Green Party Propaganda

I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST MOTHER EARTH AND I BELIEVE THAT MOST "ENVIRONMENTALLY conscious" individuals have their heart in the right place. Like the Green Party supporters, I'm also down for clean air, clean water and an ozone layer in our atmosphere. Unlike the flock that believe Al Gore's convenient lie, I don't believe that taking us back to the Stone Age is the best way to save our planet.

Platform For Disaster

The current Green-party platform centers around reducing carbon emissions, a belief in global warming (now called climate change since we are starting a cooling trend) and building an international bureaucracy to regulate and enforce the taxing of those individuals, corporations or countries that produce carbon dioxide. While the existence of global warming is still under debate in the scientific community, some politicians have wasted little time in preying upon the "honorable nature" of man. No one wants to hurt or further pollute the environment, but the premise of global warming empowers politicians to tax even more. What will the taxes that we pay do for the environment? The majority of the money will be used to fund the bureaucracy that will police carbon emissions on a worldwide scale. Will this strategy do anything? It will create jobs for those that will be part of the bureaucracy. Will it help the environment? Probably not. The bulk of the taxes collected will just be used to fund the infrastructure, instead of cleaning the environment.

An Active Approach

When you made a mess as a kid, did your Mom say "That's OK, leave your mess. But, I'm going to cut your allowance, so make less of a mess next time"? Not me, I didn't have a cap-and-trade parent. My Mom said, "get those auto parts out of the living room and clean the oil from the carpet." I put my time and money (for the carpet cleaning) into cleaning up the mess. Imagine how the environment and Mother Earth would benefit if all the funding proposed for these Green initiatives were put into programs that would simply plant more trees, build facilities to scrub the air of carbon dioxide and secure and clean our water supplies.

Imagine if every driver in California put their bi-annual smog fees into a fund that restored nature? I'd be happy to pay twice the amount for a smog check, if I knew that the majority of the money was going into the fund that was making our planet a better place for you and me. This concept sounds so simple, but I've yet to see any politicians embrace this plan of action in dealing with Mother Earth.

No Place For Politics

I've been told by some, that a Publisher's Note in a performance automotive magazine is not the proper place to discuss politics. In a perfect world, I'd agree. However, when the effects of political movements infringe upon my right to make horsepower and influence the direction of auto makers, it gets my attention.

Fall From Grace

Honda has gone from a company focused on performance, to a company focused on cashing in on the Green scare. Honda abandoned its performance-enthusiast base in 2000 when its FWD offerings were no longer relevant and the 83-horsepower (70 gas/13 electric) Insight became the company's flagship. Almost perfectly coinciding with the release of the second-generation Insight, Honda's last vestige of performance faded with the end to the NSX and S2000 production lines. The company that delivered the all-mighty VTEC to the performance world has forgotten, or some might even say, forsaken us. While some hard-core Honda disciples will wait and pray for the second coming of Honda performance, my advice is to enjoy the great Hondas of the past, as there may never be a new Honda that earns the title of performance car.



Michael Ferrara