“Our home—Earth—is in trouble. VW opposes key environmental laws we need if we’re going to stop our planet going the way of Alderaan (bye bye). But all is not lost. We feel the good in Volkswagen. All of us in the Rebellion are calling on Volkswagen to turn away from the Dark Side and give our planet a chance.”

According to Greenpeace the automaker “is spending millions of Euros every year funding lobby groups who are trying to stop Europe increasing its commitment to greenhouse gas reductions from 20% to 30% by 2020″. Volkswagen “can’t afford to be left behind” while more “progressive companies” like Google, Ikea, Sony, Unilever and Philips supports the tougher climate targets, Greenpeace writes on their new campaign website. They also call for Volkswagen to stop with its lobbying work and instead support stronger fuel efficiency targets that will benefit both consumers and our climate:

“More efficient cars are cheaper to run, use less oil and emit less CO2. Volkswagen has a history of lobbying against the strong European standards that we need to kick our oil addiction. As the biggest car company in Europe, with the biggest responsibility, VW must change and support strong standards from now on.”

Greenpeace also want to see that Volkswagen make their entire car fleet oil-free by the year 2040 saying the automaker should put their technology where their mouth is.

“Volkswagen says it wants to be “the most eco-friendly automaker in the world”, but only 6% of the cars it sold in 2010 were its most efficient models. It has the technology to do better. VW must set out its plan to make its entire fleet oil-free by 2040.”

Sign the “rebel manifesto” here and help put pressure on Volkswagen. You can also read Greenpeace’s report for a more detailed look on the Dark Side of Volkswagen. Watch the video:

Photo credit: Brave New Films

The well-known Oscar and Emmy-winning director Michael Moore says goodbye to GM today as the failed auto company files for bankruptcy. Moore says the “big three” auto companies in the USA are responsible for their own demise and that they have created “some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming”.

“We are now in a different kind of war — a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call “cars” may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.”

But Moore says he feel “joy” about the fact that the American people now owns 60% of GM and that he is confident “we can do a better job”. He is also calling for a swift transformation of GM into a modern and environmentally-friendly company that produces cars for the future, and that the old GM factories start to produce windmills and solar panels. In short Moore is suggesting the following:

1. Convert the auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices.
2. Don’t lay off more workers. Instead use them to help build the new modes of the 21st century transportation.
3. Invest in high-speed railway across the nation.
4. Put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities, and build those trains in the GM factories.
5. Make GM produce clean and energy efficient buses for the rural areas of USA.
6. Have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries), it will only take a month to re-tool the factories.
7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy.
8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train.
9. Help people switch to a more energy efficient car or use the public transportation system more by imposing a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline.

Moore has loads of good ideas but somehow I doubt we will start seeing common sense in the US auto industry some day soon.

Also read:
- Let GM and the other failed auto giants go under
- “There is no need to spend a penny of public money on greening the motor industry”
- Uneven Development and Northern Imperialism in the making of Today’s Ecological Crisis
- Al Gore: The whole auto industry needs to be transformed
- Obama on 60 Minutes: “We go from shock to trance and that has to be broken”

Photo credit: Ateo Fiel

After getting bailed out by the American public the “big three” in USA still show that they can’t be trusted. For years these failed auto companies have resisted and done everything in their powers to stop stronger compulsory MPG and CO2 emission standards, denied climate change and their promises that they could cut their greenhouse gases voluntarily have all failed.

If you thought the bailout would help put pressure on the big three to start shifting their production to more environmental friendly vehicles, that the consumers actually wants, you thought wrong. These failed auto makers have no intent in stopping their resistant for sane technology change after getting bailed out:

“In a telephone interview this morning, Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which is a party to two of the lawsuits now in federal court, said that the association had no intention of altering its strategy just because some of its members had recently received billions in public money.

“Keep in mind that the money that was given was one to two manufacturers [GM and Chrysler],” he said. “And all manufacturers have opposed the standards. Those lawsuits were brought by the entire industry, to protect the longstanding federal law that says that fuel efficiency standards should be set at the federal level and not by individual states.””

