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KenS: as usual, you have made a valid point that is well taken with regard to European driving preferences, but I think it's useful to keep in mind that, after the stock market cresh of '87, world oil prices dropped to $10 US per barrel. How North American and European governments, and the automakers themselves, responded to this development (through the 90's, especially) has determined where we are today, most lamentably with the near demise of the Detroit Big Three (which, incidentally, had a near lock on the most profitable segments of the N.A. market back in the 90's). Whither dreams of pick-ups and SUV's with 500 h.p. ...and 10-15k profit margins that more than covered so-called legacy costs?
Suzuki says the year 1988 marked the turning point for earlier concerns for onservation of energy and the general concerns for environment that grew out of Silent Spring of '62 and Earth Day (70). Large sume of money were spent by oil and auto to calm concerns. Any attempts at promoting conservation within the NDP camp were shat upon by labour. A handful of us, despairing of change, formed the Green Party of Ontario in 1983, with moral support from the BCers and distant Germany. But people did not want to hear the then radical message that Earth was in trouble. And a moribund, powerless party became prey for the marketers seeking an income.
Europeans were blessed with rail lines that were not made redundant by highways, roads laid down in medieval times and land far scarcer and more precious than here, so small cars and high fuel prices were a must. "Lucky" them.
With Copenhagen a bust, and with the meagre measures that Obama plans to propose almost sure to stall in the U.S. Senate, is it audacious to ask whether there's still hope for change?