by Professor Michael Dorsey

In late April Ford Motor Company and TerraPass announced “Greener Miles”, a program offering Ford vehicle owners the opportunity to offset the climate impact of their driving through the support of projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fact is the average fuel economy of Ford’s fleet is 18.8 mpg, dead last among the top six automakers in 2005–for the fifth straight year, according to the EPA. The blatant disregard and contempt Ford’s engineers pay to fuel economy and efficiency means that Ford’s vehicles release more CO2 into the atmosphere than all of Mexico. Ford is playing games and peddling gimmicks in its new partnership with TerraPass. If Ford wants to reduce CO2 and get serious about climate change it will increase its fleet overall MPG and not peddle spurious offsets based on cooked mpg numbers.