Socially Irresponsible in Your SUV?

As more and more people begin to accept and recognize that Global Warming is a clear and present danger, people driving SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) are going to be regarded as socially irresponsible, and that their personal choice is effecting all of us.

Smoking is banned in nearly every public building, because the majority decided that people's personal choice to pollute their lungs shouldn't be tolerated by those who don't. New York City banned trans fats in an effort to keep its citizens healthier. Yet they allow Humvees, Escalades, Suburbans and the like to sit in traffic getting about eight miles per gallon or less.

With Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" out on DVD the message about Global Warming is being heard. It seems like every day someone mentions it around me. Suvs have been hit by what are called eco-terrorists all over this country. Some have simply put stickers on them saying things like: Gas Hog, You're the Reason We're in Iraq, Polluter, but others have keyed the paint job or lit them on fire. Some people need a big vehicle, they have a camper to pull or they haul wood, but there are thousands driving these gas guzzling machines simply because they can, because they feel cool, or that it confirms their status.

The Sierra Club had on their website that an SUV that got thirteen miles per gallon would in one year waste more energy than: leaving the refrigerator door open for six years; leaving a bathroom light burning for thirty years or leaving a color TV turned on for twenty-eight years. Can you imagine going into someone's house and seeing that they left their refrigerator open for hours at a time? We'd say something like hey, you're wasting energy shut that. With the effects of Global Warming becoming more evident, hurricanes more frequent and powerful, record breaking heat waves, drought, flooding, polar bears drowning; a lot of people are going to start making SUV drivers feel like people who wear fur. Will someone throw paint on me if I go out in this today? We'll start questioning the intelligence of SUV drivers, do they just not know better, or are they like nurses that smoke?