People in Santa Monica, California and Greenwich, Connecticut--you know, the trendy people who look down their noses at truck- and SUV-driving driving middle America-- aren't going to be happy with a newspaper commentary which begins:
The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.
So states Chris Demorro, a Staff Writer at the Central Connecticut State University Recorder Online (to add insult to injury insofar as the environmentalist movement is concerned, the Recorder Online is based in academia, where the "progressive" thinkers reside). Mr. Demorro goes on to write:
Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
Yet another shattered shibboleth thus emerges. The complete commentary is to be found at http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188