11 ms·

SUVs emitted more carbon dioxide last year than most countries

78 points by Amorymeltzer 4y ago

ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
This is one of the reasons that Tyre Extinguishers target SUVs https://tyreextinguishers.com/ https://tyreextinguishers.com/
- nsxwolf 4y ago
  Don't get caught in the middle of doing this by me or any other SUV owner.
  - ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
    I have not been involved in any way with them, but it is curious how a certain section of society believes that violence is an appropriate response. Would you have a similar reaction to damaging of other property (e.g. broken fence, window) or is it specifically cars that prompt violence?
    - recursive 4y ago
      Presumably they want to discourage these activists from deflating their tires. Because they want inflated tires. And there isn't any other obvious recourse at the time.
    - nsxwolf 4y ago
      I would take a similarly dim view of anyone damaging my windows or my fence.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    What will happen?
    - nsxwolf 4y ago
      I don't know if this is serious or not. Maybe it's a Bay Area thing? People getting very used to having their windows smashed and such without any recourse? But 'round these parts, people don't just stand around watching their life and livelihood get messed with.
      - CalRobert 4y ago
        Yes, I am serious. And I live in Ireland (though I originally hail from northern California) What will you do? Are you going to assault people? Murder them? Report them to the police? Genuinely curious. I don't know what I'd do in that scenario. Probably yell at them and then get out the air compressor. Your SUV harms everyone around you, yet nobody assaults you or threatens you for it.
        nsxwolf 4y ago
        I wouldn't murder them. I wouldn't report them to the police because they likely wouldn't even come out. The flip side to that coin is that the police also won't come out to investigate a little rough play. If I let the air out of someone's tires, I would absolutely be watching my back. I wouldn't expect a meek response. Incidentally, in most of the US, some amount of non-lethal force is allowed in the defense of real or personal property.
        dagw 4y ago
        I wouldn't murder them. I wouldn't report them to the police So what _would_ you do? Shoot them in the leg? Beat them with a baseball bat? Punch them in the face? Shove them around a bit? Shout at them and then go home and fantasize about shooting them?
        4y ago
- volkk 4y ago
  what a silly thing that wrecks your fellow human's life (who knows what theyre using the SUV for) and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
  - bluecalm 4y ago
    The argument is that SUV and truck drivers already endanger lives of unprotected traffic participants by driving those vehicles in cities. It sounds like a cause worthy of some aggressive activism to me as the regulators are deeply in car industry's pockets (no other explanation for special SUV treatment when it comes to fuel efficiency norms). You make the world a worse place by choosing your comfort over safety of others - you get some minor inconvenience to deal with sometimes. To me it's activism working as intended.
    - za3faran 4y ago
      Call it what it is, it's not "aggressive activism", it's vandalism and property destruction, and potentially cost lives if the car owner needs to go to the hospital or has another emergency. Let's not water things down please.
      - bluecalm 4y ago
        People in big cars kill thousands of pedestrians and cyclists per year. Let's not water things down please. You seem to not understand big cars in cities are really dangerous and actually cost (not hypothetical might) lives every day.
        za3faran 4y ago
        > People in big^W cars kill thousands of pedestrians and cyclists per year FTFY. So we should ban cars? Plus, there's a difference between something literally called an accident with destruction of property.
    - Eumenes 4y ago
      >To me it's activism working as intended. To get literally everyone to hate you? People don't like their private property destroyed, esp. randomly and unprovoked. See how much support the idiots throwing soup on art are getting.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  The problem with taking "direct action" is that the people you are targeting will respond in kind and often escalate. You damage their property, they light your house on fire.
  - recursive 4y ago
    Maybe they'll get yelled at. I would bet against any of their houses having been burned.
    - CalRobert 4y ago
      I could imagine them getting shot.
- eu_trash_lulz 4y ago
  "tyre" haha. his thread is gold. you EU trash nitwits can come try that in the US. we'll beat your weak little bodies to a pulp in front of your children. violence is a perfect response to wanton destruction of personal property. sometimes you idiots need a good whoopin ;) i'll beat your ass to a bloody pulp in front of your children to teach them a real lesson about their loser daddy that doesn't respect others property. bubble boy retards out in force.
- soumyadeb 4y ago
  Such mindless activism is what drives away popular opinion from climate change. Lot of folks have SUVs because they have large families. Its a pain to keep a huge car in a city like NYC or London anyway so people generally have reasons. There were a wave of such tire puncture incidents in NYC which forced some people to drive 30-40 miles every week to park the car in suburb or NJ (parking in city is very expensive) The end result was more emission, more pain and less sympathy for the actual problem.
matsemann 4y ago
Relevant: not just bikes' latest video "These stupid trucks are literally killing us" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo
- kloch 4y ago
  As a side note, this video has a great variety of historical footage of cars/cities/life.
faitswulff 4y ago
Children are also invisible to SUV drivers, so something about the incentives for building these giant vehicles needs to change.
pard68 4y ago
I don't really care much what others do but I am interested in the "why" of it. I have an SUV. Last week we had to ford a 20' wide, 3' deep creek. If I had the alternative (minivan) we wouldn't have been able to pull that off, which would mean not getting home. I also haul 10,000lbs of livestock on a regular basis. I usually use my truck, but a truck can't carry my kids, so when we go horseback riding I take the Suburban. Can't figure out why folks in Suburbia with one or two kids would choose an SUV. I much prefer my Subaru, but it's mostly relegated to date nights at this point in my life.
- beardog 4y ago
