Help me Help you...buy a Prius

At least once a week someone asks me how I like the Prius. The same answer always rings out: "best investment I ever made." I fail to mention it happens to be the first significant investment I made, which puts me in a better position to make a drastic change in my carbon emissions than many of my fellow Americans.

Just last week a friend on my soccer team mentions he'd love to invest in a hybrid, but then points a condemning finger at his 14 mpg SUV across the parking lot, as if to say the old girl is dragging him down. With substantial savings and assuming his car is paid off, I say donate the thing to KPBS and take the tax write-off. But the former and latter assumptions go against the facts of what holds true for most of us. We have incurred debt, and are savings are dwindling.

As a two-pronged solution, I suggest our local or state governments offer larger incentives to consumers purchasing domestic hybrid cars or using public transportation. I purchased my Prius in 2007 and was offered a small tax write-off, but it was a temporary incentive and truthfully given only with prodding and lots of follow-through. Why not bigger tax breaks? Why not cash or trade-in value offered on existing vehicles? Why not interest rate cuts on current car payments to help make the transition? Common sense tells us this would bolster domestic production and revenues and also make a drastic impact on carbon emissions. Senator Kehoe, San Diego City Council, do you have a solution?

It remains clear hybrids and utilization of our decrepit public transportation system are short-term solutions. Full electric vehicles, drastic upheaval and expansion of public transportation are more long-term goals that no one takes seriously because the media channels are part of larger corporate franchises, who lobby side-by-side with the auto and energy industries to throw bulwark after bulwark in our way towards a safer, cleaner, world for our children. These corporations are made up of empty-smiling individuals that should recognize they're hurting their very own children, their very own families. Greed and vanity does you very little when you're alone and the world shuns you. Why don't we help realign these corrupt persons with universal moral values by restricting their run-away Hydean tendencies.

Sincerely,
Ryan J. Gordon