Opinion: Gas It Up!

There I was, minding my own business. All I was doing was putting gas – the good stuff – in a jet black Audi RS4 that I had for the week. I’m looking around as the pump’s best breeds new life back into my 420 horsepower mount. At a pump across the way, in pulls a – to put it mildly – colorfully painted Smart car, with an equally colorful young lad inside. I have to stare as I believe his sort of leathery, suede looking jacket thingy matches his car! Wait, it gets better.

He’s sporting spiked hair, nose ring, bold sunglasses and white disco boots. Yep, it was a sight to behold. I looked at him, he looked back at me. He didn’t look too happy, but hey, if I looked like that I’d probably spend more time at home than out in public. Anyway, he was done way before me, and he started ’strutting’ in my direction on his way to the cashier – we were still looking at each other. Trust me. I was doing my best to keep a straight face.

In a fairly high pitched, flamboyant voice he said, not directly at me, but within earshot, “Well ….someone doesn’t care about the environment!”

At this point I had to think quickly so I could deliver the proper response. I wrestled with a few options. “Dude, Gay Pride was last week?” Uh, maybe not. I settled on, “Hey, I had a jacket just like that …until I got a job.”

He gave me the one finger salute and off he went.

I thought about that little incident for some time, and the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got (caution: rant coming!)

I think the green thing has gone a little too far. I think it’s more of a fad than anything. Even the scientists can’t agree on it. Some say global warming, some say it’s just the earth’s cycle. The government plays lip service to it. They came up with a change to new light bulbs to save energy. If they were really serious, they’d turf all those families of four that live in 10,000 square foot houses, and mandate we all get one room per person in big hi-rise apartments. Heating and cooling of buildings uses way more energy than the gas we put in cars. Why not start there?

The other popular argument is that we all should conserve to make the world a better place for our kids. I got news for you, I’m someone’s kid – so are you. What happened to all the conserving they did to make it better for us?

Everyone picks on the automotive industry as the main culprit. We, with our SUVs and sports cars bear the brunt of the blame for some reason.

Listen, China is building coal plants at an alarming rate, which will harm the environment way more than if we all had SUVs and left them running all day long.
Now I have some little puke at a gas station playing god. Here’s my message to him and the rest of his kind. Piss off!

This is the way this works. Cars use gas. We buy that gas at the station. Once I have bought it, I own it. It is mine, yes, all mine … how I choose to get rid of it is nobody’s business but mine. If I want to run it through a 400 plus horsepower engine so I can enjoy what I have just spent my hard earned money on – that’s my choice, not yours.
If I use more gas than the next guy, so what! If I want to get rid of that gas by taking a drive in the country instead of just using it to go back and forth to work, that’s my choice.

We get picked on because of the cars we drive. It’s kind of our public face in a way. You drive a hybrid, so therefore you’re a good conscientious helper of the planet. You drive an SUV or sports car, you’re no better than a criminal – you’re killing the planet.

It’s like judging a book by its cover, it doesn’t work. Suppose the guy in the hybrid drives home to his monster 10 bedroom mansion (Al Gore comes to mind – Ed), while the sports car guy drives home to his one bedroom apartment. Who’s got the bigger – and I’ll put it in your terms – environmental footprint now. Who’s really the earth killing criminal?

Let’s just leave the automotive industry out of this argument for awhile, and the Canadians that choose to drive what they want, and what they can afford. They aren’t the real earth killers – we’re just people who like to drive great cars.

If you want to discuss this further … I’m at the gas station a lot.