The Global Warming Statistics

The Windy City area is capitalizing on its most famous attribute with a new wind-powered electric vehicle charging station.  Located in Highland Park, 30 miles outside of the city, the charging station uses electricity generated by Illinois wind farms for law firm Emalfarb Swan & Bain.

The charging station is the second in the country and the first in the continental U.S. to be powered by wind.  The other station is located in Maui, Hawaii.

The charge port was installed by Carbon Day Automotive, a distributor of the EV-charging leader Coulomb Technologies.  Carbon Day has also created a Solar Charge-Port that not only juices up EVs, but also collects, filters and recycles storm water through a Grey water filtration system for irrigation use.

via Green Car Advisor

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Tags: Global Warming Blog, Global Warming Statistics

Clean energy is one of the top topics in the world these days, in presidential speeches, economic growth plans and projections, international competition and cooperation, and even in Hollywood. We have seen rapid growth in wind power, rooftop solar, innovative financing, and much more recently.

Here is my list of the Top 10 “Clean Energy” Topics (some aren’t what I would consider the cleanest) to keep an eye on.

1. International Clean Energy Race

The “international clean energy race” may well determine who will lead the world economy in the future — “the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy” (Obama, State of the Union 2010). China is about to make the largest solar and wind projects in the world look like little LEGO projects and it seems like it is #1 or fast-approaching #1 right now. “Every day we wait in this nation China is going to eat our lunch. The Chinese don’t need 60 votes.  I guess they just need 1 guy’s vote over there – and that guy’s voted” (Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to 200 business leaders, 2010); “China now leads world in clean tech. Time for a Sputnik program to reclaim leadership” (Representative Steve Israel of New York, January 2010).

On the flip side of that, the cooperation-focused (rather than competition-focused) United Nations climate conference in Mexico that is supposed to keep the ball rolling from the Copenhagen Accord is something to keep an eye on as well (along with all of its lead-in and follow-up activity). In a sense, this can be combined with the clean energy race topic because it is intended to put everyone on the same track.

2. Climate & Clean Energy Bill in Congress

The US’ best bet at getting ahead in the global clean energy race and at providing a livable environment for our children and grandchildren might be the climate and clean energy bill that is inching its way through Congress. The public supports it. Hollywood is trying to get people to put the pressure on their representatives in Congress. And big business is putting the pressure on Congress. However, the coal and oil lobby and its Congressional robots are constantly trying to undermine the bill.

3. PACE Funding

Property Assessed Clean Energy funding started in Berkeley, California in October of 2007 and is on the move. What’s so special about it? It “allows private property owners to pay for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects through an addition to their property tax bill, overcoming the high upfront costs that prevent most property owners from investing in such retrofits.” People can avoid the high upfront costs of solar technology but can capitalize on the long-term benefits of it and save them money!

This is also a less controversial tool than broader initiatives like cap and trade, so one hopes that this becomes a real federal priority soon. Our own Susan Kraemer writes: “One very effective way to transition fast to clean power in a way that can bypass our Senate block on cap and trade, is to make PACE funding for renewable energy available to homeowners nationwide in the budget. Budget funding can be passed with a majority of just 51 votes like in other democracies.”

A UC Berkeley study found that there is “potentially a gigaton of greenhouse gas reductions to be made, at no cost to local, state, or federal governments from a $280 billion potential market in PACE solar funding in the US.” Cities and counties that are picking it up are seeing dramatic growth in solar power (e.g. “California’s Sonoma County which offered PACE starting in March in California recently reached an astounding 4% of power on the grid coming just from rooftop solar alone.”)

4. Distributed Solar Energy

Simply, distributed solar is “energy generated, stored and managed at the local level.” Distributed solar includes private installations (e.g. on the roofs of houses, businesses, etc.) which are actually more popular than utility-scale solar these days as well as things like small photovoltaic farms. Distributed solar projects can be combined into larger power purchase agreements for a big bang as well.

