interesting and good info... i'm sure there is always even more available, but to sift through it is just near impossible.
i think your last paragraph shows a bit of the fallacy though that causes the 3% bankers to get uppity... even the stats you give (which are pretty good) at no point says that a rav4 hybrid is significantly better than a gas one... they show the "best" hybrid, and an average suv... so something that will be greener than the ravH on one side, and something worse than the rav gas on the other... considering that the other processes are all nearly identical for the car mentioned, how much greener would that really be than the gasser when it all comes out in the wash? rather than buy any new car at all, the better environmental choice would be to keep what you have and try to drive more people around, would it not?
i'm not in the 97% group you mention, but i am also not some cave dwelling denier. anytime i have spoken with people on your side of the equation, they seem to forget that we exist... people that agree climate change is happening... people who believe much is caused (or at minimum, aggravated) by us... but don't think changing our method of propulsion today is going to somehow save the world. does that make me "immature"? no more so than it makes the ev crowd slightly ignorant.
living out west, i despised the smug arrogant ev people i knew... complained about my jeep (just a patriot!), yet bought a new electric car literally each year. what was worse? running my 4 cyl gas engine for 7 years and doing all i could to minimize travel and maximize occupancy, or them driving by themselves to the store down the road and having 6 or 7 new cars built to accommodate them?
You raise some good points.
I realize the Rav4 Hybrid isn't addressed in the charts. The charts would have been even better if they included more hybrids with equivalent non-hybrids. This would also clarify the emission advantage hybrids have over non-hybrids. I mentioned the Rav4 only incidentally in making the point that choosing a hybrid instead of an equivalent non-hybrid seems like such a small non-sacrifice that it seems odd so few people are willing to do so.
Though hybrids certainly don't lower emissions by the 80% we need to achieve to avoid long-term climate catastrophe, buying cars like hybrids is something many can do, who don't do it now, and with insignificant impact on their lifestyle. At the same time I don't agree that hybrids provide a mileage increment that's too small to bother with.
No one said that improving the vehicle fleet is going to save the world. It's only part of what needs to be done. What needs to be done won't be done if we do nothing to make the vehicle fleet less polluting. Some of the dumbest and most damaging things being done are in the field of transportation. And within transportation, some of those dumb and damaging things are within the ways we choose and use cars. The sum is made up of the parts, and it is impossible to change the whole without changing parts.
Just as the global total of emissions can be divvied down to smaller and smaller acts, right down to your own detailed transportation choices, so too will the improvements be achieved starting with the smallest transportation choices by individuals.
Your comments about causing new cars to be built is an interesting topic. Certainly, as the chart shows, there is a climate impact to making a new car. However, there's also an impact to operating an inefficient car over the long term. These "scrap-it" programs for older cars are based on this subject.
Another given is that newer cars on average get better mileage. There must be a sweet spot where it's better to turn over the fleet at a certain rate to minimize climate impact. But without getting into that, there are some givens:
People could stop buying vehicles larger than they need. Like, if you NEED a huge pickup to tow a trailer, consider renting the few times a year when you do this, or consider how much cheaper it might be to rent accommodation. (Yes, these are generalities.)
The less someone drives, the less impact it has to drive an older/less efficient vehicle.
Lots of cars have equivalent or similar ones that get better mileage.
I don't know anyone with an ev, but a couple of my friends have hybrids. Not only do they not seem smug about them, they don't even seem to be very interested in how hybrids work. They have to be prompted to talk about their hybrids. No doubt there are smug ev owners, but I'd say this is mostly a myth cooked up by cranks who think having a good life depends on lurching around in an SRT. Ev owners certainly don't seek to draw attention to themselves, such as done by others who do all sorts of things to get attention. Like noisy exhausts, aggressive driving, suspension lifts, body mod kits, etc. There's a whole industry based on drivers attracting attention to their cars, and they don't sell stuff to make ev's more visible.
As for the Patriot, I've always thought the hatred against them was silly. The offroad version is reasonably capable, although it's mileage is nothing to write home about. It's a very sensible vehicle choice, and it's good to hear you are mindful of these issues when it comes to your vehicle operation.
