The high cost of cheap gas

While at the North American Summit the presidents of Mexico and the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada were striking a deal to lower greenhouse gas emissions, down on the ground where the rubber hits the road, American car buyers were marching to the beat of a far different drummer. Indeed, the concerns of the North American leaders and the choices of car buyers in the United States are not merely different: they are contradictory.

The clearest, although not the sole, evidence of this disconnect is the fact that (SUV), “the sports utility vehicle,” (an intentional misnomer since few SUV are ever driven on any surface except pavement) is back–big time.

American purchases of the gas-guzzling behemoths had been dropping for years, but not because of an outbreak of environmental consciousness. SUV sales decreased precipitously as gas prices soared and the economy sank during the big 2008 recession.

Now in 2016 when gas prices are much lower, SUV sales are back to the historically high levels they reached before the price of oil went through the ceiling and the economy went south.

The rift between American automobile buyers and their SUVs turned out to be a short-tern spat rather than a divorce, however. The love affair is now back on track. The consequences for curtailing global climate change are very negative.

More evidence of the move back to gasoline is that people trading in hybrid and electric cars are opting for gasoline-powered vehicles. As a percentage of all cars and trucks on the road in 2016, hybrid and electric cars represent between 2 and 3 percent of all vehicles, a pathetic figure and less than half what the Obama administration had projected for 2015.

Why are we moving in the wrong direction, and what is the allure of the SUV?

Theories that analyze behavior through concepts such as “economic man” (a term that betrays the pre-feminist vintage of the idea) and “rational choice theory,” would say that hybrid and electric cars are pricier than average, and with gas prices lower, buying a hybrid or electric car no longer makes economic sense. Lower fuel costs for the lifetime of the car and tax and other incentives available only to hybrid/electric automobile buyers don’t level the playing feel entirely, according to this thinking.

A recent study that looked at fifty major U.S. cities might bolster this perspective. It found that more than half the households in every single city cannot afford a new car at today’s average price. Even San Jose, California, at the center of Silicon Valley where high salaries prevail, came up slightly short. In low income cities like Hartford, Connecticut, the average family could not afford a new car even at a fourth of the median price.

This explanation sounds logical and even commonsensical but it falls short on a number of grounds. True, a huge swath of the middle class has less income today than a generation ago, and car prices have been rising steadily. You can even see the phenomenon as just one more sign of the decline of the American middle class dream—owning a home, having a steady full-time job with a pension at the end of the road, and buying a new car every few years.

But there are some major problems with this thesis, especially when you factor in the consequences for other drivers, not only deaths and injuries, and car damage but also interference with sightlines when making a turn, which can contribute to an accident. SUVs have a high center of gravity and are thus prone to devastating rollovers. As for guns, owning a gun positively makes a household less secure, contributing to fatal accidents, domestic dispute homicides, suicides, and gunfights in which the homeowner is the loser. Yet Americans continue to buy SUVs and guns in massive amounts. Why? For security. What’s reason got to do with it?

The biggest problem with the theory, as the foregoing illustrates, is that it ignores recent findings about economic behavior. Reason is seldom the main reasons people do or buy things. SUVs, for instance, provide an illusory security in an increasingly insecure world.

A shiny new SUV tells your neighbor you are doing pretty well at time of general middle class economic insecurity, even though you may be deep in debt.

Sitting high up there you feel superior to drivers of regular cars, even though you may have just had your hours at work cut, the CEO at your company makes 400 times more than you, and one of those small car drivers may be cruising in a Ferrari.

In your SUV you feel like you are driving a tank, less vulnerable in the road wars, able to take those new Fiats in any collision. The Humvee is the ultimate expression of this combat fantasy.

And everybody in America knows that bigger—a bigger country (Manifest Destiny), a bigger defense budget (bigger than that of the rest of the world combined), a bigger house, a bigger salary, a bigger car – is supposed to be better.

The irrationality of the current trend away from gas-sparing cars toward less efficient cars is even more evident when you look at the collective picture. About 18 percent of the greenhouse gases the U.S. emits come out of tailpipes. While international leaders at recent Summits in Canada and Paris are beginning to get serious about the threat of global climate change, Americans are in denial about the consequences of their individual choices.

That attitude bodes ill for the well-being of future generations. The writer Annie Proulx doesn’t overstate it by much when she calls global climate change not a game-changer but a game-ender. Will we continue to bury our heads in the sand while the Earth burns?