What are your opinions on the advertising campaign for 'Diesel - Global warming ready'?

Question

English debate on this advertising campaign about whether we think it is creative or just irresponsible.

we have to get both sides of the arguement so if you could give your reason too that would help.

Answer 1

Why not?  A lot of people buy into this theory.  Why not target them in a marketing gimmick?  No doubt it's going to work.

Answer 2

On the one side it's true that diesels emit lower amounts of greenhouse gases than gasoline cars.  Plus diesel cars aren't any more expensive than gasoline cars, so it's an alternative that people can afford.

On the other hand, diesel still certainly contributes to global warming.  In fact, it's not as much of an improvement over gasoline as people think.  People will say 'oh there's diesels that can get 50 mpg available right now', but diesels also emit 15% more CO2 per volume than gasoline, so a 50 mpg diesel emits as much CO2 as a 43 mpg gas car.  That is an improvement because there aren't many gas cars that can get 40 mpg, but not as much of an improvement as people think.

On top of that, diesels also have high levels of nitrous oxide (NOx) and particulate emissions.  NOx contributes to acid rain, nitrous oxide (N2O) is a greenhouse gas, and particulates cause health problems.

Overall diesel is an improvement over gasoline in terms of global warming impact, but not a very big one, and it comes with other environmental problems.  I don't think it's fair to call diesel 'global warming ready'.  We need much bigger changes than just switching to diesel if we're going to solve the problem.

There's a nice article here about it:

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/climate411/8...