  >Can't figure out why folks in Suburbia with one or two kids would choose an SUV. I much prefer my Subaru, but it's mostly relegated to date nights at this point in my life. Station wagons and minivans are being shelved by auto-manufacturers because environmental and safety regulations have a blind spot for "light trucks" which SUVs fall under. The solution to this problem is to either tighten the regulations around SUVs or loosen the regulations around cars.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  I think that SUV appeal to residents of suburbia has its roots in two things: - Perceived safety (the idea that e.g. a Suburban would fare better in a wreck involving a full size truck than a sedan, hatchback, etc) - Keeping up with the Jonses gone vehicular. A gigantic SUV sitting out front looks impressive similar to the way a truck would while being better suited for residential usage than a truck. All it takes is one residence buying one for the rest of the block to suddenly not be satisfied with the Accord in their garage. Personally I’m a bit frustrated with how huge cars have gotten. My house was built in 2005, with a garage made to fit the cars at the time, and with ~177” of usable length (some space is taken up by HVAC + water heater), a lot of modern cars won’t fit in it and even fewer fit comfortably (e.g. being able to open its back hatch while the garage door is closed). I’m looking to lease an EV some time in the next year or so and only a tiny handful can be considered due to this.
  - notacoward 4y ago
boplicity 4y ago
This is a good example of how wealthy people (and countries) are destroying our environment, to the detriment of everyone. Those who are poor or environmentally responsible are impacted by the choices of those who have the wealth to buy and use large SUVs. This is especially true for poor countries in areas that will be affected the most by early climate change problems. Ironically, wealthier countries tend to be in a better position to avoid the initial negative impacts of climate change. They're also better equipped to handle the consequences. This ties into so many political issues. For example, migration. We already have climate change caused migration. Policies in the U.S., for example, are becoming increasingly punitive towards migrants, while, at the same time, doing little to address the massive damage being caused by the U.S. There's little hope for improvement; though, fortunately for those of us in wealthy countries, we'll be mostly OK for a generation or so.
rsp1984 4y ago
It's bad and yes, the world would be much better off without SUVs, but with headlines like these it's important to put things in perspective. Road transport related emissions are just 12% of total emissions [1]. Emissions from SUVs are a fraction of that. If we want to get climate change under control the biggest impact would be from countries transitioning away from coal and gas [2] to other sources of energy. Most other things are a drop in the bucket compared to that. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector [2] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel
- mrpopo 4y ago
  You can always cut something into smaller parts. First transitioning away from coal and gas is actually not a small feat, the best transition so far from a developed country is the UK that stopped coal almost completely but now relies a lot more on gas and imports. Second, a single country doing so will only be a single-digit percentage of total emissions, so by your logic why should they?
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    It looks like SUVs emit between 14% and 25% more than a passenger car. If you replace SUVs with passenger cars, you haven't moved the needle much (except for changing the headline from "SUVs emitted more CO2..." to "cars emitted more CO2...") Transitioning away from SUVs and cars is also not a small feat.
    - DoughnutHole 4y ago
      The problem is that not only are we failing to transition away from SUVs and cars, drivers are actively transitioning from passenger cars to heavier, more emitting vehicles (SUVs and trucks). The only traditional car that Ford still sells in the US and Canada is the Mustang. Whatever about moving the the needle in a positive direction, I think it's worth pointing out trends and personal decisions that are actively making the situation worse.
AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
[dead]
britzkopf 4y ago
I'm taken aback at this. I don't have an SUV but I very much aspire to, specifically for one of the reasons they mention - high clearance. I do as much mountain hiking as I can and high clearance is necessary for many forest service roads. Why would you target someone for that?
- shrimp_emoji 4y ago
  You hurt the planet; the planet hurts you. :D
- mrpopo 4y ago
  Because they consume more fuel than other car types, and you are aspiring to buy one for purely selfish reasons, and that would have a negative impact on many people? If people don't consider their personal footprint before taking purchase decisions, maybe they will take into consideration that they are being targeted by a growing group of people.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    > If people don't consider their personal footprint before taking purchase decisions, maybe they will take into consideration that they are being targeted by a growing group of people. They will never do that. NEVER. It has become a perennial joke at this point in Germany with climate activists who block streets only to afterwards rack up 20k miles of air travel in half a year. The explanation? "The problem is systemic, individual actions don't matter". Nobody considers their contribution relevant, because in total theirs will be dwarfed by everyone else's. That's just human nature. If the most-involved activists don't, how can you expect random people to?
    - mrpopo 4y ago
      Your negation is way too strong, an ever-growing number of people do, in fact, take their personal footprint into account for every decision, my family and myself included. I don't know about your anecdotal joke about some German activists flying 20k miles in half a year, but it's also a fact that flygskam is growing, that people who can afford it reportedly take a train even when it's slower, and that airlines are looking into carbon offsets. Another anecdote, my local XR group has a car pooling mailing list to make sure they attend all demonstrations in a convenient, low-carbon manner. The math is simple, every liter of fuel kept in the ground will slow down global warming. There is no "threshold" that we will reach at which point all humanity is doomed.
egberts1 4y ago
