Looking for legal charity, dedicated to radical enviromental regulations re: car mpg in particular

In My Humble Opinion
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Dear Dopers,

I am looking for a completely legal charity that supports specifically these radical policies: Forcing transitions to hybrids until something better comes along, and then forcing the transition to something better as soon as it’s affordable. I’d also want to see a tax incentive for lower gas use, tax breaks for buying high mpg vehicles, and tax breaks or penalties depending on the increase or loss of mpg when trading cars.

In a long life, I have never done any real charitable giving, mostly because I was poor and a miser. I am no longer poor, and I feel I need to work on the miser part of myself although I expect my success there to be limited at some point as I really enjoy being cheap. As a result I intend to do some charitable giving (something I have decided I’m not entitled to be ‘cheap’ on much like the people I love) on a regular basis, and look for some charities I can include in my will. This subject is where I have decided to start but later on I’ll probably be asking advice on these boards about other weird projects I want to support.

I want to emphasize that no one is obligated to respond, but I would appreciate not only help but contrary opinions to the things I am supporting. I want intelligent people to argue against my objectives because I fancy myself a rational person. As I see it, A rational person wants to see their beliefs heavily criticized so that they can gain greater insight and change them if they are wrong. I want honest opinions, and my personal philosophy is that you never have any right to get angry about any opinion you ask others about, especially the ones that piss you off. After all, YOU are the one who asked the question. I will show that first and foremost by being polite to those who respond, even if they want to tell me I’m an idiot and make vicious personal attacks. As a matter of fact, I would urge any administrator reading this that my personal preference would be that no measures designed to stop or mark ‘flaming’ in any way be imposed, and that no comment made here be used to judge any of the commentators under ANY circumstances particularly in regard to any judgment about their behavior now or in the future.

Concerning myself; I have to confess up front that the word stubborn is frankly a kind description of me, but I am very polite. I am also a deeply cynical and bitter person but as I said, I’m polite, I reserve nastiness for emergencies only or at least that is my intention. I also want everyone to know that I don’t expect this to succeed, but it’s what I think needs to be done even if nobody but me agrees. I’m willing to give away my money to support this even if there is little chance of it happening because of the importance I attach to it. I think even if I fail I will consider it money well spent. Many people (including the ones who are most likely to give me helpful suggestions) will consider me an environmentalist based on the issue I have chosen for my first charitable donations. I want to emphasize that I do not consider myself an “Environmentalist” personally. My goal is to be a person devoted to rationality, and in my judgment the current state of the environment is dire. That is what motivates me on this issue. That and the fact that I test drove a Toyota Prius hybrid today and it turns out that one of the best mpg vehicles made, costs a pittance compared to most cars is a dream to drive and does everything gas hogs do except things that actually REQUIRE heavy vehicles like; emergency services including the Firemen, Cops or Military, cargo, towing, passenger capacity, or big rigs used to keep our supply of vital necessities flowing. Even in these cases every possible transition to better mpg technology needs to be encouraged and mandated by somebody, and the government seems most likely to have the power to do so. At the very least the argument for better mpg vehicles for all government transportation that doesn’t require a gas hog seems unassailable to me as it would save those of us who pay our taxes a fortune while promoting the public good and without any real sacrifice (did I mention that hybrids are a dream to drive AND save you a fortune even without tax breaks?).

Another motivating factor was a conservative republican U.S. Senator who posed the question: “What if you want to drive a gas hog? Don’t you have the right to drive a gas hog any more if you want?” My response to that was instant and intense. “No you moron, if you carried around your own personal little bubble of atmosphere I’d be more than happy to let YOU drive a gas hog. However considering that the rest of us, including your family, have to live in the same overall environment and breathe the air we all share, while living with pollution from cars including the non-atmospheric pollution, and we would like to avoid destroying all life on earth, particularly ourselves the answer is “&#@% NO”! This means that nobody has a right to drive a gas hog except where they are a vital necessity. Necessary means things like Fire, Police and Military vehicles, it does not mean whatever they chauffeur U.S. Senators in by the way you horse’s ass!”

There will be many conventional parts of the Environmental movement I will endorse, but personally I believe the answers to the immeasurable hole the human race has dug for itself on the environment require both science and active, intelligent human intervention, and I believe that technology is vital to all of that, and to the survival of the human race as a whole. Based on my casual research so far, that attitude isn’t very popular in the environmental movement and they are more inclined to the Luddite school of thought. As for my other bizarre beliefs, you can mostly see them in my posting name, and the very limited material I confess to in my profile. I am willing to compromise my other principles to a limited extent to endorse these particular radical policies and get them implemented, but I would prefer to keep the conflict with my other beliefs as minimal as possible.

So I ask politely, can anyone help me with my goal of finding a charity that supports what I think is vitally important? I would like to thank anyone who read this very long post (even if they have nothing to say on the subject), it was kind of you and I am in your debt.

