More climate hypocrisy from Krudd & Co

Kevin Rudd and his government are full of empty promises. A while ago, it was changing Parliament House to 100% green power (failed - too expensive), and now it's the fact that MPs' cars that have a decidedly brown feel about them. And really, who can blame them, when the only viable hybrid car is the butt-ugly Prius. The Honda Insight, one of the latest hybrids, was described by Jeremy Clarkson as:

"Terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more (source)."

Doesn't exactly encourage me to take one for a test drive... And of course you'd have to drive a Prius for 70,000 years to save the same amount of CO2 produced in one day by a reasonable sized power station. All that aside, however, there is a strong smell of hypocrisy about the lack of use of hybrids in government, given their green posturing elsewhere:

Only a tiny proportion of the Commonwealth fleet of 8000 vehicles are hybrids or use LPG. There are almost as many eight-cylinder cars (160) as hybrids (172), which form just 2 per cent of the fleet.
...
Opposition frontbencher Michael Ronaldson blasted the situation: "Mr Rudd talks a lot about protecting the environment, but when it comes to fixing up his own back yard he is missing in action. In those few departments which actually have them, Prius vehicles are just there for show."

One rule for the rulers and one rule for the ruled. In any case, none of this matters, since CO2 emissions aren't driving global temperature anyway, so hybrid cars are little more than empty feel-good gestures.

Read it here.