SUVs in Paris
 

I hear there is a secret band of people letting down tyres of SUVs in Paris. Has anyone a link to any of these reports?

Such a shame Paris is allowing these type of vehicles to be ripping up their beautiful streets and polluting the buildings.

Would love to read about this as I'm going to Paris later this year and would love to join the group!

They're anything but secret and a simple google search would yield the information you're looking for. I doubt anyone on this board is interested in furthering your aims.

Just doing my bit for the environment; lighten up StCirq. They are not to be found on Google, just like the anti-advertising people who scrawled slogans across the banal Galleries Lafayette and inane advertising posters in the metro, but good for them, bravo!

I booked a hotel for our Paris trip and the concierge asked if we wanted a "large black SUV for our transfers and for our driving/guiding needs with a chauffeur". With a price attached of course. Nearly fell out of my chair.

>Such a shame Paris is allowing these type of vehicles to be ripping up their beautiful streets and polluting the buildings.<

Unlike their Diesel buses.

((I))

Ira,

Their diesel buses now use catalytic converters and might be no dirtier than cars per passenger mile.

Well, I already knew about them, but used google anyway, and within about 5 seconds got the full scoop on quite a number of websites.

Most of the public buses and garbage trucks in Paris are hybrid-electric. Also, I think the Smart cars too. I always see the signs everywhere (blue with white electric plug, like the parking signs=.

These hybrid-vehicles carry about 50 passengers, while a SUV sometimes just has one person.

St Cirq, could you post a link as how to get in contact with this group. There links on reports about them, but not one where they can be found and contacted. I have a jounalist friend in the States who would like to interview them for a travel magazine. Way cities are changing, environment, etc...

I don't know why StCirq is being so coy about "Les Dégonflés" - that's the name of this group who, obviously, has stopped its "actions". But they still have a fun web site: http://www.anti4x4.net. I particularly liked the link to another blog: http://4x4groscon.free.fr, whose title French speakers will no doubt savor!

Art, thank you very much. Such a funny website and yes, I do understand the French title of it. Too funny.

I shall pass this onto my friend as he shall want to interview the organizers, why it has stopped, etc.

Something like this could never happen in the States so my jounalist friend was intrigued by their actions, which they are rightly justified to do! Sans SUVs in Paris will be so much better.

Thank you again.

And if all those Americans stopped flying to Paris, think of what that would do for CO2 emissions (and wouldn't that beautiful city look much more authentic too).

Tulips, how puzzling. what's Americans flying to Paris got to do with pollutant SUVs? Please don't get into an anti-American thingy here, but thank you again for the links Art! The jounalist has made contact already!

If you want to change the world, start at home. Why fly all the way to Paris to let air out of tires?

Have an apartment in Paris and visit often for holidays, and starting to live there part time now. Most time live in the States. Just trying to do the best, so is my jounalist friend. PS: I don't driver SUVs in either places.

Commercial flights release more CO2 into the atmosphere (and at a much more damaging atmospheric level to boot) than even the stinkiest SUV. Yes, that's per person per mile. Flying to Paris is more damaging to the environment that if you drove there (in your magic car that rides on water, of course).

Modern SUVs are actually pretty clean emissions-wise; much, much more so than even small cars of two decades ago. Those adorable historic 2CVs and Fiat 500s are releasing more and worse gases than an Escalade or Hummer.

The problem with SUVs isn't emissions so much as gas mileage. Most petroleum comes from people who support terrorism. Remember "when you ride alone you ride with bin Laden".

Remember "when you ride alone you ride with bin Laden".

Oh my God I hope you're kidding. Do you also support "if you are not with us, you're against us"?

Don't be silly. Why would I support that?

The fact is that an appreciable portion of every dollar, pound, or euro you put into the gas pump goes to Al Qaeda, which receives millions from Saudi princes.

People who claim to oppose terrorism but drive around solo in gas guzzlers are hypocrites.

Even if my car gets decent gas milage I am still a slave to the gas that's available to me. What I think we're missing is that we are not forcing the auto makers to make more fuel efficient cars like we know they can. No matter how hard you try you will never get everyone to think and believe what you do, but if they all got better mileage or were alternative energy driven the who cares what size it is?

>..my jounalist friend was intrigued by their actions, which they are rightly justified to do! <

Really. How does one justify the unlawful destruction of other people's property?

What laws of God, Nature or Mankind do you cite.

Why not set a bomb under the car and blow it up?

Why not put a bomb in the car and blow up the driver, too.

Why not bomb the driver's home?

Why not bomb the whole parking lot, preferably when the drivers are getting their cars?

((I))

Oh dear Ira, you mention "bomb" 4 times. No-one has mentioned bombs, where has your mind gone. Whew, I hope you and your SUV have many happy days together. If you find your tyres are let down, it wasn't me!

I was impressed by Ira's enduring patience on this board. Though this thread of madness is enough to ruffle anyones feathers.

TPaxe - you said <<Would love to read about this as I'm going to Paris later this year and would love to join the group!>>
...and you have the gall to question ira's mind? Personally I have been lurking on the side on this thread questioning yours.

