Thread: Not from The Onion

Although it sure does sound like it:

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blo...the-onion.html

Not the Onion
March 27, 2009, 11:39 am
A reader sent me this, and I was just floored. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is asking for legislation to ban black cars in California

The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them. A presentation on the proposed legislation by the California Air Resources Board is below.

The problem isn’t the color per se, but the reflectivity of the paint overall. And dark colors just don’t reflect well, so they are likely out. “Jet black remains an issue,” says the report.

Anyone who’s ever entered a very hot car knows that it can be cooled down immediately by driving a few feet with the windows open, effectively neutralizing any color-caused heat issues before engaging the air conditioner. But whatever, black is evil.

Un-freaking-believable. This is what happens when you satisfy an emissions reduction goal (in this case CO2) via complex command-and-control legislation rather than simpler price mechanisms. Earlier, I told the story of how California adopted an increasingly sprawling CARB micro-management of their economy to reduce CO2 rather than implementing earlier proposals for a simple carbon tax.