With new environmentally-friendly products being developed at an amazing pace and sales of these products rising exponentially, it makes you wonder why. I mean, you would think the answer would be obvious. The planet is in dire need of any help we can give it, so people are doing their best to help out, right? Well, according to a recent poll by the New York Times, 57% of the people that buy the (arguably) environmentally-friendly Toyota Prius, buy it because it “Makes a statement about me”. In other words, they buy it because they want to advertise how environmentally-friendly they are or maybe even see it as a status symbol and want to show that they can afford the often times more expensive “green” products. Among other top responses were “Distinctive Styling” and “Other Incentives”. It’s not until the fifth most popular answer until you get to “Lower Emissions”, which I would have expected to be a close second to “Higher Fuel Economy” (which was third most popular). This poll shocked me when I first saw it, but then it dawned on me. I read somewhere that many actors and actresses, such as Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, have started driving hybrids to show off their greener side. Apparently, this must have started a trend where people want to associate themselves with these stars and attempt to emulate them. It’s somewhat disappointing in our society when you see the results of this poll, but whatever will inspire people to help the planet is ok with me. I just hope and will work to ensure that it’s not a just passing fad with little results. 

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New York Times Poll

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 10:40 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.