Dogbert deflates hybrid car ownership
click above to read the whole comic
Hey, it's Sunday, so let's take a look at the comic pages, shall we? Dilbert creator Scott Adams breaks out his anti-hybrid car message with some regularity and every now and then it's fun to take a look at what he's up to. Back in February, we noticed that he had written a post on his blog tearing apart the Auto X Prize. This week, we rediscovered his "hybrid drivers are stupid" comic, which (to me) doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The point that Dogbert makes that if we don't buy the oil - and therefore don't support the terrorists - then someone else will has got some reasoning behind it. For the foreseeable future, sure, all the oil that's produced will get bought. But to take a Dogbert-like head-in-the-sand approach ain't right. Then again, perhaps we needn't read too much into comic characters. If we want to, though, we see that Opus, dearly departed Opus, is a bit more sympathetic to the greenies.
[Source: Dilbert]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Mike Z. 1:33PM (11/09/2008)
Old news: this comic is a year old.
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Ron 1:14PM (11/09/2008)
The problem with this argument is that if demand (and therefore price) drops then "those terrorists" get less money for their commodity. Adams may understand "fungible" but he ignores how supply and demand affect pricing. Take a look at where oil prices are right now after only a few months of demand reduction. That said, there are many, many cheaper ways to reduce demand outside of buying a hybrid.
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Mark 1:43PM (11/09/2008)
I agree with Ron (1). Supply and demand are in play here. One thing that does not technically work is this for example. I will not buy oil from Citgo because they are state-sponsored by an enemy. But I will go next door and buy plenty of oil/gas from BP. any time you buy oil or gas you are tapping into the source and creating demand that helps all of the oil-supplying nations.
tankd0g 9:00PM (11/09/2008)
The problem with that argument is that demand will never drop. You make gas cheaper for developing nations, developing nations develop faster.
Ron Fischer 9:59PM (11/09/2008)
But tankd0g, the comic commented specifically on nations that have oil and are using its profits to fund terrorism. Your comment brings up a different point: are there more terrorists in developing nations without oil or with oil? And to what degree is each affected by the balance of a particular price. If you're saying we can never win that battle just by altering the price of oil, however, I'd agree.
tankd0g 11:32PM (11/09/2008)
Ron, I don't know what you're asking. I said what the comic said, if we don't buy it someone else will. This has always been true. It will be true until it's gone unless aliens land and give every person, rich or poor, a way to make a liquid fuel from water.
John Rowell 1:29PM (11/09/2008)
What date is this strip? Today's Dilbert strip is something totally different. Sebastian, what motivates you to go and dig out an old, stale comic strip today?
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Noz 1:38PM (11/09/2008)
I think what he's trying to say is not so much related to hybrid cars but the whole thing about war and funding....we'll always fund wars and fund terrorists. This is of our own doing...
Wake up.
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demosthenes 2:32PM (11/09/2008)
Someone is a little oversensitive.
First, it was talking about more fuel efficient vehicles (a category hybrids certainly fall into), not singling out hybrids. Why do people have this need to distort issues?
Second, it is a weak argument irrespective of supply and demand because those countries are still making a killing even with oil at its current price. Those countries had more than enough money to fund terrorism when oil prices were in the $15-27 range. At $50+ cash is in surplus. Even the most aggressive response by the United States to lower demand will not be enough to offset the skyrocketing use in developing nations. That is something only a global recession can temporarily accomplish.
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Der Alte 2:43PM (11/09/2008)
There are plenty of reasons to increase fuel efficiency other than trying to stick it to the "terrorists". The primary argument would be that oil will not be around with us forever. Supplies will eventually dwindle and price will increase as it dwindles. The big question is how quickly will supplies dwindle and prices increase to a point that oil is no longer affordable as a transportation fuel? The second part to that is, when we inevitably do find ourselves in that situation...now what?
If we know that supplies will eventually dwindle, wouldn't it be wise to conserve what we can, while we can to extend our current supply as long as possible? Everyone seems to be waiting for the magic bullet, some mythical source of energy that will arise that will save us in the nick of time. Unfortunately, that solution has been looked for high and low and we really don't have much to show for it. Short of us coming up with some new understanding of the laws of physics and chemistry that may have eluded us up until now, chances are we'll be in the same spot we are now when the supplies of oil do start to decline rapidly. Whether that day is 1,5,10, 50, 100, 500 years from now....people can debate that all they want. It will happen though and either yourself, your children, or grandchildren will be deeply affected by it.
The wise course of action is to conserve what we have as long as we can. Sure, we could go an plunder environmentally sensitive areas and put off the inevitable. All you end up doing is putting off the problem for another generation or two while we continue to live our wasteful lifestyles and leave future generations with still no path forward beyond oil....plus an even more mutilated and destroyed planet.
