take that $20,000 dollars that you saved from not buying a Prius and donate it to a company that is lobbying to require car manufacturers to produce cars that release fewer harmful emissions.  I doubt that the richest 5% of citizens in the United States buying a Prius will make any significant change on climate.  However, if the richest 5% chose to lobby our government and policy makers to tighten laws controlling the emissions/wastes produced by cars, then we could actually make a tangible change.  Further, this goal is much more realistic than hoping for a sense of justice and conservation to wash through our middle and lower class and cause the people who can’t afford to buy a fuel efficient car to sacrifice and save to purchase one.