If you got a large family, SUV is the best way to go, even if it's an electric SUV. Otherwise, any bantering on moving away from stable 24/7 power generators into sporadic power generators beyond the point of sustainability required by consumers/businesses is just a stupid economic crushing move. These electric vehicles enmasse will require even more steady 24/7 electric generation due to schotastic nature of plug-in timeframe for recharging. We should be focusing more on zero-carbon electric power generation such as hydroelectric and nuclear energy. I am a conservative environmentalist and these are my true sustainability messages.
- xur17 4y ago
  > If you got a large family, SUV is the best way to go, even if it's an electric SUV. What's wrong with minivans?
  - prpl 4y ago
    For many SUVs there’s no real difference. A honda pilot weighs less than an Odyssey, though probably with some small amount of added drag. Usually an SUV is more likely to have AWD I bought a tiguan because I needed the occasional added seats (and it was impossible to find a Ford Transit Connect - which frankly is the only true mini van)
    - vel0city 4y ago
      There's two massive differences. Sliding doors and captain chairs. These two things make it way easier getting in and out of a minivan to actually use that third row of seats. I will acknowledge captain chairs can sometimes be found on SUVs, but by far the most common arrangement on SUVs are second row benches. This means accessing the third row can be challenging especially when you can't open the doors all the way.
- dagw 4y ago
  If you got a large family, SUV is the way to go. Honestly, why? How is it easier to fit 6+ people (feels like reasonable definition of "large") in an SUV compared to a van? I know a few families with 5 or more kids and they all have minivans.
Someone1234 4y ago
How to fix this: Step 1: Adjust CAFE[0] to add a new tier for SUVs and non-light Trucks Step 2: There is no step 2. It is absurd that fuel economy standards essentially wiped out the most fuel efficient vehicles from the roads (cars, light trucks). But talk about perverse incentives when you essentially give car manufacturers a get out of jail free card for making heavier, less efficient, vehicles. Cars/light trucks are held to a high standard, and everything else has nearly no standards at all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  or just hold every car to the same standard... You want a fuel inefficient car, you pay for it.
macinjosh 4y ago
I drive my family around in an SUV with no shame. I'll sell it when all the yuppies, crying about my SUV stop globe trotting around in polluting aircraft everytime they feel they need more Instagram karma or they miss their "bestie" who lives across the country.
- malermeister 4y ago
  SUVs are eight times as likely to kill children as other vehicles. [0] It's not just about pollution, they're horrible death machines in other ways, too. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022437522000810 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...
  - macinjosh 4y ago
    [flagged]
deleted 4y ago
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dukeofdoom 4y ago
Most people drive SUV now, they're safer when it snows and winter, built sturdier, and pack more. As a Canadian more global warming please! This country some of the worse weather in world
- kloch 4y ago
  > they're safer when it snows and winter Are they actually safer or do they just give the driver a false sense of security? Assuming it actually has 4WD/AWD (and most don't), that only helps you "go" and does nothing for "stop" as all cars have four wheel brakes. One exception to this is being able to keep going in very rural areas where any rescue attempt would take too long. However, even this can fail with a false sense of security and poor judgement: https://www.11alive.com/article/news/nation-world/man-stranded-snow-drone-rescue-willamette-national-forest/283-020c38a8-41a2-45d8-bb0a-d98017494006 https://www.11alive.com/article/news/nation-world/man-strand... > Of the dozens of missions we have had this winter involving a vehicle stuck in the snow, nearly all of them were 4x4 vehicles and almost all of the drivers told us, "I didn’t think I would get stuck." I've found that EV's have a significant advantage in snow due to very precise torque control compared to an automatic or manual transmission. Even my Prius does surprisingly well in snow with fresh tires up to it's ~6" ground clearance.
  - dukeofdoom 4y ago
    SUVs have bigger tires, and thus better grip. Much better snow clearance too. Also, my parents both axels on their cars two times from winter pot holes. Cars can be made cheaper, and it really shows. Budget car vs Budget SUV, It's not even close. Also, electric battery range almost halves in cold weather.
    - bradlys 4y ago
      > SUVs have bigger tires, and thus better grip. Have you ever considered the reason they have bigger tires is because... they're bigger vehicles and therefore need bigger tires to have the same amount of grip as a smaller vehicle?
  - 4y ago
almost_usual 4y ago
A lot of people who drive SUVs/trucks own guns in the US. Not a great idea.
yboris 4y ago
Also related, one of my favorite philosophy papers: Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? by Douglas Husak Argues that SUVs are immoral because of the high crash incompatibility. They cause more damage to others (disproportionally), and ironically don't provide more safety for drivers due to higher rollover instances. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447
- Swizec 4y ago
  > be cause of the high crash incompatibility Not sure about USA, but Europe started requiring crash compatibility some time in the mid 2000’s. EuroNCAP now specifically tests cars crashing into each other, not just into barriers. The result is that European small cars have tall noses and European SUVs have fronts that go pretty low. Because the internal crash structures have to overlap. Here’s an example where they test even a “commercial van” for crash compatibility with normal cars https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/61174/euro-ncap-compatibility-test-summary-report.pdf https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/61174/euro-ncap-compatibility... Here’s a paper from EEVC (european enhanced vehicle safety committee) developing a crash compatibility test https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/20/07-0331-O.pdf https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/20/07-0331-O.pdf
  - yboris 4y ago
    Author writes about the US as far as I can tell. The US is behind Europe in numerous ways - it's a shame. I find it amusing how tiny trucks are in Japan - they are often smaller than regular US SUVs that moms drive kids to school in.
    - Swizec 4y ago
