Well certainly the buzzword "green" rang in your ears quite a bit during this past year but how are the prospects for the Green Economy as we head into this new year of 2009? With falling prices at the pump has the urgency to switch to a greener economy we heard about during the political season last year slowed or even worse stopped? I found this nice article online that discusses that very point... Enjoy and be sure to check back with us here at LaunchpadGreen.com and comment. Hope your new year is getting of to a great start!
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I just had a discussion with a colleague concerning the comparison of train ticket cost and car cost. She said, that train tickets are way too expensive in comparison with cars - if train tickets were cheaper, more people might switch to this greener means of transportation. I replied that it only seems so, because car users normally deceive themselves when calculating their costs. Yes, they count the gasolene spendings. Yes, most of them count the tax and insurance cost. Yes, some of them even count the maintenance and repair costs that they face from time to time. But, none of them counts the devaluation of cars, which is actually a tremendous amount. Look at how much the price of a newly bought decreases within one year. If you own a car, you'll lose money, if you don't use it! If people took this into consideration, then the gasolene price would arouse a little less discussion and more people might get convinced of a greener way of living...
ReplyDelete(All of my above words are based on my experiences as a German. Not sure, if train-ticket fares, car insurance and taxes and their relations to each other are comparable with the situation in the USA. The gasolene price is rather not comparable...)