Finding Joy in Helping Others: WCSAGD: Donna Edition

[There's joy in helping your fellow man, and z is here for it.]

Donna wants a hybrid and I don't blame her.  She also asked for my advice so in that regard I do blame her, at least for this post.

There are two types of hybrids: standard hybrid ("HEV") and plug-in hybrid ("PHEV").  I touted the merits of PHEVs here before and I still think they are a best-of-both-worlds option for people who spend a fair amount of time puttering around town, but they require more effort to extract the maximum return on investment.  You need to charge them (hence the "plug-in" aspect of the name) and that means you either need to have a charger installed at home, or you work (or frequently visit) someplace that has charging stations available in the parking lot.  So keep that extra effort (and potential cost) in mind when considering between an HEV and a PHEV.

My first reaction to "What hybrid should I get?" is "Get a Mazda Miata because Miata Is Always The Answer" but that's a stupid car-guy joke and my serious reaction it to follow that up with "Have you looked at a Prius?"  For the first time in forever the Prius is a good looking car. 

It's available with AWD and the trunk holds 23 cubic feet of junk with the seats up, 50 cubic feet with the seats down.  That's better than a Mercedes GLA and just a stitch less than an Audi Q5 or a Mazda CX-5.  It gets 57 MPG, it hits 60 MPH in 7 seconds, and it's a Toyota so it will run problem-free for 200,000 miles.  Here's an AWD build with a roof rack for $31,444.  Here's one near me for $32,104.  There aren't many cars this practical at this price.

Toyota also makes a PHEV Prius but for some reason the cargo space isn't as impressive.  If you look at a regular Prius take a gander at the PHEV Prius and ask the salesperson about the cargo discrepancy.

If you want a car that doesn't appear so blatantly hybrid there are plenty of great options like the Toyota Camry (all Camrys are hybrid now) and Accord Hybrid, or the Toyota RAV4 HEV, Toyota RAV4 PHEV, and Honda CR-V Hybrid.  As with the Prius, these cars will run forever.

There are plenty of bad options too.  If you want to be a contrarian go get an Alfa Romeo Tonale PHEV.  It isn't available in 2026 but no one wants to drive an Alfa (except me) so you can find 69 new 2025 models on dealer lots.  All 69 will probably break within minutes after you get them home so I don't suggest you do any of this, but it's a thing you could do.

A more responsible PHEV choice would be a CPO Volvo S60 Recharge.  It has AWD, 455 hp, about 35 miles of electric range and about 70 MPG in hybrid mode.  Here's one with 32k miles for $32k.  If you want something bigger, check out a CPO Volvo S90 Recharge.  Here's one with 12k miles for $46k.  You can hear Squeaky nodding furiously as he reads this.

If you really want to set hearts ablaze, get a Volvo V60 Polestar.  By far the coolest thing in Volvo's lineup, it was discontinued for 2025.  You can find CPO options but they are rare and pricey.  But worth it!

Donna asked about the VW ID.Buzz.  I love that fact that it exists but I can't picture buying one and a lot of people agree with me, so many that VW only sold 4934 through three quarters in 2025 and put the car "on hiatus" for 2026.  The base price of the base model is $60k and even with deep dealer discounts they're over $50k.  That's a lot for an EV with less than 250 miles of range.  You can buy a Honda Odyssey for $10k less and drive it cross country without having to take hour-long breaks to fill it up every 200 miles.  But if you just want to drive locally, have lots of stuff to haul, and love the Buzz.ID's looks, head over to VW of Alexandria and fight like hell to get this green CPO gem down to $45k.  Be prepared to point to the brand new ones selling for $51k that I linked to above (or do some research for others closer to home) and remind them that they also have an orange CPO one on the lot, then tell them you're doing them a favor taking these unloved and unwanted monstrosities off their hands.  Then go over to Lindsay VW of Dulles and run the same game on their two CPO Buzz.IDs and use whatever price you get in Alexandria against them. Go back and forth until you get a number you like.  Have fun with it!

