Cash For Clunkers: A Green Flunker

Our science community has been busily putting pen to paper and has been able to calculate the "green" impact of the soon-to-be $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program. In general, it is believed that the program will save about "one hour's worth" of all the CO2 output of this entire country over one year's time; or, about 700,000 tons of CO2 (Click to See Full Story).

To put this into perspective, there are 8,760 hours in every non-leap-year year. Our population grows by about 2 percent per year, and, therefore, it is safe to assume that our carbon output grows by the equivalent of 175 hours each year. In comparison to the mere hour of carbon savings from the Cash For Clunkers Program, our population growth will completely offset that savings in just 2 days. Further, think about how futile the Cash For Clunkers program is in terms of the sheer population growth in both China and India. Combined they have 8 times our population and are growing twice as fast as we are in terms of their per capita carbon output. Therefore, when looking at the mammoth and overall task of saving our planet from CO2, the carbon savings of the Cash For Clunkers is nothing "less" than infinitesimal.

The only thing that "Clunkers" did is continue to bury us in debt and create another government welfare program for a bunch of car buyers who were probably going to replace their cars anyway.