Green Jersey

Good riddance, ‘Cash for Clunkers’

Crushed cars image via istockphoto.com.

The Cash for Clunkers rebate program offered by the federal government is scheduled to end Monday, but memories of its wastefulness and short-sightedness are sure to last. (Memories of its poor execution will last too, from what we’ve read, but we’re less concerned with those.)

The short-lived Car Allowance Rebate System, an auto-industry stimulus in green clothing, resulted in hundreds of thousands of working cars being killed so their owners could buy cars that, in some cases, got only marginally better gas mileage. One billion dollars was promised at the start, but by the end, $3 billion was allocated.

There was no incentive for people to consider changing their transportation habits: No reward to give up a clunker for a train pass or bicycle. It didn’t matter how many miles you’d driven your car, or how old it was.

The clunkers wouldn’t be sent to poor Americans who could really use them, but killed with a dose of sodium silicate. Then, they might be picked apart for parts, or just crushed and shredded.

So, the emissions involved in scrapping of all these junked cars — and in producing new ones moving forward — helps global warming how?

We know this program did help some people who really needed a car and maybe couldn’t afford one otherwise. We’re also well aware of the struggles of the auto industry here, though companies should have innovated and greened long ago.

The program will save oil and carbon emissions  — most people bought new cars with substantially better gas mileage (even good gas mileage, by American standards). The Toyota Prius was the fourth-most-purchased new car through the program, according to the blog Jalopnik, and other small and decent fuel-economy vehicles rounded out the top 10.

Still, climatologists and environmentalists interviewed for news stories seem wildly unimpressed, some declaring the overall emissions savings — described in one article as a country-wide shutdown for an hour or two a year — a blip.

We’re disappointed that the Obama administration engaged in what feels like greenwashing — trade in a car with lousy gas mileage for one that’s better, and we’ll pay you, and you’ll help the planet. Any program that results in the wholesale trashing and trading of merchandise rather than a careful approach the problem of people’s reliance on gas and cars — one that is not going anywhere — is not green.

Already more than 430,000 clunker deals have been made nationwide. That’s a lot of metal, plastic, rubber and old tape decks.

So, as people continue to walk around the Morristown Green, or cross a street in Bloomfield, or bike through Princeton, or run to Penn Station in Newark, they will continue to breathe in exhaust from a public that was just paid to keep on driving. We need a more stable and forward-thinking solution for the auto industry — and the environment.