Distributed solar has several key advantages over large-scale solar projects: quicker implementation, better ability to upgrade or innovate to more efficient technologies, and much more flexibility in siting. Due to all of its benefits and increasingly cheap solar technology, distributed solar seems to be booming and is getting more and more people’s attention. As the New York Times reports, “Over the past few weeks, some 1,300 megawatts’ worth of distributed solar deals and initiatives have been announced or approved. At peak output, that is the equivalent of a big nuclear power plant.”

5. 10 Million Solar Roofs Bill

New bill just introduced to Congress from Independent Bernie Sanders proposes incentives and tax rebates aimed at getting 10 million solar roofs and 200,000 solar heaters up and running over the next 10 years. Keep your eye on that!

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For many years, electric cars didn’t look so much like cars, as they did… well… they didn’t much look like anything anyone would want to drive. I never understood half-covering the rear-wheels (that has never been cool) or the funky lines and shapes electric cars inevitably filled out. And so, in recent years, electric cars have begun to look more like… well… cars. Whether or not this is a good thing is up to you, but Protoscar apparently thinks electric cars should look funky.

Hence the undramatic unveiling of the Protoscar Lampo 2. An awkward name for an awkward car that actually has some impressive features, like a ten-minute charge good for about 60 miles and a 0-62 mph time of under 5 seconds.

So why the horrid name?

I haven’t heard much of the Lampo 2 (I keep thinking of National Lampoon for some reason) but the car will come out guns a-blazin’ during the Geneva Auto Show. But beneath the awkward looks and silly name is a car with a performance pedigree. The Lampo 2 is based on the outgoing Kappa platform from GM. This is the same platform that underpinned the attractive but undersold Pontiac Solstice/Saturn Sky, which makes me wonder how exactly Protoscar plans on keeping this car in production… and how they managed to make it so ugly.

Ok, I’ve gotten a little too hung up on the looks. A neat feature of the Lampo 2 is that each axle has its own motor driving two wheels; in essence, all-wheel drive. While the Lampo 2 weighs in at a hefty 3,400 pounds, it also manages to make 408 horsepower and 472 ft-lbs of torque. That gives it a sub-5 second 0-62 mph speed, as well as the ability to top out at 124 mph. It has a supposed range of about 120 miles, and an off-board charging system can deliver an extra 60 miles in just ten minutes. No word on pricing, probably not until the “official” unveil.

Give it a new name, more aggressive looks, and an affordable (at least compared to Tesla) price, and we’ll talk. Maybe. Hit the jump for the full press release.

Source: Protoscar

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A new federal agency charged with reporting on climate change is being formed.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will set up the Climate Service using members of the National Weather Service and other NOAA offices.

Climate operations have been spred out among NOAA offices, but with more and more requests pouring in for information concerning climate change, officials decided to combine those efforts into one main office.  The Climate Service will be headquartered in Washington, D.C. with six regional directors elsewhere in the country.

The agency will still have to be approved by congressional committee, but if it clears all necessary hurdles, it should be up and running by the end of the year.

via Huffington Post

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According to Edmunds.com’s Green Car Advisor blog, ever since the news about potential Prius braking problems broke in the mainstream media, shopper interest in the Prius on Edmunds.com has risen significantly. “Both consideration and purchase intent for the Prius have risen about 10 percent among car shoppers doing research on Edmunds.com since the Prius brake story became news earlier this week,” said John O’Dell in a post on Green Car Advisor.

Edmunds.com’s CEO, Jeremy Anwyl, speculated that the increased interest is due to bargain hunters hoping to cash in on an opportunity for a better price due to incentives or “distress sales.”

Whether or not this “increased interest” actually leads to increased sales of the Prius remains to be seen. As Anwyl points out, “We saw the same reaction from consumers when Chrysler and General Motors declared bankruptcy.” So far that increased interest hasn’t resulted in any increased sales for those two companies. But with Toyota, it’s a bit of a different story. Hundreds of thousands of people still trust in Toyota’s overall quality and wouldn’t bat an eye at a chance to scoop up a deal on a Prius.

What do you think, are any of you looking to cash in on Toyota’s current bad press?

