switching to a hybrid makes little sense for me

I own the car I’ve dreamed about owning since I was a teenager (and that was a few centuries ago): a Mustang convertible. Gas guzzler, polluter, all those thoughts just ran though your head, right?

So, finally I get it all paid off last year and in the same year I start getting the guilts about the environmental impact it’s having.

There are lots of alternative, “environmentally healthy” cars to choose from.

Go green, “they” say.

But here’s the thing. The two things, actually.

1. My car is paid for, and I’d have to add a minimum of $20,000 to what I’d get if I sold it in order to purchase one of the alternatives (one that meets my needs in terms of size and features). So “going environmental” is going to cost me a lot of money. Guilt money, I suppose you’d call it. Money I can’t afford.

But now to the more important point. And in everything I’ve read (a lot), nobody in the media has ever mentioned this, so call me THE FIRST. I hope more people start to get this, and soon:

2. If I sell my car and get an environmentally correct alternative, I’m NOT helping the environment because…

2.1….I’d be encouraging car makers to make yet another car, and car-making adds to negative environmental impact;

and

2.2….after I sell my gas-guzzling, pollution-emitting dream-car, it’s still going to be guzzling gas and emitting stuff! Somebody else will be driving it around!

A change of ownership changes nothing, in terms of the environment. 

So I’m going to save the environment at the level I’m capable of and keep my car. I’m not going to buy an alternative until my current car is ready for the junk heap. In which case, it will still add negatively to the environment by adding to the pile of dead cars. It won’t be biodegrading. But then, neither will all those hybrids and electrics that the car manufacturers are busy pumping out from their assembly lines.

Instead, I’ll drive less, walk more, and keep my dream-car, ok? I’ll actually be “saving the environment” more than all those people out there who have become victims of the media harangue, have sold their politically incorrect cars to somebody else who’ll drive around and pollute, and have assuaged their guilt while lining the pockets of new-car manufacturers.