With the Oil crisis going on these days and the advent of the Crossover Utility Vehicle, it seems the Hummer has all but disappeared from the American landscape within the last 30 months. Not surprising, considering it was meant to be a military vehicle designed to replace the Willy's Jeep, but turned into a monstrous thing, overweight and more akin to the Duece and a half rather than the beloved Willy's which was small, lightweight, easy to transport, rugged and reliable, and, above all cheap as hell.
I've got three friends, all civilian, whom keep their H2s in the garage and think they'll soon be back in vogue (just give the whackos a couple years to settle down). While I didn't believe it at the time, their arguments have actually held merit this year. While the Honda Fit and Toyota Prius were getting buried in early and "unseasonal" cold weather North of my loved Mason-Dixon line, these guys have broken their mammoth 4x4s out of mothballs, chased the mini-critters out of the nooks and crannies, dusted off the interiors and once again taken the highways and asphalt jungles as kings of their respective roads. This brings me back to my original thought: What happened to Hummer? Last I heard, it was bought out by a Chinese company bent on extensively retooling said and releasing a more environmentally and eco-adjustable vehicle made, by my estimation, of recycled toilet paper tubes and the crap that comes out of chipper/shredders. I ask you, what could be more environmentally-friendly than a vehicle made mostly of steel? It's easily recycled and if one worries about pollution, just outfit it with BMWs latent diesel that produces emissions the equvalent of a squirrel fart on a warm autumn morning. I've also perused an article released by Time magazine concerning housepets and carbon footprints. Do you guys know Ol' Rover, given the amount of red meat they consume within a given year, releases enough waste to make a Chevy Suburban look like a skateboard? Two large dogs, Rottweiler-class, consume and emit more pollution than a Jeep Grand Cherokee (4x4) running at full blast and turning 25k miles per calendar year. This according to Eco-Watch.com and related tree-hugging websites. It seems our pets are now under fire for the simple act of breathing and living. Eating red meat is a sin again and contributing to the livestock industry in the USA is killing the planet. Then again, according to LiveScience.com, large-bodied ungulates (cows, horses, deer, elk, moose, antelope, bison, buffalo and the like) put off enough CO2 to equal a full-size pickup truck or related SUV running at idle for two years. Next time we go hunting, we might want to aim at a Chevy Avalanche, Cadillac Escalade or Ford Expedition instead of a muley or whitetail. How one pares meat off that is conjecture, but at least it'll be the same thing. Odd thing about the entire CO2 debate is: plants feed off carbon dioxide, the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the bigger plants become and more healthy. Ungulates feeding off these plants become bigger and healthier, hunters eating these animals cull their numbers by reducing the largest members of species in each group. Reduction of plant-eating animals enables plants to flourish even more, thereby releasing more oxygen into the atmosphere which animals (namely us) need desperately to live. Conclusion: Doesn't the whole argument of excessive carbon become moot in the face of the necessary circle of life which we are only contributing to rather than some claim we work so hard to continue destroying? Recent measurements of the active and soon-to-be-erupting volcano in the Phillipines has already shown man's contribution to atmospheric carbon pales next to the Earth's own. This particular venting has already been shown to throw more pollution in the air than China, all of Europe, the United States, Japan and the Middle East within a 20 yr. period. I'm not making this one up, guys, look it up.
This whole thing DOES, however, bring me back to my original thought. What happened to the Hummer? I know it was annoying as f**k to see some jerk-off or overzealous soccer mom tossing their weight around with one of these things, but they had their place. Bet those Euros freezing their asses off now wish they had one. What say you?
