I had a debate today in which someone used, as an example of the “delusional” beliefs of the tea party movement, a claim made at the tea party convention that the government wants to dictate the color of our cars. Not so fast, I said. I hadn’t heard of that, but the government tries to control a lot of things. Let’s google it.
It turns out it’s true:
News that California may ban the sale of black cars for climate protection reasons raised the hackles of many a petrolhead yesterday.
At the root of the stir was a presentation . . . by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Resources Board (CARB). The Cool Paints initiative suggests that the state should set a minimum level of reflectivity for all car paints and windows.
More reflective vehicles, goes the idea, could stay up to 10 °C cooler in the sunshine state – this in turn could reduce the need to have air conditioning on and thereby cut greenhouse-gas emissions.
However, as black paints can’t currently achieve this level, every cool dude’s favourite hue would effectively be banned. Motoring blogs lamented the end of consumer freedom to buy a car in their preferred colour, saying that “mud-puddle brown” could be the new black, as that’s what you get once you’ve added the reflective ingredients.
UPDATE: It turns out that this plan has been shelved for now. Good.
Internet Scofflaw 