Source: Green Car Advisor | Image Credit: Toyota

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For me, the biggest letdown in recent memory was the Honda CR-Z. Touted as a spiritual successor of the CR-X, the CR-Z managed to get it all wrong. Whereas the original CR-X was lightweight, sporty, and frugal with its fuel, the CRZ is underwhelming at best. The hybrid manages to get just 37 mpg in a two-seater that has a combined horsepower output of just 122 ponies in a 3,000 pound package. Like I said, underwhelming, at least in the Americanized version.

But Europe is also getting the CR-Z. Strangely enough, their version gets two extra (albeit small) seats, converting the CR-Z into a more practical 2+2 for people with small children or petite friends. But what really got me is that the European CRZ gets much better gas mileage… 47 mpg, in fact. How did that happen?

For clarification, that is 47 mpg on the US cycle. In European cycle, the estimate is 56.4 mpg.

I don’t know how this happened. The European CR-Z has the same 122 horsepower, 1.5 liter engine as the American version, plus the added weight from two extra seats. In my mind that means it must come down to weight and safety. In Europe, small cars are the norm, and rarely do they have to go head-to-head with an over-sized SUV. Therefore, maybe (pure speculation on my part here people) the European version of the CR-Z may not have the same safety or rigidity necessary for cars in the US, thus cutting down on weight.

The US and European tests are similar, but not identical, and the vehicles are built to different standards (like Ford cannot import its Ka to the US for being too small). But even so, the CR-Z would have to shed a lot of weight to gain 10 mpg over the US version with 37 mpg on the highway (that that is with the CVT automatic… opt for the manual, and the CRZ gets just 33 mpg on the highway).

The 56.4 MPG rating in Europe translates to 46.9 mpg in the US, which would put it in the top-tier of efficient hybrids on the market. But in Europe, which has access to vehicles which routinely get 60+ mpg on the US cycle, it is merely a middle-ground hybrid coupe. I can’t help but feel shafted… I even seriously considered the CR-Z as a hybrid I could one day live with. Not anymore.

If someone from Honda reads this, please, give me a straight answer. Barring that, maybe someone who makes it to the Geneva Auto Show, where the Euro-CR-Z will be “officially” unveiled, can ask them what gives.

Otherwise I can only conclude that Honda likes Europe better than the US. And that hurts my feelings.

Source: Carscoop | Image: Honda

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Last summer Chicago upped the ante on next generation EV charging stations with the nation’s first solar powered one, and now they’ve done it again, but this time with wind. For a town known as the windy city, it only seems to make sense, but how they decided to go after solar before wind is beyond me.

The players this time around are the same as the ones who made the solar deal go through: Coulomb Technologies has again supplied the charging equipment through their Midwest distributor Carbon Day Automotive. The station is located in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park and the wind power comes from a law firm that has partnered with MC Squared Energy Services to get all of their energy from wind.

Hal Emalfarb, one of the partners at the law firm who also drives a plug-in Prius conversion, said “By integrating renewable energy, in this case, the prairie winds of Illinois, to power our office and our cars, we have seamlessly accomplished the goal of a cleaner grid that leads to a reduction of greenhouse gases.”

Good on the windy city for taking the bull by the horns—or the wind tower by the blades, in this case.

Source: Green Car Advisor | Image Credit: Coulomb Technologies

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One of my favorite quotes by Bjarke Ingels:

“Engineering without engines. We should use contemporary technology and computation capacity to make our buildings independent of machinery. Building services today are essentially mechanical compensations for the fact that buildings are bad for what they are designed for—human life. Therefore we pump air around, illuminate dark spaces with electric lights, and heat and cool the spaces in order to make them livable. The result is boring boxes with big energy bills. If we moved the qualities out of the machine room and back into architecture’s inherent attributes, we’d make more interesting buildings and more sustainable cities.”

These are all ideas very much at the core of green building, but there’s a focus here that I think is important: that sustainable cities involve removing machines designed to do ecologically stupid things, and that new technology should reorient the city around the human body.

Fewer machines. Smart surroundings for people.

So much of the ecological destruction caused by contemporary prosperity is the by-product of crude, brute-force industrial solutions to fundamental urban problems (and magnified by the modernist glorification of those solutions).

