[GreenYes] Students Rally in Clean Snowmobile Challenge. - Sponsor missing the Big Picture

["Paul Goettlich" <gottlich@infi.net>]

GreenYes people

Go to GreenBiz.com and comment on this story (Students Rally in Clean
Snowmobile Challenge) they just sent out with their email newsletter.

This is mine.
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Regarding an article in the latest GreenBiz.com email newsletter entitled
"Students Rally in Clean Snowmobile Challenge," I think that the statement
"clean snowmobile" is an oxymoron. The Society of Automotive Engineers, the
sponsor of this program, is missing the big picture. It isn't just that
snowmobiles are noisy and stink, which they are. It's about the invasion of
nature by a heavy powerful machine that chews up living organisms and spits
them out the back end as if it were waste being deposited in a toilet. It is
also about wasting precious fossil fuels in the name of amusement.
Snowmobilers must grow up at some point in this crisis of energy shortage
and global warming, and take responsibility for their actions by admitting
that snowmobiling should end all together.
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Students Rally in Clean Snowmobile Challenge
Source GreenBiz.com
URL: http://www.greenbiz.com/news/news_third.cfm?NewsID=15681
"When . winter settles in, bringing ice-slippery walkways, long dark nights,
and snow-whitened landscapes, some folks crawl inside their homes, stoke the
wood stove and don't crawl back out until spring thaw. And then again,
there's the snowmobilers." - The Maine Snowmobile Association Guide.

JACKSON, Wyo., April 13, 2001 - Perhaps it was this spirit of wintry
solidarity that drove a student team from Ontario's University of Waterloo
to win first prize at the recent Clean Snowmobile Challenge sponsored by the
Society of Automotive Engineers. The event challenges engineering students
to design a cleaner and quieter snowmobile without significantly
compromising performance.

In an unexpected turn, the Waterloo team won with a two-stroke engine --
although standard on today's machines, two-stroke engines are generally
noisier and have higher emissions than the heavier four-stroke engines.

Waterloo was, however, strongly challenged by a four-stroke machine from
Kettering University. The Waterloo snowmobile achieved a fuel efficiency of
20 miles per gallon while reducing emissions of carbon monoxide, nitrous
oxides, and hydrocarbons by 60% relative to a standard snowmobile.

The Heat is On

Opposition to snowmobile use is mounting. In 2000 a coalition of
environmental groups called for a ban on snowmobile and off-road vehicle use
in all national parks and one third of the national forests. According to
Snowmobile Challenge organizers, the students participating in the contest
realize that something needs to be done to resolve this impasse between
environmentalists and snowmobilers.

SAE Collegiate Design events are held on six continents and host engineering
students from more than 150 universities worldwide.
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"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as much as you please."
Mark Twain, 1835-1910