Everybody's going "green" these days, or so it seems. Personally, green's not my color-I'm more partial to blue. And as far as the definition of green in an environmentally speaking manner, I'm not totally sold on that, either. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm all for saving our planet ... in a realistic way. I'm also for conserving energy, our natural resources, etc. Again, done in a realistic, reasonable, and fair way, I'm behind all efforts to save planet earth. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
Instead, people like you and me are scapegoated and ultimately are having to pay the price. OK fine, the automakers can follow the rules set by the EPA/CAFE/BS, and build their zero-emissions vehicles. But leave us, the minor minority and our fossil fuel-powered automobiles alone. We're not the ones deserving of the title "gross polluters". Polluters? Yeah, maybe, but in a globally measurable amount, we're but a gnat-a baby one at that-squashed on a windshield. In other, more decipherable words, our contribution to that farce called global warming is minute at best.
The only valid reason I see of removing every single pre-'76 (or whatever manufacturing date they consider) car from the road would be to vastly reduce the number of petroleum-based gas pumps across the nation and abroad and make way for the corn-fuel outlets. E85 in hot rods (and customs), why? Sure, we can retrofit our fuel systems to adapt to the alcohol content-we can also retrofit them to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) and/or propane (LPG). Again, why? I see and, ultimately, understand-the big picture. In that picture, we as the tiny artist's signature at the bottom are having to pay the same price-both monetarily and consequentially-as the rest of the shapes and colors in the picture. And here I am back to the colors.
There's got to be a way we can go green with some sort of compromise or clause that in some way favors us fossil fuelers. I don't mind having to pay a little more for gas (which, by the time you read this, will have already happened), a little more for vehicle tax, or even having to register my "old" vehicles as such. Just let me keep them, allow me to drive them (whenever and wherever I want), all without having to mortgage my house to the hilt! Besides, my fireplace mantle is no place to hang a '47 Chevy ...