Car Costs

Yahoo had an article this week, "6 Extreme Ways to Go Frugal and Save"; one of the 6 is to go without a car. You save by eliminating gas, registration, insurance, maintenance and repair costs. I would add taxes as the state of Kentucky charges a yearly property tax on your car when you register. According to article, AAA estimates it costs $1 a mile to own a car.

From Mindy Pennybacker's book, Do One Green Thing, "Not driving just one day a week can reduce your CO2 emissions by about 8 pounds per week or 400 pounds per year." Her first suggestion under category transportation- "Spend 30 minutes a day walking or cycling instead of driving. Why? If every American did this, we'd cut CO2 emissions by 64 million tons and lose 3 billion tons of excess body weight a year." She says it's better for our collective health if there are fewer cars as "Vehicle combustion engines burn fossil fuels and emit smog, soot, and particulate matter containing toxic PAHs and carbon dioxide, all of which lead to respiratory disease. Transportation produces 28% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Each gallon of gas burned is responsible for the release of 28 pounds of CO2, according to the Environmental Defense Fund (this includes the CO2 released during the drilling and shipping of oil." (p 218)

Not quite on costs, but related- read Heather Rogers' book, Green Gone Wrong, this week as well. Fort Thomas library had a bunch of new books on environment! Her main argument, buying "green" won't work, markets left to themselves cannot solve these problems, and then she documents. As an economist I agree with her- we've hit the limits of the free market! She cites Frank Ackerman "What do we owe to nature and human health? You can't deduce it from the market. You have to come to the table with moral statements. These are not economic truths, they're pre-economic assumptions." (p 193)

Also, Rita Mae Brown, in one of her detective series, has Harry describe her philosophy as "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." Definitely a motto lost to Americans these days!