Thanks,
AllFree

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The OP is looking for informed opinions, so let’s kick this over to IMHO.

samclem Moderator, General Questions.

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I don’t want to be guilty of ‘bumping’ to get a response but I’m surpised not even one person had an opinion for me. I need help folks, I can try to find a charity on my own, but having never donated money before I don’t really know where to start.

Please help if you can,
AllFree

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Since you were open to others challenging your assertions, I’ll give you a little food for thought.

I’m all for people donating to charities that further causes that one believes in, whether or not, as you said yourself, there is any prayer of the agenda catching on and becoming mainstream. Kudos to you for following your convictions. That’s what gives our lives meaning.

The means to your desired end, however (I quoted what I thought was a relevant portion above), many people take issue with.

Keeping it very simple, I will only point out that when the government “mandates” that private industry do anything, there are often unintended and undesirable consequences. Generally the more hamfisted, blunt, and brute force methods the government uses, the more undesirable the consequences – so much so that often the opposite effect is achieved.

I’ll leave it at that, but just keep in mind that while your may be noble, it is very seldom a wise solution to “make” private entities do things that there aren’t existing market incentives for.

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Politically I’m a libertarian. I would dissolve most of the government. If only at least some of you were SANE. I do in fact want to "make’ everyone do a hell of a lot of things that I consider the only hope for the human race, but you all outnumber me 6.8 billion to one. There may be a few people in the world who are AS outnumbered as me, but nobody can do better than a tie.

I feel things are so bad at this point that you can never get a majority, not even a significant minority to agree to do what is not just necessary but requires immediate frantic effort. I’m making a cynical bet that the people who control the The Military, the goverment, has powerful control over the economy (mostly through the criminal practice of taxation) and in general have their hands on every single lever of power, might possibly have the ability to get done what needs doing. I am about as blackly pessimistic and cynical as you can imagine. I think we have passed critical mass on human extinction on multiple fronts already. I don’t even know if they ran the world as a police state (a fate probably worse than extinction) if they could make up for all the time they have wasted.

For myself the question that I really wonder about is if what we are going to bring down on ourselves is repeated everywhere in the universe that intelligence arises. Every single year that SETI doesn’t hear from a sentient species, I get more and more worried and cynical.

The changes in transportation I want to advocate may sound pie-in-the-sky to everyone, but to my way of thinking it’s a pathetic half measure that won’t make enough of a difference. We are about 5 generations behind where we should be in terms of low emissions vehicles technology. I’m buying a hybrid that gets inhuman milage compared to my current car (A gas guzzling SUV) and I think everyone should, but realisticly, it’s just rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. If I were a betting man I’d say worldwide apocolypse (in the non-religious sense) is coming by 2030 at the latest, and sooner rather than later is where the smart money is. I’m so tired and isolated that doesn’t bother me as much as it should, except for one thing.

There are people in the world I love. In all of them the only real sign of insanity I can find is that they love ME. This is unfortunatly an undeniable and definitive indicator. Now that I’m not poor any more, my objective at this time is to get as much money as possible to those that I love, and do what I can to prepare them in case we are lucky enough to just NEARLY destroy the human race. If anyone survives, I want it to be them. (As for me, all I can do is hope I get hit by a bus or something before the fireworks start, I have known I was always going to be included in the group who is “First up against the wall when the revolution comes.”)

The reason I’m advocating the mandatory mpg standards always going up, and everyone immediatly switching to low emmision vehichles which I admit is a pitiful half-measure, is on the remote chance it would spur people to address how badly screwed the earths ecosystem is at this point, and that we need to do something about it. If people got to that point then maybe they would take some of the full measures; the neccesary and blood-chilling steps to have a prayer of us surviving as a species and realizing the potential that inteligence gives, but so far I judge humanity has never fulfilled.

The point of all this is, I’m gambling. It’s quite amusing actually, as the only interest I have in Casinos and gambling was exclusivly in getting to be part of the ‘house’. I understood the term ‘house percentage’ completely by the age of 12. I’m making a ridiculous trifecta bet, against already astronomical odds for just the first step, never mind what else needs to be done. Even though I fancy myself a rational man who would never gamble (if forced I would cheat) I’m still going to throw money at this. The reason why is the payoff of course. If my vanishingly unlikely bet pays off, then the people I love get to survive. They get to perpetuate their genes, and live on in the memory of others, and considering how extensivly human life is documented these days, they will in some sense be rememebered forever if I win my wager.

I’m still going to have enough money to get my three squares a day, a roof over my head, and access to toys like the Internet. This new medium where if you are willing to shuffle through the “90% of everything is crap” sorting process ,you can get a remarkable amount of entertainment, stimulation, and see more of the world than at any time in history. For almost nothing I might add.

