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.””

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What is equality and development? And what kind of influence has the environment on both of these relations? For me, environmentalism has always been about caring about the well-state and equality of everyone and everything. Al Gore said, during the annual World Economic Forum Meeting in 2008, that you can’t solve climate change or poverty in the developing world “without dealing with the other”:

“Earlier this year, Bono and I spoke about the intersection between the extreme poverty in the developing world – especially in Africa – and the climate crisis. It is impossible to solve one of these issues without dealing with the other (Gore, 2008)”.

So if we are to solve the equality in the world, our uneven development and environmental problems we just can’t work on one of them. They are all connected and thus we have to deal with all of them at once.

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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.”

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There are currently around 12000 traditional “yellow cabs” in New York today. They are big and gas-guzzling. Now Ford wants to replace them all with their new Ford Transit Connect Taxi Concept.

The new Ford Transit Connect is smaller and more compact than the older yellow cabs. They are designed with less horizontal space and with more vertical space. But it will actually have more space for passengers and their cargo than the older cabs. It also features dual sliding doors which help cause less pain in an over-crowded city like New York.

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