The Financial Times reports sales of SUVs and pickup trucks are up. Author Edward Luce, a climate Chicken Little who believes we're to blame for the sky falling, writes that lower gasoline prices are a factor encouraging purchase of these less-fuel-efficient vehicles.
At least the U.S. is no longer the #1 polluter, he reports. China has that dubious distinction, while India is #3. Luce basically concludes nations with representative governments won't do much about greenhouse gases because people don't want to curtail their lifestyles and won't voluntarily choose to do so.
Climate alarmists ignore that (a) North America has the worst weather, on average, of any inhabited continent on the planet (excluding Antarctica) and (b) outside a handful of large cities, we're a private vehicle-based culture. Vehicles with substantial ground clearance and four wheel drive (mostly SUVs and pickups) are a serious boon in places which get snow, ice, and/or torrential rains - in other words, most of the U.S. and all of Canada.
If Luce is correct, if the climate is going to warm, perhaps foundations should fund grants to investigate ways to take advantage of warming, or ameliorate its downsides. Examples: heat-tolerant GMO crops, developing vacation property in Canada's Northwest Territory, stay-cool architecture, more efficient AC.
