Inflation Saves Fuel!
Some 85 percent of American drivers don't check their tire pressure enough, or correctly, according to the Rubber Manufacturers Association. And underinflated tires waste fuel while degrading safety. Americans keep their cars better washed and oiled than they keep them inflated.
Assuming U.S. averages apply to Cascadia, we northwesterners could trim our gasoline consumption by more than 3 percent just by pumping up regularly. And even if that figure overstates by a factor of two, we could still save $1 million on gasoline every 36 hours.
Did you know that the correct tire pressure is NOT printed on the sidewall? I didn't. Tips are here.
(Thanks to Matt Schoellhamer for this post.)
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Poor Health
Diverging health trends in BC and the Northwest states is one of the most striking findings of the Cascadia Scorecard's lifespan indicator. A new study reported in the Globe and Mail helps to explain the differences. (Summary here. Full report here.)
Although affluent Canadians and Americans enjoy similar good health, American health patterns are far more polarized. Low-income Canadians are much healthier than low-income Americans. They have better access to medical care and suffer less obesity.
Feebates in Canada?
The Canadian federal government is going through its process of figuring out how to boost fuel economy, to comply with the nation's Kyoto obligations. Unfortunately, gas tax increases are out. But gas-guzzler taxes, tax credits for hybrids, and-best of all-a comprehensive system of feebates are still on the table, as the Globe and Mail reports. It's a very encouraging development.
Feebates (fees imposed on the sale of inefficient vehicles that finance rebates on the sales of efficient ones) are among the best ideas around for boosting fuel economy (and the efficiency of appliances and other resource-consuming equipment). (We explained feebates in our 2001 book (see excerpt) and in this op-ed.) Yet so far, feebates been adopted in few places.
BC studied feebates in 2001, before the change to the Liberal government there swept away all previous policy development work. In fact, BC created one of the best policy papers on the subject to date. (It's no longer available to the public from the BC government, but we've got a pdf if you're interested.) Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney also pledged to implement feebates during his election campaign.