      > The US is behind Europe in numerous ways The craziest to me is seeing how many blatantly illegal cars are driving around every day. There’s no annual technical inspection to pass. Most of the customized cars/trucks/bikes you see would never pass homologation. I mean even just the sleek LED blinkers on my bike would be impossible back home …
terran57 4y ago
Back before I moved to NYC, I lived in Colorado. When it came time for me to replace my car, I couldn't see the logic in buying a SUV that would be predominantly used for commuting. So, I countered "convention" thought and bought a sporty Acura RSX with a standard transmission. I loved the simplicity and utility of that car, and I loved the fact that, sometimes (depending on how I drove), I could get nearly 34 miles to the gallon. Meanwhile, my friends driving SUVs would complain every time they had to fill up about how much gas would cost them. After I moved to NYC, I held onto my car for a year in case I needed it. But, once I got used to living car-free, I sold the car to my brother's GF for a song. Unfortunately, there are only a few cities in the USA where one can live car-free. However, it's maddening (to me) how many people choose to buy the biggest, least economical vehicle. On the other hand, it's quite fascinating how marketing has successfully imprinted on the American driving public the "need" for such vehicles.
- lostmsu 4y ago
  Toyota hybrids can do similar 30+ MPG on SUVs.
  - evomassiny 4y ago
    For a fair comparison, hybrid cars can easily do 50+ MPG. For instance the "toyota yaris hybrid" is supposed to run 62MPG (3.8L/100km).
    - maxerickson 4y ago
      At recent US gas prices, 10,000 miles at 25 mpg costs less than $1600 in gas. At 50 mpg it's gonna be less than $800. Most of the people spending $30,000+ on a new vehicle aren't going to be concerned about that difference, they are going to buy what they want based on other factors.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  It becomes obvious that those people don't actually care that much about gas prices, since they could have bought a prius or camry hybrid or similar from honda would quite simply halve the amount they pay for gas, but nooooo that doesn't fit their weird culture to have to have a giant car.
cies 4y ago
And airplanes emitted more than SUVs. All these comparisons do not matter: the merely teach us to climate-share eachother into climate-submission (do you buy meat/ petrol/ airplane tickets: eeeew). We need a fair and square tax on pollution, CO2 just being one factor. This tax could (I would like that) replace many taxes on "good behaviour", like our taxes on labour, home ownership and added value. We should only tax bad behaviour and/or problematic goods, and tax them as fair as possible based on their bad impact. Currently petrol at the pump is heavily taxed, but for planes and sea-freight it is not. Labour and housing are also heavily taxed, making a 1h massage more expensive than a whole bin bag full of plastic toys shipped all the way from China. This is the problem, IMHO: we do not incentivize good behaviour by govt means, but we spread by media that everyone should climate shame eachother. Do you think the super rich (also the super polluters) give a damn?
fwungy 4y ago
You won't even need to own a car in the 15 Minute City, let alone an SUV. I enjoy pod living and the cricket burgers are tasty. You will too!
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  People in walkable areas make far more money than people in rural areas. They're eating the kobe burgers while the rurals will be stuck with the crickets.
  - fwungy 4y ago
    I eat cricket meal to save the climate. Meat is highly carbon intensive. It's also not healthy for you, according to the WHO. According to the scientists at the prestigious and reputable World Economic Forum meat will become a rare treat for most of us. If we all move to tiny houses stacked in high rises, switch to a climate friendly diet that is largely free of animal products, and refrain from having children, we have a good chance of saving the planet.
harimau777 4y ago
Are there more fuel efficient cars that are also affordable and large enough to survive collisions with SUVs?
tzs 4y ago
I'm not impressed with some of their claims. They have a tendency to say things that would be just as accurate if all those SUVs were replaced with pink polka dot sedans, and you replaced "SUV" in that article with "pink polka dot sedan". Let's look at numbers. They say all the SUVs combined emit 10^9 tons of CO2. Looking at per country emissions I see that is more than every individual country except China, the US, India, Russia, and Japan. So yup...more than most other countries. But wait...they say SUVs use on average 20% more fuel. They don't say how much more CO2 they emit, but I'd expect it to be proportional to fuel used and so am going to assume SUVs on average emit 20% more CO2. So if all of those SUV owners had instead went with those pink polka dot sedans that emit 20% less, then the combined emissions of those particular cars would be about 8.3 x 10^8 tons of CO2 instead of 1 x 10^9 tons. Where would 8.3 x 10^8 tons of CO2 be on the country list? More than every individual country except China, the US, India, Russia, and Japan. The exact same list as when those cars are SUVs. > The increased number of SUVs in 2022 were responsible for a third of the increase in global oil demand. And if those SUVs had been pink polka dot sedans they'd still be responsible for 5/18th of the increase instead of 6/18th of the increase, which in a typical article that is not giving decimal numbers would still be called a third. Also I've got a feeling that using 2022 global oil demand requires some care, due to the large drop in global oil demand in 2020 because of the pandemic. That demand came back in 2021 and 2022 largely due to things that stopped or slowed down in 2020 starting or getting back to speed. Transportation was one of the biggest areas where demand dropped in 2020. So it seems like it might simply be SUVs were a third of the oil demand increase in 2022 because they were a third if the oil demand decrease in 2020.
swsdsailor 4y ago
In CA the roads are so bad you need an SUV just to get around in one piece.
za3faran 4y ago
> Cities targeted by Tyre Extinguisher groups on Monday included London, Paris, Berlin and Milan. The activists claim to have deflated more than 10,000 tires in the past year in 17 countries, including the US and New Zealand, using lentils to jam open air valves. That's disgusting and they should be caught and trialed. It's only a matter of time before someone needs to use their car for an emergency trip to the hospital or elsewhere and those "activists" have blood on their hands.