Burning petroleum to drive pistons and turn wheels to move a big chunk of metal around the city is what you do when you haven’t yet figured out how to make the normal needs of daily life readily findable and accessible: it’s conquering space through BTUs, rather than data and design.

Building giant dams and piping rivers of water from those dams to distant cities, then piping away other rivers of polluted water to be treated in giant industrial vats with massive doses of chemicals before being dumped (semi-polluted) into the nearest river or ocean — well, that’s what you do when you are powerless to defeat bacteria with anything but brute force and petrochemicals. More complex, living systems (complete with rainwater harvesting, passive green infrastructure and graywater re-use) are already possible, and with lab-on-a-chip-level technologies, they can be made at least as safe as the 19th century water supplies most of us depend on now.

Hell, even manufacturing itself — with its tsunamis of product directed at retail shelves — is a brute-force, mechanized approach to providing the things we want. Much of what is manufactured is utterly transient in our lives: we use it, it breaks, we throw it out. Much of the stuff we buy is not used at all, or only a few times in a lifetime: its major purpose is to be stored as a symbol of wealth, safety or status (think outdoor gear, power tools, obscure kitchen devices). A lot of stuff is made, never touched, and thrown away (think of recent clothing store scandals). All of this stuff is industrial society’s answer to the problems of household needs and human aspiration; all of it will look ridiculous in the very near future, when people aim to have access to stuff that they actually like and use, avoiding accumulating stuff that merely impoverishes them and clutters their homes (already “stuff” is acquiring negative connotations). We sit in environments designed to hold and display credit-leveraged objects, rather than promote the highest possible quality of life.

I could go on, but I think the point is made. Want to see the city of the future? Start looking for machines to replace.

(Image: Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieus, public domain)

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Just by clicking a button, you can help us win a $5,000 grant from Brighter Planet.

Worldchanging’s project proposal, Advocate for Climate Neutral Cities, has just been accepted for Brighter Planet’s Project Fund, which provides seed money for people and projects working to help others fight or adapt to climate change. Our idea to create a climate neutral cities mini-magazine is one of nine projects up for the grant money.

Brighter Planet members decide—as a community—which projects to fund. The project with the most votes at the close of a voting period receives the grant. Join today to cast your vote for Advocate for Climate Neutral Cities.

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For more information on our idea, head to our project page. Here you’ll also find this week’s discussion question: “What is your city or municipality doing to combat climate change?” The conversation will also take place across our Twitter and Facebook accounts. Once the conversation gets going, we’ll post the comments as a new feature on the site.

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Image credit: Theresa Thompson, Flickr.

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Here at WorldChanging, we often have conversations about how best to envision desirable futures. Not just on how to collaborate on designing them, or accelerate development on the kind of technology that would get us there, but how to portray inspiring green futures that people would want to live in.

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(Posted by Mark Tovey in Features at 11:03 AM)

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Top stories from our Canadian blog:

Tokyo’s Transforming Tower | Madeline Ashby

“I wish there were a way to combine these shutters and some form of external cladding, but in a year both the tower’s designers and its inhabitants will understand how best to exploit this building’s transformation potential.”

Event Summary – 2009 Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference | Stefanie Bowles

We feature notes from Stephanie Bowles on a couple of talks from the 2009 Behavior, Energy and Climate Change (BECC) conference in Washington DC. Bowles, quoting Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez: “… the BECC conference organizers made the veggie lunch option the default for the conference, and you had to opt in for the meat option. Meat eating went from 95% to 20% with this simple change, and we know this makes a difference because omnivores produce 7x the amount of GhG’s as vegans.”

Engineering Fun | Mark Tovey

“It’s an intangible, but the folks at The Fun Theory believe they’ve found a way to encourage socially-minded behavior. In brief: find a task that would make a difference if significantly more people did it, then find a way to make it enjoyable.”

Modelling climate trajectories in Copenhagen | Garry Peterson

“My systems modelling colleague Tom Fiddman has been working to develop a policy screening simulation model to aid with climate negotiations.”