“The irony here is the auto companies want a bailout, in many ways because they weren’t building the kind of cars that were compatible with today’s energy market – and at the same time, they want to keep going with their lawsuits, which have already cost millions and millions of dollars,” Jerry Brown, California’s attorney general, said in an interview with NPR.

Also read:
- Let GM and the other failed auto giants go under
- Gore: The whole auto industry needs to be transformed
- GM asks students to Greenwash
- GM vice-chair promotes “Volt” while denying climate science
- Uneven Development and Northern Imperialism in the making of Today’s Ecological Crisis

Photo credit: davetrainer

Trevor Reichman over at TreeHugger asks why GM and the other corporate giants in the auto industry seeks $50 billion in public funding, while no one mentions help for public transportation.

Reichman points out that the demand for fuel in USA is decreasing and that an increase in travellers on public transportation shows that “Americans are willing to drive less”. So why should the US government even think that a “wasteful and economicly demanding invention from last century” is needed when there are other and better alternatives available.

“Instead of handing over 50 billion dollars to an industry that cannot be sustained at its peak level, public funds can be better used to fund rails, buses, and bicycle pedestrian projects that have already been engineered, already been proven, and are just waiting for funding. While GM and friends seek roughly $165 per American, there is no clear or specific plan for how that money will be used to benefit the public or save jobs.”

Reichman says that the “automobile giants have successfully lobbied to derail mass transit infrastructure around the world for many decades”, and that “now is not the time to further subsidize them.”

“Commuters have spoken, through actions, that the use of public money is better spent on public services than on private industries. Shifting jobs from the automotive sector to the public transit sector may hurt the elite few who sit at the top of a decades long monopoly over transit infrastructure, but the millions it would almost immediately benefit is something to consider before a decision is made.”

I completely agree with Reichman.

GM and the other auto giants that now face a financial crisis and their own impending death have themselves to blame. These auto companies have resisted and done everything in their powers to stop stronger compulsory MPG and CO2 emission standards, denied climate change and their promises that they could cut their greenhouse gases voluntarily have all failed. As a result the average car sold in USA today is less efficient than the Model T Ford from 1908.

In Sweden the auto giant Volvo is also facing a financial crisis and many people are loosing their jobs. The Swedish Government foolishly tries to help by pouring tax-money into these doomed companies. They all ignore the fact that these companies are failing today because they have for year’s resisted sane technological change.

The best thing for everyone is to let these “foot-dragging, planet-eating spongers” to go under.

People’s love with huge and gas-guzzling SUVs and cars seems to be loosing its former glory. Cause who would want to pay a fortune for a gas-thirsty climate change monster? Not even Americans seem to do these days.

Small and fuel-efficient vehicles are the future. The Asian automakers understood this several years ago, and now the western automakers are trying to catch up. Well, at least some of them.

Chrysler is, desperately, trying to make a profit from their huge gas-guzzling cars by announcing that they will charge more for their cars and then artificially decrease their customer’s gas prices to $2.99 per gallon for three years after their purchase.

Yeah. Why aim to make your car fleet more fuel efficient and environment friendly when you can “solve the problem” by ignoring it, for three years.

Three years is the expected lifetime for a personal computer. What do you think the consumers who buy a car from Chrysler will do after the three years have passed and they realise that, due to the high gas prices, they can’t afford to fuel their car?

Chryslers press release states that they “protects consumers from rising gas prices for three years.” But the only thing they do is to trick their consumers.

Gas prices will not go down. They will go up and burn a hole in the pocket for people with gas-guzzling cars. The cheap times are over.

Green Blog reported earlier this week that the Swedish gas prices continue to climb to new record heights. One gallon of gasoline (4 litres) will now cost you $8,48 (around 52 Swedish Kronor) in Sweden.

USA is today not even close to such high numbers, and yet people are making a lot of noise about the “high prices”. The presidential candidates even propose gas tax holidays to keep the fuel-inefficient cars rolling for yet another day.

Is it not time that the American car-fetish dream started to cost its true value?