Shane McGlaun
Protestors from activist groups Public Citizen, the Sierra Club, the Safe Climate Campaign, and Interfaith Power & Light crashed the Washington Auto Show to conduct protests. The organizations say that they were protesting Ford and the pollution that its vehicles produce each year, and are aiming to “highlight Ford’s lobbying of the Trump Administration” to reduce fuel economy standards and the support the organizations claim Ford has given the Trump administration on its plan to roll back Obama-era fuel economy standards. The protest groups also unveiled a letter they sent to 20 automakers that called on the automakers to support the Obama-era fuel economy standards.
The protest included a ten-foot-tall, inflatable T-rex dinosaur, and activists in dinosaur costumes near the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, where the Washington Auto Show takes place. What’s the deal with the T-Rex? Protest groups claim that the annual pollution emitted from the Ford Expedition is nine tons, which they claim is equivalent to the weight of a T-Rex dinosaur. The groups don’t specify what “annual pollution” means, but the assumption is carbon dioxide emissions.
A quick Google search to confirm the numbers the protestors claim in their press release shows that the groups seem to have taken liberties with the numbers. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fueleconomy.gov website lists the estimated yearly tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions for the 2019 Ford Expedition not matching the claims claimed by the protestors. According to Fueleconomy.gov, the 2019 Ford Expedition 2WD produces 7.5 tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions, and the 4WD version produces 7.8 tons per year.
The larger 2019 Ford Expedition Max 2WD produces 7.7 tons of carbon dioxide per year while the 4WD produces an estimated 8.2 tons. As for the weight of a T-rex, no one seems to have an exact number, but some sources estimate the weight for a T-rex at anywhere between 13 and 32 tons. Where the protest organizations obtained their numbers is anyone’s guess. The Sierra Club has used questionable numbers in its claims in the past, alleging that the Ford Model T had a fuel economy rating of 25 mpg. Ford disputed the Sierra Club’s fuel economy numbers, stating that the vehicle got somewhere in the vicinity of 13 to 21 mpg. The model didn’t undergo fuel economy testing in its day.
Meanwhile, President Trump is working on rolling back fuel economy standards enacted by the Obama administration. When announcing a review of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, the POTUS stated that the goal was to encourage automakers to build more of their cars in the United States.
Many automakers had expressed concern over the 54.5 mpg fleet-wide average imposed by the Obama administration, stating that it’s unfeasible when consumer buying trends for large SUVs and trucks were taken into account. The Obama-era standards forced many automakers to develop electric and hybrid cars to meet fleetwide standards, which few consumers are buying.
Whether the protestors achieved their goals is anyone’s guess… but we wonder why they didn’t also protest other automakers who product full-size SUVs similar to the Expedition, such as GM’s Chevrolet Tahoe/Suburban, GMC Yukon/Yukon XL, Toyota Sequoia and Land Cruiser, or the Nissan Armada.
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I’m all for ending a lot of the things Obama did, but let’s all stop and think here for a moment. Everyone is so up in arms about the fuel consumption and all of that stuff, but where do we really spend most of our resources when it comes to fuel? Ladies and gentlemen isn’t not commuter cars. heating and energy use up way more fossil fuels than cars do and also have major impacts on not only global warming but also affect water ecosystems and a lot of other things. Take a City like Philadelphia for instance (I use this city because I’m a Philly native) If that city were to take all of it’s commercial buildings, all of it’s street lights and all of its row homes (or any other flat top building) and convert it to solar & wind energy, think of how many thousands of dollars would be saved plus the large reduction of fossil fuel usage. Now, take that and multiply that just by all of the cities on the east coast and think of the money that would be saved. Another thing would be think of all of your large ships (cruise ships) and how much fuel it takes to fuel them. Now, think of a submarine. Submarines are nuclear powered vehicles and they can go long distances on their propulsion systems so why can’t all water vessels be nuclear powered? Electric commercial jets would also be another way reduce the carbon foot print we make on this planet.
Now if you want to focus on motorized road going vehicles, why not focus on commercial vehicles? Public transportation vehicles, freight vehicles, police vehicles, EMS vehicles and things like that. Those vehicles could seriously benefit from reduced fuel costs and would reduce the carbon levels put into the atmosphere.
I own and drive a 1923 Ford Model T Coupe and it gets 25 miles to the gallon, of regular 2019 gas!
Ran out of time to finish everything i was going to mention in the first comment but as I mentioned, the above suggestions would be a major way to reduce not only the consumption of fossil fuels but the emissions issues that come as a result of using them so heavily. Most cars, to date, are extremely efficient and produce a lot less pollution than they did say in the 80’s and 90’s. However, we’re hearing the same whining complaints that ended the muscle car era of the late 1960’s and early 70’s about pollution and all of that kind of stuff. Now I agree that yes we are destroying our planet with pollution but we’ve also reduced the number of oxygen giving plants that were the earth’s natural filtration devices so what did we all think was going to happen? Whatever the humanity population is on earth, you have that many people breathing all day every day yet we cut down more and more trees each and every second of the day. Instead of everyone attacking the auto industry (which i agree needs to be tweaked) why not attack the real problems, deforestation. We are a part of the natural balance of this planet and we have thrown everything off balance. Instead of making homes out of the same elements that help give us life, why not use something else. Synthetics, plastics, polymers, alloys, etc. All of the things we use for everything else that destroys the planet (my main focus there was plastic), why not use these things for housings and structures. how many new malls do we need when stores are going out of business due to online shopping? With so many abandoned buildings, homes, warehouses, etc across America alone, how many more homes need to be built? We waste everything which is why we as a planet have so many issues. People rally and riot at all of the wrong stuff and never really focus on the the real root of the problem. It’s not Donald Trump people, it’s us. We look for the easiest thing to blame instead of really getting to the root of the issues at hand. We need to work on our infrastructure, we need to work on a new way to build instead of always resorting to wood and fossil fuels. Yes wood is beautiful, it’s warm, its comforting, it feels good, why because it’s a living breathing thing and we have a personal connection to it because our breath comes from the very essence of the tree that we’ve cut down to make and beautify our homes but every time we do it, we might as well tie a string around our necks and pull it tighter with every felled tree. If we kill earth, we kill ourselves.
How did they get to the protest?