We can either be the generation that takes the lead and starts taking concrete steps to move our world past oil dependance, or we can be one of the many generations who simply passes the buck to the next generation. Many small steps now are much easier to handle that fewer, more drastic steps later when there are no choices available.
I can't look my daughter in the eye and tell her that "she's on her own, her generation will have to be the one who finally decides to clean up, I'm going to take the easy route and pass the buck." Unfortunately, too many people either have no problem with doing that or really haven't thought the whole problem out.
War and terrorists will always be with us. If we are all dependant on a single, non renewable resource, the only guaranteed thing is more war and terrorists. That won't change. That doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility to continue to look for ways to move forward and conserve a limited resource as much as possible to buy us more time to make slow change. The alternative is being forced later into quick, dramatic change that will be difficult to endure indeed.
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tankd0g 9:03PM (11/09/2008)
The faster we run out, the faster someone will find an alternative. It is that simple.
state 3:09PM (11/09/2008)
"This week, we rediscovered his "hybrid drivers are stupid" comic, which (to me) doesn't make a whole lot of sense."
Do you get the humor when you say you don't understand?
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tankd0g 9:00PM (11/09/2008)
I don't know why people find this concept so hard to grasp, especially on "green" blogs. You need to face a reality here. ALL the oil and coal that we can easily get at WILL BE SOLD AND BURNED. There is nothing you can do to change that. NOTHING. You can enjoy it now or enjoy it later at 5 times the price, but nothing you do is going to stop it. If the earth needs saving from CO2 production, it's not going to be through reducing CO2 production, it will have to be through CO2 sequestering and conversion.
Once you get a handle on that concept you realize how silly spending an extra $5000 to save a few hundred grams of CO2 a week really is.
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MIke!!ekiM 9:23PM (11/09/2008)
All the Oil and Coal we can easily get will NOT be burned and sold, if we switch to hybrid and electric cars.
Oil is Fungible UNTIL IT ISN'T. When It's replaced by electric cars I power with energy from wind or MY ROOF. Then the use of oil and coal will become MORE expensive and be DROPPED. Buying a Hybrid now, starts that process sooner.
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rob 10:43PM (11/09/2008)
Exactly... Whale Oil was fungible, until competitors like kerosene, "town gas", coal oil and electricity took over the lighting market.
Here's hoping to the swift electrification of personal transport via plug-ins, EREVs and BEVs. Given the number and scale of battery plants the major OEM's have announced, we're at the brink of a major upward swing...
tankd0g 11:22PM (11/09/2008)
Sorry mike but you are dead wrong. There is no way world will move to alternative fuels until we have used up all the fossil fuels. Once we get down tot he end and fossile fuels start to become scarce, onyl then will the world switch, and once it does, the remaining coal and oil will be dirt cheap, and those that can't afford whatever the new technoligy is, will finishs that little bit off too.
There is no scenario you can create where we will not use every last bit of coal and oil on this planet that can be reached without expending more energy to get to it than we get out of it. You don't leave money on the table in capitalism.
tankd0g 11:22PM (11/09/2008)
How many billion cars ran on whale oil? Oh right, none.
rob 12:35AM (11/10/2008)
tankdog: The stone age didn't end due to us running out of stones. People didn't stop buying records because we ran out of vinyl.
And people didn't start using cars for transportation because we ran out of horses...
With current trends, coal becomes uneconomic for electricity generation in 10-20 years, even without putting a price on carbon.
Oil may become uneconomic even faster for personal transportation, depending on how fast manufacturers ramp up and consumer adopt...
Tony Belding 9:26PM (11/09/2008)
IMHO the comic focuses too much on where the money is going to (notionally, to terrorists) and not enough on where it's coming from (definitely, from his pocket).
If he can save money with a hybrid, it'll be pretty hard for Dogbert to ridicule that.
This is the big hurdle that alternative vehicles have to overcome, because most of these new technologies are pretty expensive at the get-go. (re: the hybrid premium)
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Paul 9:27AM (11/10/2008)
Always wondered why the greenies never focus on the fact that petroleum in the ground is toxic ... whereas once you convert it to gaseous forms of carbon you can capture it as a nice huggable tree. Do greenies prefer black poisonous carbon to green renewable O2 producing carbon?
Aren't there environmental aspects of Li production and disposal that no one seems to be explaining to Dilbert?
Isn't anybody wincing about how anti-people the comment about what a good recession can accomplish is? Is mass starvation another green process?
Isn't the logical extreme of all this 'environmental sensitivity' rigidly enforced population control?
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