(no subject)

[mik3cap]

In Louisiana alone, it takes 32,500,000 gallons of gasoline to produce corn on 500,000 acres.

That's the equivalent of driving 38,461 SUVs or 28,837 pickup trucks all year. Just for the corn in Louisiana.

For all the corn in the U.S... it's 5,330,768 SUVs or 3,996,893 pickup trucks.

(assuming 0.5 gallons of gasoline to produce a bushel, and 130 bushels per acre in 2003, 9 mpg for pickup trucks, and 12 mpg for SUVs)

[Note that the lower number of pickup trucks is *bad* because it means that pickup trucks use more gas than SUVs!]

Comments

[kaetaur.livejournal.com]

My 8 year old ford escort gets 33+ miles to the gallon highway and 29+ city driving. This is crappy mileage. I really want to be getting up to 40 mpg at minimum but I am unable to afford a car that does so. If an suv get a highway mileage of up to 25 it is a horrible gas guzzling vehicle. Is it really that hard to sacrifice the comfort an SUV provides for the lower pollution a fuel efficient car provides? SUVs are overly large and tend to block the view of traffic for smaller vehicles. The tallness of the SUV and the tendency of SUV's to have tinted windows make it much more difficult for other drivers to view traffic. The inflated cost of SUV's leads to more expensive insurance claims because Soccer Mom and Soccer son do not know how to drive such a large and expensive vehicle. SUV's also do not have to conform to the laws requiring car of certain body type/weight to increase fuel efficiency. From either perspective SUV's are a status symbol stating that the driver is another proud mass-consuming american who could careless about their community.

Any use you can buy and SUV for can easily be handled by a mid-size station wagon. Since more and more station wagons are made with AWD why do SUV's need to be on the market?

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

SUVs are overly large and tend to block the view of traffic for smaller vehicles. The tallness of the SUV and the tendency of SUV's to have tinted windows make it much more difficult for other drivers to view traffic.

And these are exactly the reasons I *do* hate SUVs. Instead of harping on them for their poor gas mileage (rather than harping on poor gas mileage in general) people complaining specifically about SUVs should focus on the real issues: that they are a true danger to others on the road.

[kaetaur.livejournal.com]

For me it is all of that, the generally worse gas mileage when compared to a car and the lousy attitude of the average SUV owner. All of it represents the reason why I am ashamed to be a United States citizen. Combine that with the info on how much our government supports commodities that just suck instead of other commodities that could help our society and I am ready to move.

There is a good use for corn. If the government subsidized the research for refining corn into fuel to make it cheaper that oil base fuel then we would be doing really well. Combine that with the corn gas/electric cars and you have a reason to stop with the fossil fuels. This gives the US independence for Opek(sp?) and makes it where we could maintain more industries within our borders. The best part would be tariffing the crap out of imports that are not beneficial and use the money to subsidize other programs to make the nation less dependant on foreign resources. Cut the industries a tax break for every manufacturing plan that only employs US citizens and force a percentage to the employee's pocket.

Then again I am almost a socialist at heart.