Group Editorial on Climate Change | Mark Tovey

“Even people who don’t agree with the text of the editorial in its entirety may find that this is a fascinating model for aggregating views from a diverse range of perspectives, and then publicizing that consensus view for global consideration and comment.”

Commercializing Jet Biofuel and Cellulosics | Mark Tovey

“Greener jet fuel and viable cellulosics—out of the lab, and ramping up for the marketplace. Of course this is no guarantee that these technologies will live up to their promise, but this is innovation worth watching.”

Convincing the Social Animal to Go Green | Jen Schellinck

“McKenzie-Mohr and Smith, in their book ‘Fostering Sustainable Behavior’ note that many groups thumb their noses at social marketing strategies because they feel uncomfortable with tactics they perceive as being manipulative, whereas tactics like education seem more honest and ‘pure’. If this is the case, we might turn our social marketing gaze inward and ask—what would persuade environmental activists to take up these potentially more effective tactics while still remaining within their moral comfort zone?”

If you’re from Canada, we’d love to hear from you! Check out worldchanging.ca and leave comments, or suggest a story via the WorldChanging Canada contact form.

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In 24 states; the Renewable Energy Standard (RES) has driven what clean new energy the US has.

In the absence of such legislation The Invisible Hand has tended to find that utilities should just continue to source their electricity from traditional sources, with the result that states that do not have an RES have the unhealthiest electricity in the nation.

Arizona was one of the healthy energy states, with a requirement for 15% renewable energy by 2025. But now a Republican state representative in the Arizona state legislature is challenging the right of the Arizona Corporation Commission to set a requirement that utilities add more renewable energy, with a bill that would strip them of the responsibility.

The ACC passed its RES for Arizona in 2006, setting a target for utilities to get 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025.

In Arizona, as in most states, the electric utilities have long been regulated at the state level by public commissions that are semi-governmental bodies; originally set up to oversee the public interest in common goods like water and electricity, back in the days when the legislature was more able to protect the American people from the robber barons of the day.

The legislation the state lawmaker  Carl Seel introduced is the next step in an anti-renewable energy campaign mounted by the conservative think tank; the Goldwater Institute, on behalf of several customers of the state’s largest utility, and is aimed at overturning the ruling on renewable energy.

Originally, the Goldwater Institute filed suit after the RES was made law. The lawsuit questioned the constitutionality of forcing electric utilities like the Arizona Public Service Co to meet certain levels of renewable energy in their portfolio or to levy a tariff through customer bills to help pay for it. For example, recently the ACC allowed a $1 charge to be added to bills averaging $77 a month, for new wind farms. The judge ruled against them.

The Arizona Supreme Court sided with the ACC and its right to regulate utilities “in the absence of any  legislation” that would challenge that right.

Now, the Republican congressman for Phoenix has come up with precisely such legislation: challenging and removing that right of the ACC to mandate renewable energy standards, with House Bill 2381.

Theoretically, the institute, named after conservative icon Barry Goldwater would litigate any government management of the economy. However, the group has notably mounted no lawsuits regarding other ACC-imposed tariffs, for example, when they pay for new nuclear, natural gas or coal plants.

Image: Atlantic
More from Susan Kraemer: Journalists on Twitter

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A new study shows that requiring utility companies to get 25% of their power from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind (by 2025) would result in more jobs.

“A strong renewable electricity standard is crucial to create a stable investment environment and grow this highly promising sector,” says Don Furman, senior vice president for development, transmission, and policy at wind energy company Iberdrola Renewables. “Without a strong RES, the US wind industry will see no net job growth, and will likely lose jobs to overseas competitors.”

Furman’s points here are nothing new. Obama said the same thing very strongly in his State of the Union address and, everyday, I read articles on this matter and on the “clean energy race“.

Nonetheless, this new study puts some numbers into the issue and helps to back up Furman and Obama’s claims. This study found that “the industry would create 274,000 more jobs under a 25 percent renewable power standard than it would create without a mandate.” (emphasis mine)

This is much more than what would be created from the proposed mandate put forth by the House of Representatives as part of a comprehensive climate and energy bill that is now being worked on in the Senate.

