The recent destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina may seem to have no connection to the question of whether an SUV or a minivan is a better buy. But in fact the storm is just nature's way of making a brutally catastrophic point: the human race, and especially Americans, can no longer continue to fill the atmosphere of the planet Earth with the carbon dioxide and other pollutants from burning fossils fuels such as oil that cause global warming. Because climate scientists have determined beyond a shadow of doubt that tropical storms and hurricanes are gaining in intensity, and there is only one cause: the increasing heating of the waters in the world's oceans.
Since this is humanity's greatest challenge, the only option for a thinking, responsible person is to eschew the gas-guzzling SUV for the more