78 points by Amorymeltzer 4y ago

This is one of the reasons that Tyre Extinguishers target SUVs https://tyreextinguishers.com/ https://tyreextinguishers.com/

nsxwolf 4y ago
Don't get caught in the middle of doing this by me or any other SUV owner.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
  I have not been involved in any way with them, but it is curious how a certain section of society believes that violence is an appropriate response. Would you have a similar reaction to damaging of other property (e.g. broken fence, window) or is it specifically cars that prompt violence?
  - recursive 4y ago
    Presumably they want to discourage these activists from deflating their tires. Because they want inflated tires. And there isn't any other obvious recourse at the time.
  - nsxwolf 4y ago
    I would take a similarly dim view of anyone damaging my windows or my fence.
- malermeister 4y ago
  [flagged]
- CalRobert 4y ago
  What will happen?
  - nsxwolf 4y ago
    I don't know if this is serious or not. Maybe it's a Bay Area thing? People getting very used to having their windows smashed and such without any recourse? But 'round these parts, people don't just stand around watching their life and livelihood get messed with.
    - CalRobert 4y ago
      Yes, I am serious. And I live in Ireland (though I originally hail from northern California) What will you do? Are you going to assault people? Murder them? Report them to the police? Genuinely curious. I don't know what I'd do in that scenario. Probably yell at them and then get out the air compressor. Your SUV harms everyone around you, yet nobody assaults you or threatens you for it.
      - nsxwolf 4y ago
        I wouldn't murder them. I wouldn't report them to the police because they likely wouldn't even come out. The flip side to that coin is that the police also won't come out to investigate a little rough play. If I let the air out of someone's tires, I would absolutely be watching my back. I wouldn't expect a meek response. Incidentally, in most of the US, some amount of non-lethal force is allowed in the defense of real or personal property.
        dagw 4y ago
        I wouldn't murder them. I wouldn't report them to the police So what _would_ you do? Shoot them in the leg? Beat them with a baseball bat? Punch them in the face? Shove them around a bit? Shout at them and then go home and fantasize about shooting them?
        4y ago
volkk 4y ago
what a silly thing that wrecks your fellow human's life (who knows what theyre using the SUV for) and accomplishes absolutely nothing.
- bluecalm 4y ago
  The argument is that SUV and truck drivers already endanger lives of unprotected traffic participants by driving those vehicles in cities. It sounds like a cause worthy of some aggressive activism to me as the regulators are deeply in car industry's pockets (no other explanation for special SUV treatment when it comes to fuel efficiency norms). You make the world a worse place by choosing your comfort over safety of others - you get some minor inconvenience to deal with sometimes. To me it's activism working as intended.
  - za3faran 4y ago
    Call it what it is, it's not "aggressive activism", it's vandalism and property destruction, and potentially cost lives if the car owner needs to go to the hospital or has another emergency. Let's not water things down please.
    - bluecalm 4y ago
      People in big cars kill thousands of pedestrians and cyclists per year. Let's not water things down please. You seem to not understand big cars in cities are really dangerous and actually cost (not hypothetical might) lives every day.
      - za3faran 4y ago
        > People in big^W cars kill thousands of pedestrians and cyclists per year FTFY. So we should ban cars? Plus, there's a difference between something literally called an accident with destruction of property.
  - Eumenes 4y ago
    >To me it's activism working as intended. To get literally everyone to hate you? People don't like their private property destroyed, esp. randomly and unprovoked. See how much support the idiots throwing soup on art are getting.
vorpalhex 4y ago
The problem with taking "direct action" is that the people you are targeting will respond in kind and often escalate. You damage their property, they light your house on fire.
- recursive 4y ago
  Maybe they'll get yelled at. I would bet against any of their houses having been burned.
  - CalRobert 4y ago
    I could imagine them getting shot.
eu_trash_lulz 4y ago
"tyre" haha. his thread is gold. you EU trash nitwits can come try that in the US. we'll beat your weak little bodies to a pulp in front of your children. violence is a perfect response to wanton destruction of personal property. sometimes you idiots need a good whoopin ;) i'll beat your ass to a bloody pulp in front of your children to teach them a real lesson about their loser daddy that doesn't respect others property. bubble boy retards out in force.
soumyadeb 4y ago
Such mindless activism is what drives away popular opinion from climate change. Lot of folks have SUVs because they have large families. Its a pain to keep a huge car in a city like NYC or London anyway so people generally have reasons. There were a wave of such tire puncture incidents in NYC which forced some people to drive 30-40 miles every week to park the car in suburb or NJ (parking in city is very expensive) The end result was more emission, more pain and less sympathy for the actual problem.

matsemann 4y ago

Relevant: not just bikes' latest video "These stupid trucks are literally killing us" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

kloch 4y ago
As a side note, this video has a great variety of historical footage of cars/cities/life.

faitswulff 4y ago

Children are also invisible to SUV drivers, so something about the incentives for building these giant vehicles needs to change.

pard68 4y ago

I don't really care much what others do but I am interested in the "why" of it. I have an SUV. Last week we had to ford a 20' wide, 3' deep creek. If I had the alternative (minivan) we wouldn't have been able to pull that off, which would mean not getting home. I also haul 10,000lbs of livestock on a regular basis. I usually use my truck, but a truck can't carry my kids, so when we go horseback riding I take the Suburban. Can't figure out why folks in Suburbia with one or two kids would choose an SUV. I much prefer my Subaru, but it's mostly relegated to date nights at this point in my life.

