Here’s the issue we have with “green” commercials like this one from TBWAChiatDay for the Nissan Leaf: they make no sense. In this commercial, a world is envisioned in which everything is powered by a gasoline engine. Except at the end when Robert Downey Jr. wonders what it would be like if everything didn’t because we call drove a Nissan Leaf.
Uh, where the hell do people think the energy comes from to generate the electricity needed to charge the Nissan LEAF’s batteries? Currently, mostly fossil fuels which power the electric plants. have you seen an electric plant? They have smokestacks. Which emit fumes. Which harm the atmosphere.
Now, granted if every vehicle on the road were electric, that would likely cut down on pollution and ill effects on the environment. But if every car were electric, one can also assume there would need to be more electricity generated – and more power plants with smokestacks – to charge all these electrical vehicles.
Sure, there’s solar and hydro and nuclear and wind. But right now, we run mostly on oil. Or coal. And that’s a dirty process. Just because the front end (an electric car that emits no exhaust) is pretty doesn’t mean the back end (where the electricity comes from) isn’t just as dirty as it’s always been.