“Such a standard would add three times more jobs than would be gained under a House approved renewable power target and a similar measure that’s pending in the Senate, the study found.” (emphasis mine)

The House mandate was for 15% of utility companies’ power to come from renewable sources by 2020.

Counter to some lawmakers and citizens’ belief that others may benefit while their state loses (because they don’t have as much wind or solar power), this study found that every single state would actually gain jobs from this renewable energy standard.

Looks like the case is made that clean power will continue to create jobs, but I’m sure the opposition will continue to make the opposite claim. So, hopefully we will see more and more of this type of study.

Related Studies:
1) Yet Another Poll (from Yale) Shows Wide Support for Strong Climate and Energy Policies, Including Cap & Trade
2) “Carbon Tax” More Popular than “Cap-and-Trade” with US Voters
3) Hollywood Getting into the Action [Video]

Image Credit: Bread for the World via flickr under a CC license

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A new poll conducted by Yale University and George Mason University researchers shows that American voters do want strong climate and energy legislation.

“Climate Change in the American Mind: Public Support for Climate & Energy Policies in January 2010” is the name of the poll and it shows bi-partisan support for more clean energy research, controlling CO₂ in our atmosphere, and (once informed on what it is) cap-and-trade legislation, among other things.

Whereas a poll I reported on the other day showed much stronger support for a carbon tax when compared to cap-and-trade (once survey respondents were informed a little on the two systems), this poll does not get into the issue of a carbon tax but finds great support for cap-and-trade.

This survey also received answers from just over 1,000 respondents with a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points (same as the carbon tax vs cap & trade poll). It was conducted more recently — December 24, 2009 to January 3, 2010 compared to August 24-31, 2009. Like the other study, this study found strong support for addressing climate change and encouraging clean energy through climate and energy legislation.

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64% thought that corporations and industry should be doing “more” or “much more” than they currently are “to address global warming”.

60% of respondents thought that “developing sources of clean energy” should be a “high” or “very high” priority for the president and Congress.

57% thought that “The United States should reduce its greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do.”

Cap & Trade

62% supported Cap & Trade if “every American household received a yearly [rebate/bonus] of $180 to offset their higher energy costs.”

58% supported Cap & Trade (with only an explanation of the system, no mention of cost or rebate).

40% supported Cap & Trade “if it significantly reduced global warming pollution, but raised your household energy costs by 15 dollars a month” (without the $180 rebate mentioned above).

Other Specific Government Measures

85% of respondents supported funding renewable energy research.

82% supported tax rebates for solar panels and efficient cars.

71% supported regulating CO₂.

70% thought that “Schools should teach our children about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming.”

65% thought that “Our government should establish programs to help Americans reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions.”

61% supported signing an international treaty.

60% thought that “Our government should establish programs to teach Americans about global warming.”

57% supported requiring utilities to produce 20% clean energy.

Economy and the Environment

67% thought that “protecting the environment improves economic growth and provides new jobs.”

63% thought that when there is a conflict between environmental protection and economic growth “protecting the environment, even if it reduces economic growth” is more important.

It looks like Americans are still supporters of protecting the environment, cutting climate change pollution, and strong government action to do so or to help Americans do so.

Related Stories:
1) “Carbon Tax” More Popular than “Cap-and-Trade” with US Voters
2) Hollywood Getting into the Action [Video]
3) Who’s More Powerful than Obama?
4) Who Wants a Climate & Energy Bill? 83 Leading US Companies

Image Credit: farlane via flickr under a CC license

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Toyota’s certainly been having a hell of a time recently. Millions and millions of cars recalled, public relations disasters, seemingly aloof executives—the scope of the whole thing is so mind-boggling to me that it’s almost hard to imagine that this is the same Toyota I grew up with. So I’ll admit it, I’m a Toyota fan boy. My family owned way more Toyotas than anything else and my first car was an ‘84 Tercel hand-me-down I got from my parents.

But none of that stops me from objectively evaluating the company and judging for myself if there really is a reason to stop buying Toyotas. Certainly now that even their untarnishable Prius seems to be tarnishing, my trust in Toyota is more shaken than at any point in my life. On top of the stuck accelerator pedals, the Prius braking problems threaten to put a stake through the very heart of a car company that hundreds of millions of customers worldwide hold so dear.