beardog 4y ago
>Can't figure out why folks in Suburbia with one or two kids would choose an SUV. I much prefer my Subaru, but it's mostly relegated to date nights at this point in my life. Station wagons and minivans are being shelved by auto-manufacturers because environmental and safety regulations have a blind spot for "light trucks" which SUVs fall under. The solution to this problem is to either tighten the regulations around SUVs or loosen the regulations around cars.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
I think that SUV appeal to residents of suburbia has its roots in two things: - Perceived safety (the idea that e.g. a Suburban would fare better in a wreck involving a full size truck than a sedan, hatchback, etc) - Keeping up with the Jonses gone vehicular. A gigantic SUV sitting out front looks impressive similar to the way a truck would while being better suited for residential usage than a truck. All it takes is one residence buying one for the rest of the block to suddenly not be satisfied with the Accord in their garage. Personally I’m a bit frustrated with how huge cars have gotten. My house was built in 2005, with a garage made to fit the cars at the time, and with ~177” of usable length (some space is taken up by HVAC + water heater), a lot of modern cars won’t fit in it and even fewer fit comfortably (e.g. being able to open its back hatch while the garage door is closed). I’m looking to lease an EV some time in the next year or so and only a tiny handful can be considered due to this.
- notacoward 4y ago

boplicity 4y ago

This is a good example of how wealthy people (and countries) are destroying our environment, to the detriment of everyone. Those who are poor or environmentally responsible are impacted by the choices of those who have the wealth to buy and use large SUVs. This is especially true for poor countries in areas that will be affected the most by early climate change problems. Ironically, wealthier countries tend to be in a better position to avoid the initial negative impacts of climate change. They're also better equipped to handle the consequences. This ties into so many political issues. For example, migration. We already have climate change caused migration. Policies in the U.S., for example, are becoming increasingly punitive towards migrants, while, at the same time, doing little to address the massive damage being caused by the U.S. There's little hope for improvement; though, fortunately for those of us in wealthy countries, we'll be mostly OK for a generation or so.

rsp1984 4y ago

It's bad and yes, the world would be much better off without SUVs, but with headlines like these it's important to put things in perspective. Road transport related emissions are just 12% of total emissions [1]. Emissions from SUVs are a fraction of that. If we want to get climate change under control the biggest impact would be from countries transitioning away from coal and gas [2] to other sources of energy. Most other things are a drop in the bucket compared to that. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector [2] https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-fuel

mrpopo 4y ago
You can always cut something into smaller parts. First transitioning away from coal and gas is actually not a small feat, the best transition so far from a developed country is the UK that stopped coal almost completely but now relies a lot more on gas and imports. Second, a single country doing so will only be a single-digit percentage of total emissions, so by your logic why should they?
- sokoloff 4y ago
  It looks like SUVs emit between 14% and 25% more than a passenger car. If you replace SUVs with passenger cars, you haven't moved the needle much (except for changing the headline from "SUVs emitted more CO2..." to "cars emitted more CO2...") Transitioning away from SUVs and cars is also not a small feat.
  - DoughnutHole 4y ago
    The problem is that not only are we failing to transition away from SUVs and cars, drivers are actively transitioning from passenger cars to heavier, more emitting vehicles (SUVs and trucks). The only traditional car that Ford still sells in the US and Canada is the Mustang. Whatever about moving the the needle in a positive direction, I think it's worth pointing out trends and personal decisions that are actively making the situation worse.

AlgorithmicTime 4y ago

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britzkopf 4y ago

I'm taken aback at this. I don't have an SUV but I very much aspire to, specifically for one of the reasons they mention - high clearance. I do as much mountain hiking as I can and high clearance is necessary for many forest service roads. Why would you target someone for that?

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
You hurt the planet; the planet hurts you. :D
mrpopo 4y ago
Because they consume more fuel than other car types, and you are aspiring to buy one for purely selfish reasons, and that would have a negative impact on many people? If people don't consider their personal footprint before taking purchase decisions, maybe they will take into consideration that they are being targeted by a growing group of people.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > If people don't consider their personal footprint before taking purchase decisions, maybe they will take into consideration that they are being targeted by a growing group of people. They will never do that. NEVER. It has become a perennial joke at this point in Germany with climate activists who block streets only to afterwards rack up 20k miles of air travel in half a year. The explanation? "The problem is systemic, individual actions don't matter". Nobody considers their contribution relevant, because in total theirs will be dwarfed by everyone else's. That's just human nature. If the most-involved activists don't, how can you expect random people to?
  - mrpopo 4y ago
    Your negation is way too strong, an ever-growing number of people do, in fact, take their personal footprint into account for every decision, my family and myself included. I don't know about your anecdotal joke about some German activists flying 20k miles in half a year, but it's also a fact that flygskam is growing, that people who can afford it reportedly take a train even when it's slower, and that airlines are looking into carbon offsets. Another anecdote, my local XR group has a car pooling mailing list to make sure they attend all demonstrations in a convenient, low-carbon manner. The math is simple, every liter of fuel kept in the ground will slow down global warming. There is no "threshold" that we will reach at which point all humanity is doomed.

egberts1 4y ago

If you got a large family, SUV is the best way to go, even if it's an electric SUV. Otherwise, any bantering on moving away from stable 24/7 power generators into sporadic power generators beyond the point of sustainability required by consumers/businesses is just a stupid economic crushing move. These electric vehicles enmasse will require even more steady 24/7 electric generation due to schotastic nature of plug-in timeframe for recharging. We should be focusing more on zero-carbon electric power generation such as hydroelectric and nuclear energy. I am a conservative environmentalist and these are my true sustainability messages.

