Maybe everyone should get over the three letters "SUV" and realize that not all SUVs (or cars, or even hybrid cars) are created alike. (As just one example, why would this particular "SUV" cause more road damage than any other car in its weight class? Answer: It wouldn't.)

Why are you guys jumping all over this poor guy? If I do a side-by-side with the 2WD Outlander he bought, it gets better fuel economy than the Toyota minivan (17 city, 23 hwy), and the same fuel economy as a Honda minivan (20 city, 25 hwy). In fact, the only one that gets better gas mileage than the car (which is what a crossover is, guys, despite the "SUV" label) Mark Benjamin bought is the Mazda 5. Is that what you all drive?

If Mark Benjamin really rides his bike most places, and only uses the "SUV" to haul the whole family around when they go wherever -- camping, or to visit the grandparents -- then he really is doing less damage to the planet than he was when he was driving his Volvo, and honestly, isn't that worth something?

P.S. I hate to mention this, because it reflects more poorly on people like me (who commute 50+ miles to work), but the real number to focus on is MILES DRIVEN PER YEAR. MPG is meaningful mostly for the person paying for the gas in the tank; the environment could care less.

Oh. My. Effing. God. This is a frigging tempest in a (green) teapot if ever I saw one.

99% of the posters on here are so self-righteous I'm surprised you haven't started your own churches.

The rest of us will keep on looking at the actual numbers, which show that (center of gravity and sliding door differences aside -- and really, to each his own here) most minivans get approximately the same exact gas mileage as does Mr. Benjamin's 2WD Outlander. (Note that he is admitting he doesn't need, or want, an AWD vehicle.)

Even the "perfect" Mazda 5 minivan which a previous poster says Mr. Benjamin SHOULD have purchased to maintain his precious environmental street cred (what's that worth, these days, anyway?) is only rated at 20 city, 28 hwy, 24 combined, versus the 19 city, 25 hwy, 22 combined of Mr. Benjamin's vehicle. Ooh, 2mpg more! So over a year's worth of (assuming he drives 10000 combined city/hwy miles/year) driving, a savings of almost 30 gallons a year! Woohoo! I'm sure that saved a polar bear. Everyone can feel completely vindicated in their vitriol now, you betcha.

(By the way, I'm using FE numbers from the government website at fueleconomy.gov. Allows quick and easy side-by-side comparisons, though you still have to be careful to compare like with like.) Also, of course, YMMV.

Why is everyone so quick to crucify anyone who has made different choices, and to point out how "green" they perceive themselves to be? My god, have we really come down to this -- screw worrying about policy, just pile on your neighbor who forgot his reuseable shopping bag?

Let's try to figure out a policy that makes sense, which allows people to purchase the vehicle they really want and need, but which motivates (most) people to use less gas. If people with plenty of money want to keep buying gas guzzlers and driving them like crazy, I say let them, but make them pay the price.

As someone said earlier: gas tax, gas tax, gas tax.

And we need similar policies to discourage people from building houses that are bigger than they need: say, the first 500 sf per person is tax free, but after that, you get hit with a carbon tax. (You can still build your big-ass house. You just have to pay for it.)

Of course, we have to make sure we use the tax dollars from the gas and carbon taxes on the right things, chiefly among them alternative energy research. Mass transit, for another -- we need options other than "abandon the suburbs" to get people to where the jobs are from their homes. Revitalizing our (eminently walkable) inner cities, for a third.

Note that none of these changes will happen overnight, and that in the mean time, there are those of us who will continue to need cars, including the purchase of new ones.

These are all *policy* decisions that must be made. Whether Mark Benjamin drives an "SUV" (as you all keep insisting we call it, even when pesky facts prove that it is not) that gets 25mpg hwy or a minivan that gets 27mpg hwy or even 40mpg hwy (or 11mpg hwy!) is a drop in the ocean. We need a sea change for the entire country, and we need to hope that the emerging super powers (China and India) can be induced to follow our lead.

But first, we have to lead.

(P.S. I'm not going to launch into my environmental street cred here, but suffice it to say I have my own justifications for why I don't believe I'm an evil demon who should be driven from this earth just because I commute to work.)

Minor correction to the above -- I remembered the combined numbers, but got the city numbers wrong. The 2WD Outlander posts an estimated 20mpg city, not 19, and the Mazda 5 posts an estimated 22mpg city, not 22.

Sorry; next time I'll actually cut and paste the numbers instead of relying on my increasingly untrustworthy memory. Damn you, middle age.

Should've saved my breath and just echoed what Buzz Lightyear said, which is that we need a rational energy policy for this country, which will save people from having to ferret out what the fuel economy of their neighbor's car is in order to feel good about themselves.

We need a rational energy policy which motivates the majority of people to choose energy-saving behavior over energy-wasting behavior, by which I mean not only individuals but corporations.