But when I take a step back, I’m left wondering what this is actually all about.

Late last year I wrote a piece in which I questioned whether or not the current Toyota quality issues would actually translate to customer dissatisfaction or a cognizance of some bigger overall quality issue. In that post, I also talked about how if a flagship car like the Prius were to go down in flames it could irreversibly damage Toyota’s reputation. Well, based on what we’re all hearing in the mainstream media, it now seems that all of that is coming to pass.

But is it really? Is this whole situation more of a result of a disproportionate mainstream media feeding frenzy than a truly vast and conspiratorial implosion of Toyota? Truthfully I’ve been kind of disgusted by the foaming mouths within the mainstream media on this issue. Toyota’s been a quality brand for decades. This is the first time in what, 40 years, that anything serious has happened?

The vast majority of Toyota owners are still happy with their cars. And you know what? If it weren’t for Toyota, other automakers wouldn’t have had any impetus to make better cars. We wouldn’t have the super quality Fords of the last 3 years without the quality Toyotas of the last 40. Toyota has been a consistent innovator and has single handedly made hybrids a household word—something the world owes a great debt of gratitude for. Not only that, Toyota is on the cusp of using their market leverage with the Prius to spread the cult of hybrid across all market segments, from subcompacts to minivans.

Certainly Toyota has been kind of doltheaded in their slow-witted response to the current quality issues, but I feel like that’s more of a result of the fact that even Toyota themselves couldn’t believe they were witnessing a quality issue of this scope… just as to consumers, to Toyota execs it was unfathomable that it could be happening. Can you blame them? They’ve been bulletproof for decades.

But even though they were slow to start responding, the current level of response certainly has shown that Toyota wants to please their customers and takes safety seriously. And you know what, the braking problem with the Prius is not something singular to Toyota’s hybrids. It now turns out that Ford has quietly admitted design flaws in the new Fusion Hybrid brakes that they have subsequently issued a software fix for—just like Toyota.

These types of braking problems are a result of the fact that all cars are more and more dependent on software, and that hybrids present a special challenge with regenerative braking versus mechanical braking and when to make the switch between the two. It’s a balance between fuel efficiency and performance that hybrid designers are still tweaking. Of course, because Toyota has so many more hybrids on the road than any other manufacturer, their customers were the first to notice. And in case you missed it, Toyota’s already issued a software fix for the Prius braking problem, showing just how easy it is to tweak.

So what is it? Why are we so intent on tearing down a company that has been so good to us for so long? When it comes to quality issues, why would we expect a company with such a good track record to all of a sudden start building crappy cars? The fact of the matter is they aren’t. This is a bump in the road… A wake up call to Toyota that even they can mess up sometimes. In those immortal words, “This too shall pass.” Toyota is not crumbling. They still make good cars. If you have one that needs to be fixed, take it in to the dealer and move on. Ten years from now we’ll all be in love with Toyota again. Huggy, huggy. Kissy, kissy. And we all went down the road feeling warm and fuzzy again.

But seriously, I feel like something about this Great Recession makes the public hungry to tear down even our immortals. Tiger Woods. Toyota. It’s as if we, as a society, are so collectively upset that we’re worse off than we were 2 years ago that we want even the good guys among us to suffer just so that everybody is miserable. We can’t have anybody else be successful or better off than the rest of us now can we? This type of reactionaryism is so petty. For a rational guy like myself, it just makes me sick.

As for the mainstream media’s response to Toyota’s quality issues, it’s so obvious that they feel impotent when compared to the bloggers because the bloggers started covering these Toyota quality issues months ago. It’s as if the mainstream media has to make up for their growing redundancy with volume and quantity. Meanwhile, here I am, a blogger doing blogger work and I want nothing more than traditional media outlets I can depend on for well-reasoned and critical reporting—taking the blogger leads and sussing them out, not taking the blogger leads and making them louder and less informative.

Technorati Tags: Global Warming Blog, Global Warming Statistics

Tags: Global Warming Blog, Global Warming Statistics