xur17 4y ago
> If you got a large family, SUV is the best way to go, even if it's an electric SUV. What's wrong with minivans?
- prpl 4y ago
  For many SUVs there’s no real difference. A honda pilot weighs less than an Odyssey, though probably with some small amount of added drag. Usually an SUV is more likely to have AWD I bought a tiguan because I needed the occasional added seats (and it was impossible to find a Ford Transit Connect - which frankly is the only true mini van)
  - vel0city 4y ago
    There's two massive differences. Sliding doors and captain chairs. These two things make it way easier getting in and out of a minivan to actually use that third row of seats. I will acknowledge captain chairs can sometimes be found on SUVs, but by far the most common arrangement on SUVs are second row benches. This means accessing the third row can be challenging especially when you can't open the doors all the way.
dagw 4y ago
If you got a large family, SUV is the way to go. Honestly, why? How is it easier to fit 6+ people (feels like reasonable definition of "large") in an SUV compared to a van? I know a few families with 5 or more kids and they all have minivans.

Someone1234 4y ago

How to fix this: Step 1: Adjust CAFE[0] to add a new tier for SUVs and non-light Trucks Step 2: There is no step 2. It is absurd that fuel economy standards essentially wiped out the most fuel efficient vehicles from the roads (cars, light trucks). But talk about perverse incentives when you essentially give car manufacturers a get out of jail free card for making heavier, less efficient, vehicles. Cars/light trucks are held to a high standard, and everything else has nearly no standards at all. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy

HDThoreaun 4y ago
or just hold every car to the same standard... You want a fuel inefficient car, you pay for it.

macinjosh 4y ago

I drive my family around in an SUV with no shame. I'll sell it when all the yuppies, crying about my SUV stop globe trotting around in polluting aircraft everytime they feel they need more Instagram karma or they miss their "bestie" who lives across the country.

malermeister 4y ago
SUVs are eight times as likely to kill children as other vehicles. [0] It's not just about pollution, they're horrible death machines in other ways, too. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022437522000810 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00224...
- macinjosh 4y ago
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dukeofdoom 4y ago

Most people drive SUV now, they're safer when it snows and winter, built sturdier, and pack more. As a Canadian more global warming please! This country some of the worse weather in world

kloch 4y ago
> they're safer when it snows and winter Are they actually safer or do they just give the driver a false sense of security? Assuming it actually has 4WD/AWD (and most don't), that only helps you "go" and does nothing for "stop" as all cars have four wheel brakes. One exception to this is being able to keep going in very rural areas where any rescue attempt would take too long. However, even this can fail with a false sense of security and poor judgement: https://www.11alive.com/article/news/nation-world/man-stranded-snow-drone-rescue-willamette-national-forest/283-020c38a8-41a2-45d8-bb0a-d98017494006 https://www.11alive.com/article/news/nation-world/man-strand... > Of the dozens of missions we have had this winter involving a vehicle stuck in the snow, nearly all of them were 4x4 vehicles and almost all of the drivers told us, "I didn’t think I would get stuck." I've found that EV's have a significant advantage in snow due to very precise torque control compared to an automatic or manual transmission. Even my Prius does surprisingly well in snow with fresh tires up to it's ~6" ground clearance.
- dukeofdoom 4y ago
  SUVs have bigger tires, and thus better grip. Much better snow clearance too. Also, my parents both axels on their cars two times from winter pot holes. Cars can be made cheaper, and it really shows. Budget car vs Budget SUV, It's not even close. Also, electric battery range almost halves in cold weather.
  - bradlys 4y ago
    > SUVs have bigger tires, and thus better grip. Have you ever considered the reason they have bigger tires is because... they're bigger vehicles and therefore need bigger tires to have the same amount of grip as a smaller vehicle?
- 4y ago

almost_usual 4y ago

A lot of people who drive SUVs/trucks own guns in the US. Not a great idea.

yboris 4y ago

Also related, one of my favorite philosophy papers: Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? by Douglas Husak Argues that SUVs are immoral because of the high crash incompatibility. They cause more damage to others (disproportionally), and ironically don't provide more safety for drivers due to higher rollover instances. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447

Swizec 4y ago
> be cause of the high crash incompatibility Not sure about USA, but Europe started requiring crash compatibility some time in the mid 2000’s. EuroNCAP now specifically tests cars crashing into each other, not just into barriers. The result is that European small cars have tall noses and European SUVs have fronts that go pretty low. Because the internal crash structures have to overlap. Here’s an example where they test even a “commercial van” for crash compatibility with normal cars https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/61174/euro-ncap-compatibility-test-summary-report.pdf https://cdn.euroncap.com/media/61174/euro-ncap-compatibility... Here’s a paper from EEVC (european enhanced vehicle safety committee) developing a crash compatibility test https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/20/07-0331-O.pdf https://www-esv.nhtsa.dot.gov/Proceedings/20/07-0331-O.pdf
- yboris 4y ago
  Author writes about the US as far as I can tell. The US is behind Europe in numerous ways - it's a shame. I find it amusing how tiny trucks are in Japan - they are often smaller than regular US SUVs that moms drive kids to school in.
  - Swizec 4y ago
    > The US is behind Europe in numerous ways The craziest to me is seeing how many blatantly illegal cars are driving around every day. There’s no annual technical inspection to pass. Most of the customized cars/trucks/bikes you see would never pass homologation. I mean even just the sleek LED blinkers on my bike would be impossible back home …

