One of man’s many last ditch efforts to save the earth

Hybrids are fascinating things. They say it’s a car, but I see it as more of a ‘promise’ rather than anything else. A promise of a better tomorrow, a promise that baby squirrels will not be evicted, and a promise that in buying one, you’ll be doing your part in helping to accomplish these things.

But all isn’t well in hybrid land. The big concern over developing such fascinating things is that our world is still slowly dying, and with it its resources of which we use to sustain a happy life on earth. This is all fair and well but for some reason, I can’t help but question the means here. Popular culture will tell you that, yes, the world is dying and we need to do our part. But how much has popular culture ever known about anything anyways?

In the company of a couple of pints, I thought to myself, is the world really on the verge of its own extinction? Status quo dictates that when fossil fuels run out and the climate reaches a point of no return, yes, we’ll all die. But I think I know the world to be a little more resilient than that.

I know that we’ve survived some really bad times and yet come out on top of things as we only seem to know how. Terrorism, world wars, natural disasters, the mullet, we’ve survived it all.

I also know that apart from mankind’s aid, the world is very capable of healing itself better than any man knows how to. Oceans absorb greenhouse gasses faster than you can think, endangered species have an innate ability to reproduce and rebound, and the earth is very capable of creating its own ozone layer if and when it is needed.

And then there’s the Prius. One of man’s many last ditch efforts to save the earth.

Again, hybrids are fascinating things. The very way it functions and its promise is more or less the reason you or your friends might buy one. But I find all this a little deceiving and confusing. First of what they’ll tell you about Hybrid cars is that it runs on an electric motor – which of course is a good thing in these dark times.

“The gas engine on the Toyota Prius does not run at all when you are driving around town. This is what they tell you.”

This is what they tell you. But if you like me aren’t a maniacal motorist, you’d know that “around town” speeds rarely ever exceed 50 Km/h. So what happens after 51 Km/h?

The fact is that, there’s also a regular engine much like the one in a regular car. But why would anyone need two engines? Confused? Better not be, or you might end up with a Prius.

It has a petrol engine and an electronic motor because to drive using the electronic motor, you must first charge the batteries through the running of your regular petrol engine. Only then can you use the electronic motor, which happens to switch back to using its regular petrol engine at speeds higher than 51km/h or so, or when the batteries go flat again.

The highlight of the hybrid car is that it produces no worse than the air over a field of rapidly growing vegetation through its exhaust pipes at the cost of a whole lot less fuel. This I’m afraid, isn’t enough. Mainly because hybrid cars still need fuel to run, fuel that we’re rapidly running out of – another very questionable theory of which should be in discussion in the near future. Anyways…

The mechanics and promise of the Prius is usually the part we get taken away with because it sounds very much like the real deal. But it isn’t. It’s just silicone substitute for the real fix. It is very likely that the next real fix isn’t found in a dealership just yet, but can instead be found in places like your kitchen, a nearby river or lake, in the air we breathe and everywhere in between. This is hydrogen.

Hydrogen fuel cells, the next likely fuel source, isn’t the cheapest thing to mass produce just yet despite its abundance. But it also wasn’t the cheapest thing to send a man to the moon. It wasn’t the cheapest thing to split the atom, and god knows it wasn’t the cheapest or easiest thing to develop the new Ferrari 458 Italia or the new McLaren MP4-12c. It isn’t very likely that the fuel cell is going to be the worst or hardest thing we’ve done so far.

In developing such vehicles and its necessary fuel cells for mass usage, of course we’d also be depleting another of earth’s resources – water. Yes, but this might be a resource we could use a little less of. Here’s Alan Caruba’s explanation of this:

“The most active element of the atmosphere is the 95% of water vapor that forms a protective layer around the Earth.

“The science involved is fairly simple. Clouds have a warming effect because, in order for water vapor to condense back into water droplets, the water molecules must first re-emit the energy they absorbed to become vapor. That latent heat causes the local environment to feel warmer. It is this constant interchange that determines whether wherever you’re at right now is warmer or cooler”

The highlight of the hybrid car is then that it produces the same air over a field of rapidly growing vegetation through its exhausts at the cost of a whole lot less fuel. This I’m afraid, isn’t enough. Mainly because hybrid cars still need fuel to run. Fuel that we’re rapidly running out of – another very questionable theory of which should be in discussion in the near future.

