SUVs are more green than mass transit?

Hey, all you moms out there who drive SUV’s instead of buses or trains. Guess what? If anyone ever tried to make you feel guilty for driving your SUV, you can now tell them you’re behaving more environmentally friendly than those moms who take buses or trains. Personally, I was never that concerned about “saving the planet” because I really know global warming is all a bunch of hooey. But I know that there are moms out there who don’t see it that way, although the science says otherwise. From AFP via Breitbart:

You worry a lot about the environment and do everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint — the emissions of greenhouse gases that drive dangerous climate change.
So you always prefer to take the train or the bus rather than a plane, and avoid using a car whenever you can, faithful to the belief that this inflicts less harm to the planet.

Well, there could be a nasty surprise in store for you, for taking public transport may not be as green as you automatically think, says a new US study.

Its authors point out an array of factors that are often unknown to the public.

These are hidden or displaced emissions that ramp up the simple “tailpipe” tally, which is based on how much carbon is spewed out by the fossil fuels used to make a trip.

Environmental engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath at the University of California at Davis say that when these costs are included, a more complex and challenging picture emerges.

In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city — even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups — rather than take a suburban train. It depends on seat occupancy and the underlying carbon cost of the mode of transport.

Don’t feel guilty any more, SUV driving moms.