So I’m going to calculate how much I can afford to give, while leaving behind my assets to those I love when that bus comes along. I’m hoping I’ll have enough left over to make at least 5 of these long shot trifecta bets. I could spend it on lottery tickets, the only honset form of taxation I’ve ever seen since it’s voluntary. I’m going to drive around in my half-measure of an inadequate version of the economical and green car we should have had before any of us were born, and let everyone point and laugh at me. Who knows? The odds make the lottery look like investing in bearer bonds in comparison but as the man replied when asked why he was playing in a crooked poker game “Well sure it’s crooked, but it’s the only game in town.” At this point the only moves I can make are desperate ones.

So someone help me out. You may not love them, but at the bare minimum the people I love are your fellow human beings. They deserve a chance, even if the odds are so slim. Reach into your genes and find that spirit of the good Samaritan that has survived throughout humankinds dissapointing history. Help me find the places I can throw money at some of the worlds problems and dream of those I love dying of old age instead of the end of humanity. Even if you hate me, think I’m a loon, something worse, or a combination of all three, do it just for human decency.

As I made clear, my prediction is that I’ll lose, and none of us will be here in two decades. Just help me find the window where I go to place these crazy bets, so I can fantasize that my loved ones are going to live forever as far as physics and biology allows. It seems likely that my money won’t do much harm and most people who can’t stand what I want to accomplish still admit it’s a good idea in theory to do things like cutting down on pollution and oil consumption. Most people will think I’m just misguided, not malicious. So why not? What can it hurt?

My, but it’s been a long long night, but they all are, aren’t they?

AllFree

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Bullshit.

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I’ll try and ignore the GD-worthy discussions of what government can accomplish (“Well, yeah, besides roads, schools, clean water, sanitation, abolishing slavery, and the internet, what has government ever done for us?”).

But to the OP, it seems to me like you’re concerned about two things: Climate change overall, and more better technology to create more efficient transportation (which is a major, but not the only, contributor to climate change).

Now, IMHO, there’s little need to lobby specifically for improved automobile technology. This is one of the things that indeed a market can do well; with a good overall cap-and-trade system or even carbon tax, automobiles will get more efficient because it will pay to do so (you did notice that when gas prices went up, people bought more hybrids?). And overall climate change action is more important. But YMMV of course.

For general climate change advocacy, there are tons of groups; take your pick, pretty much any environmental group that’s not very local or focused on one issue is rightly going to have climate change as a big priority. IMHO, the U.S. Senate is right now the key place to focus pressure, but international efforts are also important. NRDC, Environmental Defence Fund, Sierra Club, Greenpeacem are some of the names on the U.S. level; I don’t really know who’s doing good work internationally.

Now, on transportation, there’s a couple ways to go. EDF makes a big effort to find market-friendly high-tech solutions to issues; I’m not sure if they’re doing a lot with transportation right now, or if any other national groups are.

There are also lots of groups working on transportation on more local levels. They tend to focus less on improving cars and more on alternatives, such as improved commuter railroads, funding for public transit, making sure walking and bicycling are considered in development projects, etc. Obviously these kinds of changes pay off a lot more in more urban areas, but when you look at how much driving one NYC subway eliminates, there’s a huge environmental impact. Transportation Alternatives is one that comes to mind, but there are others, particularly in various regions.

Does this help?

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Quote:
Originally Posted by AllFreedomUnlessDefyingScience http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
Politically I’m a libertarian.

I don’t want to fight with you, but I believe people should be allowed all personal freedom and as little interference by government as possible. I presume your objection is to my qualifier “as possible”. In general I believe the population and governments of the world would never permit libertarian style government at this time. Just because I don’t think that form of goverment will work giving the current population of the world at this time, doesn’t mean I don’t believe that’s how human government should be organized. It is the only hope for humanity to live decent lives as I see it. I’m just very dubious we will see libertarian government before I and the rest of the human race dies. If we beat the odds and humanity survives, the only hope for a society that isn’t massively unjust, is to allow people the freedom to do anything they wish, as long as it doesn’t harm others. Harming others includes dooming the human race by destroying our ecosystem. Considering my view of the future, I don’t think advocating that the party with the biggest stick (The government) make the changes we need if people won’t do it themselves.

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I see your point, but my view is that we are generations behind on all the major environmental problems (not to mention; government, social organization, morality, Science and technology and a host of other issues). Remember my quote about being 5 generations behind on fuel-efficient and low emissions vehicles? If you can consider my viewpoint on these issues, and related ones, the human race has proved to me that they will never do the right things voluntarily. About 20 years ago I gave up on humanity in general and the most powerful organizations in particular to save the world. I still think the government and other powerful organizations have a better chance of imposing rationality on the world than depending on individuals to do it. They have had millenia to do the things I think obviously need to be done, and have spent the same amount of time perpetuating things I think are dangerous.

It is exactly the kind of help I needed, the names of those organizations will give me a good starting point to research who I can support that I think will do the things our world needs done.

Thank you very much,
AllFree