Keep lurking RobJame as that is the perfect for the group www.groscon.free.fr

As I mentioned before, lighten up, I wouldn't know how to let down a tyre if I fell over it. I'm helping a friend do research into making people aware the pros and cons of gas guzzling, giant stomping vehicles and the rest of it and how it's changing the face of a foreign city.

Whoever is following this thread can get a little more insight of what goes on in another country, especially Paris and it's changing environment.

Ira's tone came across a little wild-eyed mad, sort of scary.

Sandi_travelnut, surely one of those statements is the polar opposite of the other.

But, TPaxe, those giant jets you arrived and left in are doing much more damage to Paris (and everywhere else) than a few SUVs. I find it hard to believe that there are THAT many; you'll find a lot more in any American city.

This is just political theater and accomplishes nothing except smugness and conflict.

Dear TPaxe,

Can you tell me the qualitative difference between letting the air out of a tire (or tyre) solely because you feel justified in doing so and setting off a bomb for the same reason?

((I))
PS, my car is a Vibe - 33 mpg, which is not as good as a Peugeot 307 Diesel, but I can't get a Peugeot in the US.

The rhetoric that gets spewed by people who must believe what they are saying is amazing. Take:
<<Most petroleum comes from people who support terrorism.>>
This is simply untrue yet the poster must believe it. In 2004, 29% of the world's oil production was from the Middle East and do you accept that all Middle Eastern countries support terrorism? Wow.
Forget that and consider the thought processes of someone who lives in another country believing they have the right to visit another country and do something illegal under the banner of "Just doing my bit for the environment". And we are concerned about the kids....

Oil doesn't come from "the Middle East", it comes from specific countries in the Middle East, and many other places. In OPEC, the biggest producers are Saudi Arabia, who very much do support terrorism; Iran, ditto; Iraq, which is now the incubus of terror thanks to our genius foreign policy there; then the UAE, which may or may not support terrorism directly but through whose banking system most terror dollars pass; Nigeria, which is too busy terrorizing its own miserable citizens to fund terror elsewhere; Libya, which just recently got out of the terror business, and a few other countries with dubious (and worsening) human rights records of their own, like Venezuela and Indonesia.

Outside of OPEC, the biggest producer by far is the former USSR states, including Russia, which absolutely funds (and practices as official government policy) terror. There's China, which is a human rights basket case. Aside from the US, Canada, Mexico, Norway, and the UK, the rest of world production is trivial. The newest zones of exploration by the big oil companies are in human rights free-fall zones like Equatorial Guinea, where only grinding poverty, soon to be allieviated for the torturers at least by oil bribes, has kept the death toll below the international news radar. It's going to get a lot worse.

Every drop of gas you put in your vehicle is paid for with gallons of human blood. It's tragic to think otherwise.

I just saw a statistic (for Canada ) which stated that cars produced only 10% of our greenhouse gases, while industry was over 60%. So perhaps our focus needs to be a bit wider.

I don't have a reference, but I was under the impression that agriculture (including deforestation) was number one, but roughly equal to both cars and industry, with aviation a lot higher than you might expect. I'm probably wrong. And whatever the numbers are, China is throwing them into a tizzy.

Michael are you suggesting Kyoto...France ratified Kyoto didn't they?
fnarf - finally something I can agree with you on - "probably"

Hi robjame,
I was surprised at that statistic, since I always assumed that cars were the worst polluters, and therefore something that should be a focus in any pollution reduction strategy, and would give the best payoff.

I believe France did sign Kyoto.

Robjame: how lovely of you to say so.

Please don't think that my comments about oil are in any way supportive of anyone's desire to vandalize people's cars, which is pointless political theater designed to assuage one's own ego, not do anything serious about the environment.

From anything that I have read it is very difficult to quantify the causes of greenhouse gases.
The part I object to is the use of political rhetoric (another type of pointless political theatre) as a "proof" to an argument.
"Every drop of gas you put in your vehicle is paid for with gallons of human blood."
"Most petroleum comes from people who support terrorism."
"Remember "when you ride alone you ride with bin Laden".
With a little research you will discover that these statements are untrue and IMO detract from any intelligent idea that you put forward - and can be compared to letting the air out of SUV's tires.

"With a little research", eh? Most petroleum does, in fact, come from countries which support terrorism. I gave you a detailed breakdown of them, mentioning virtually all of the significant petroleum-producing countries in the world. If you would do a little research yourself, you'd see what petroleum extracting countries are generally like. Have a peek at the last National Geographic's article about life in the Nigerian oil fields. I have done my research, and I'm correct on the facts; all you have is prejudice and know-nothingism.

so I assume you don't use any gas at all so as to not support terrorism?

No, of course I do. I'm not better than anyone. Even people who don't drive cars use oodles of petroleum. But at least I'm aware of the state of the world, and interested in what the outcomes are. It's people who pretend that there are no consequences to anything that get under my skin -- like the poster who thinks it's "environmental" to take a jet thousands of miles to let air out of someone's tires.