Cash For Clunkers Effect On Environment Is Negligible

MSNBC has a report claiming that the cash for clunkers program will have a negligible effect on the global climate.

Climate experts aren't impressed.

Compared to overall carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, the pollution savings from cash for clunkers do not noticeably move the fuel gauge. Environmental experts say the program — conceived primarily to stimulate the economy and jump-start the auto industry — is not an effective way to attack climate change.
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"As a carbon dioxide policy, this is a terribly wasteful thing to do," said Henry Jacoby, a professor of management and co-director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT. "The amount of carbon you are saving per federal expenditure is very, very small."

Officials expect a quarter-million gas guzzlers will be junked under the original $1 billion set aside by Congress — money that is now all but exhausted.

Calculations by The Associated Press, using Department of Transportation figures, show that replacing those fuel hogs will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by just under 700,000 tons a year. While that may sound impressive, it's nothing compared to what the U.S. spewed last year: nearly 6.4 billion tons (and that was down from previous years).

That means on average, every hour, America emits 728,000 tons of carbon dioxide. The total savings per year from cash for clunkers translates to about 57 minutes of America's output of the chief greenhouse gas.

How much energy was expended by building all those replacement vehicles, instead of letting them go out to pasture on their own? That's an energy cost that isn't included.

Moreover, what was the energy cost of keeping GM and Chrysler afloat? On a strictly eco-leftist scale, that simply can't do because of all the emissions associated not only with the vehicles, but the entire production cycle.

Still, all this talk of emissions is little more than hot air considering that CO2 is a fraction of 1% of the atmosphere. It's not even the most influential greenhouse gas - that would be water vapor.

The improved gas mileage can be significant, but one has to figure what it costs someone to buy a new car and the lost opportunity for that purchase. It may take several years before an owner sees the benefit of the higher fuel economy in the new vehicle, dependent upon the price of gas and miles driven annually.

Also, what happens to the vehicles now that they're reduced to junk? They have to be recycled, and without cash for clunkers, practically every part of the vehicle was salvageable. Now, we're limited only to certain body parts, not the engine - the most valuable portion of any junked vehicle. Reusing those parts saved the environment. Now, what happens to older cars that aren't traded in under the program when cost-conscious owners want to repair the vehicle instead of getting rid of it? They will lose transportation options, and this program does nothing for them.

On whole, this program does nothing to improve the economy other than temporarily shifting when trade-in sales might occur, reducing overall sales for later in the year or delaying sales until the program became effective. It also does little to improve the economy, once you factor in the replacement costs in energy output to put a new car on the road in the place of perfectly serviceable vehicles.