Disagreeable Climate

Today’s episode of Nobody Does Alienation Like America features what is likely to be extreme indifference, if not twin middle fingers, from national leaders in response to combating climate change. 

Last month the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice at the Hague, issued an advisory opinion that said countries are obligated to protect climate systems and to mitigate the damages caused by climate change for present and future generations. 

“Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from greenhouse gas emissions — including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences (sic) or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies — may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State,” according to the ICJ press release on the decision. 

The Court floated the ideas of cessation of harmful practices, promises by nations to not repeat them and even restitution and reparations to communities and entire nations adversely affected by a particular country’s actions. Just days later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency went the opposite direction and announced that it aimed to repeal a provision that greenhouse gases endanger public health and that permitted their regulation under the Clean Air Act. 

The proposed repeal of the so-called “endangerment finding” is part of a planned rollback of more than 30 environmental rules dealing with air and water and climate change that EPA chief and arsonist Lee Zeldin announced back in March. “There are people who, in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country,” Zeldin said on a conservative podcast. His predecessors under Presidents Obama and Biden, he said, “twisted the law, ignored precedent and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year.” No mention of the increased costs, financially and psychically, of more frequent and severe disasters exacerbated by climate change. 

The “endangerment finding” dates to a 2007 court case brought against the EPA under George W. Bush’s administration in which the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that greenhouse gases qualified as an “air pollutant” under the broad definition in the Clean Air Act. The EPA announced the endangerment finding in 2009. Despite the SCOTUS ruling, Zeldin and the Trump administration are buoyed by a couple of recent court decisions that limited the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases (gee, I wonder what changed between then and now?) 

If you think that resistance to climate change accountability is limited to conservatives and the fossil fuel lobby, consider that last December the U.S. legal advisor to the State Department under Biden, a woman named Margaret Taylor, argued before the ICJ that human rights laws do not provide for a right to a healthy environment, nor should countries be financially responsible for the effects due to past emissions. The Court disagreed. The Court also disagreed with two oft-used arguments against accountability – that climate change is too big and complex to assign blame to individual countries or entities, and that agreements on emissions and pollutants, such as the Paris Agreement or Kyoto Protocol, are largely voluntary and thus not open to legal action. 

The ICJ’s counters to those arguments are that science has advanced to the point that companies’ and countries’ emissions and pollutants can be more accurately measured and thus not an excuse to evade liability. The Court also said that combating climate change can no longer be voluntary because of the increasing damage to communities, individuals, entire regions, and that climate agreements are legally binding. The ICJ also cited customary law – well established fundamental legal principles interwoven with many countries’ own legal systems, such as human rights laws – that a state can be legally liable for failure to reduce climate change practices. 

Granted, an advisory opinion isn’t legally binding, and there’s no global police force to come knocking on the door and perp-walk the accused. But the ICJ’s findings, and our actions, carry symbolic heft. At a time when much of the world leans toward cooperation and consensus on addressing climate change, the U.S. has leaders who respond with a hearty “No thanks,” if not “Piss off.” The current administration, in particular, understands only power and views cooperation and compromise as weakness. Reducing dependency on fossil fuels is inconvenient, if not un-American. 

The Big Dumb Orange Guy hasn’t responded directly to the ICJ’s findings, but as he routinely criticizes domestic courts and judges with which he disagrees and treats the U.S. Constitution as a work-around, he and his enablers aren’t likely to fall in with international court decisions. Globally, we are well on our way to becoming the obnoxious, bullying uncle that the family despises but is forced to endure at holidays because he’s president of the town bank and owns the local hardware store. We are a transactional actor that abandons colleagues (Ukraine), antagonizes allies (NATO), shelves “soft diplomacy” (USAID cuts abroad), slaps tariffs on friend and foe alike, and targets immigrants and the “wrong” sorts of Americans, all while further enriching the wealthy. Many of those actions can be reversed or undone, though not without cost in terms of trust and respect. The costs of denying or ignoring climate change, however, are far greater than scorn and ridicule.