terran57 4y ago

Back before I moved to NYC, I lived in Colorado. When it came time for me to replace my car, I couldn't see the logic in buying a SUV that would be predominantly used for commuting. So, I countered "convention" thought and bought a sporty Acura RSX with a standard transmission. I loved the simplicity and utility of that car, and I loved the fact that, sometimes (depending on how I drove), I could get nearly 34 miles to the gallon. Meanwhile, my friends driving SUVs would complain every time they had to fill up about how much gas would cost them. After I moved to NYC, I held onto my car for a year in case I needed it. But, once I got used to living car-free, I sold the car to my brother's GF for a song. Unfortunately, there are only a few cities in the USA where one can live car-free. However, it's maddening (to me) how many people choose to buy the biggest, least economical vehicle. On the other hand, it's quite fascinating how marketing has successfully imprinted on the American driving public the "need" for such vehicles.

lostmsu 4y ago
Toyota hybrids can do similar 30+ MPG on SUVs.
- evomassiny 4y ago
  For a fair comparison, hybrid cars can easily do 50+ MPG. For instance the "toyota yaris hybrid" is supposed to run 62MPG (3.8L/100km).
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    At recent US gas prices, 10,000 miles at 25 mpg costs less than $1600 in gas. At 50 mpg it's gonna be less than $800. Most of the people spending $30,000+ on a new vehicle aren't going to be concerned about that difference, they are going to buy what they want based on other factors.
mrguyorama 4y ago
It becomes obvious that those people don't actually care that much about gas prices, since they could have bought a prius or camry hybrid or similar from honda would quite simply halve the amount they pay for gas, but nooooo that doesn't fit their weird culture to have to have a giant car.

cies 4y ago

And airplanes emitted more than SUVs. All these comparisons do not matter: the merely teach us to climate-share eachother into climate-submission (do you buy meat/ petrol/ airplane tickets: eeeew). We need a fair and square tax on pollution, CO2 just being one factor. This tax could (I would like that) replace many taxes on "good behaviour", like our taxes on labour, home ownership and added value. We should only tax bad behaviour and/or problematic goods, and tax them as fair as possible based on their bad impact. Currently petrol at the pump is heavily taxed, but for planes and sea-freight it is not. Labour and housing are also heavily taxed, making a 1h massage more expensive than a whole bin bag full of plastic toys shipped all the way from China. This is the problem, IMHO: we do not incentivize good behaviour by govt means, but we spread by media that everyone should climate shame eachother. Do you think the super rich (also the super polluters) give a damn?

fwungy 4y ago

You won't even need to own a car in the 15 Minute City, let alone an SUV. I enjoy pod living and the cricket burgers are tasty. You will too!

HDThoreaun 4y ago
People in walkable areas make far more money than people in rural areas. They're eating the kobe burgers while the rurals will be stuck with the crickets.
- fwungy 4y ago
  I eat cricket meal to save the climate. Meat is highly carbon intensive. It's also not healthy for you, according to the WHO. According to the scientists at the prestigious and reputable World Economic Forum meat will become a rare treat for most of us. If we all move to tiny houses stacked in high rises, switch to a climate friendly diet that is largely free of animal products, and refrain from having children, we have a good chance of saving the planet.

harimau777 4y ago

Are there more fuel efficient cars that are also affordable and large enough to survive collisions with SUVs?

tzs 4y ago

I'm not impressed with some of their claims. They have a tendency to say things that would be just as accurate if all those SUVs were replaced with pink polka dot sedans, and you replaced "SUV" in that article with "pink polka dot sedan". Let's look at numbers. They say all the SUVs combined emit 10^9 tons of CO2. Looking at per country emissions I see that is more than every individual country except China, the US, India, Russia, and Japan. So yup...more than most other countries. But wait...they say SUVs use on average 20% more fuel. They don't say how much more CO2 they emit, but I'd expect it to be proportional to fuel used and so am going to assume SUVs on average emit 20% more CO2. So if all of those SUV owners had instead went with those pink polka dot sedans that emit 20% less, then the combined emissions of those particular cars would be about 8.3 x 10^8 tons of CO2 instead of 1 x 10^9 tons. Where would 8.3 x 10^8 tons of CO2 be on the country list? More than every individual country except China, the US, India, Russia, and Japan. The exact same list as when those cars are SUVs. > The increased number of SUVs in 2022 were responsible for a third of the increase in global oil demand. And if those SUVs had been pink polka dot sedans they'd still be responsible for 5/18th of the increase instead of 6/18th of the increase, which in a typical article that is not giving decimal numbers would still be called a third. Also I've got a feeling that using 2022 global oil demand requires some care, due to the large drop in global oil demand in 2020 because of the pandemic. That demand came back in 2021 and 2022 largely due to things that stopped or slowed down in 2020 starting or getting back to speed. Transportation was one of the biggest areas where demand dropped in 2020. So it seems like it might simply be SUVs were a third of the oil demand increase in 2022 because they were a third if the oil demand decrease in 2020.

swsdsailor 4y ago

In CA the roads are so bad you need an SUV just to get around in one piece.

za3faran 4y ago

> Cities targeted by Tyre Extinguisher groups on Monday included London, Paris, Berlin and Milan. The activists claim to have deflated more than 10,000 tires in the past year in 17 countries, including the US and New Zealand, using lentils to jam open air valves. That's disgusting and they should be caught and trialed. It's only a matter of time before someone needs to use their car for an emergency trip to the hospital or elsewhere and those "activists" have blood on their hands.