A Little Holiday Environmental Misogyny

Headline: Chicks Can’t Drive

Subhed: Also, Chicks Are Crazy.  Maybe It’s Their Time Of The Month?

In all seriousness…I did click over to the Indy for a brief period yesterday, and I was severely disappointed to see that they’re doing a great deal of work and pub declaring that they’ve switched to using ethanol-based fuels to run the Indy 500.

This is, of course, a highly questionable decision, when you consider the fact that the environmental benefits of ethanol are questionable, at best, while it is completely accepted that increased use and production of food-based ethanol drives up food prices, increasing starvation in Third World countries.

I don’t know why I should be disappointed, really.  Should I expect an event which is dedicated to the proposition of driving a car as fast as humanly possible to be environmentally conscious?  Should I, instead, be happy that such an event is even trying to put a minor sheen of environmental consciousness on themselves?  The problem I have, which is really the problem I have with ethanol altogether, is that it really is not a way of improving our environmental footprint.  At best, it seems to be a way of decreasing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, while doing the same harm environmentally.  Only, driving a flex fuel vehicle makes people feel like they are doing something for the environment, which might well reduce their urge to take other, more concrete steps to conserve energy.

So, on balance, I consider this fact to be yet another reason to detest and belittle the fact that we consider the act of driving a car 500 miles in a circle to be a sport.

It’s still better than hockey, of course, but that’s really not setting the bar very high…