Environment-friendlies will tell you that you should buy a hybrid because you’d be doing baby squirrels a favour in sustaining their habitats while Toyota will tell you to buy a Prius because they know you have money and that you’re gullible.

I’d personally rather stay and environment-acquaintance for the time being.

My new respect for Kleinman

In catching up on my education of the wildlife – well it is earth day after all – , I stumbled upon an article on the internets about Honey Badgers. Undoubtedly the most fascinating creatures I’ve ever read of. I came across a paragraph in the article on what would later appear to me as a typical day of awesomeness in the life of a Honey Badger. It read:

“In a 2002 National Geographic documentary titled “Snake killers: Honey badgers of the Kalahari”, a badger named Kleinman was documented stealing a meal out of a puff adder’s mouth and casually eating the meal in front of the hissing snake.

“After the meal, Kleinman began to hunt the puff adder, the species being one of the badger’s preferred venomous snakes. He managed to kill the snake and began eating it, but then collapsed on the dead snake as he had been bitten during the struggle.

“After about two hours he surprisingly awoke. Once his paralysis had subsided, the badger continued with his meal and then resumed his journey.”

I’ve never, ever, come across a piece of literature so agonizingly terrifying yet so brilliantly hilarious all at once. Honey Badgers gave garnered a new respect from me that’s for sure.

Life isn’t all that short

I’ve recently been denied. And like all things human and scum, here I am returning to my roots. Yes, it’s been almost a year now since my last post and I think it’s time to fire up this ship again. Hopefully on a more regular basis this time around, because I have a schedule now and schedules permit organization, which in turn allows for repetition, as I’ve recently discovered.

That aside, here’s a thought. I spent an evening over red wine with a lady friend who after a glass kept on insisting that life was too short and that we should make the most of it while we still could. And I, after waking up the next morning with a fork in my head for a headache, couldn’t agree to disagree any more.

Life isn’t all that short if we’re being honest. I can barely remember the last time I cut my hair, let alone what I had for dinner last night. I can’t remember what my favourite pants were a year ago and I seem to have lost any and all recollection of what my first date with a real person was like.

And in looking forward, the day’s end seems miles away while the working week an eternity.

Maybe all this entails a moldy memory of a person aging, but insight tells me that there’s a slight chance that some of these may have clicked with you as well. We just can’t remember that far back sometimes, well because it’s often too long ago.

Unless of course it’s of certain significance, like your wedding or the birth of your first child. You remember these things because you burn it into your skull that this happened on that date. Even still, some of us tend to forget, but that’s just because you’re possibly the penis-bearing sort.

The point I’m trying to poke at here is that life isn’t all that short. It’s quite sufficient actually. You’re born, you spend years doing absolutely nothing but playing in the sun or wherever’s fun. Then you go to school to have more fun, then college for completely, unrestricted fun, and then you go to work.

In hindsight however, life isn’t all that long either. It is long enough for one to enjoy an entire life spent forgetting every inch of what you recall and looking forward to your next memory to fill it with.

One theory is that, life’s only short when you’re caught up doing something that’s utterly useless to your existence. Like being in real-estate when all you really want to do is drive fast cars.

A second theory suggests that in being human, ‘enough’ is never enough. We’re fussy. We complain. We always want more. We’re unappreciative of what we’ve had and have and therefore left feeling like we didn’t have it at all. Greedy sons of bitches are what we are.

Personally, I believe life is long. Presumably, this means I get to do what I want. I’m a sports writer, particularly able in the field of Formula One and motoring in general. I wish to be a full-blown Formula One or motoring journalist one day. Maybe it’ll happen, and maybe it won’t. I hear Prime Ministers get paid pretty well in this country too.

The point I’m trying to make I guess is that time is precious yet plentiful. Do with it what you can while you can and maybe you’ll get by till the next Friday come around.