BE afraid, be very afraid if you are remotely guilty of contributing to mother Earth’s fevered brow.
The Carbonfinder General is hunting down everything from cruise ships to patio heaters, seeking out with the cruel spike of taxation those heretics who reject Lord Cromwell’s exciting congestion charge initiatives.

Even Daisy the cow is on the ducking stool for polar bear murder.
It turns out that each bovine, gently ruminating, pumps out more death gas than a car.
Well, I will say I told you so.
Here are some other disadvantages with the hoofed transport.
Obviously, given the nature of the power train, they are very slow. Foot and mouth can make starting difficult and bovine spongiform encephalitis affects steering and suspension.
Furthermore, most cow types come without extras, although some have a stylish plastic tag in the ear.
On the other hand cattle run on grass without the need to set up large biofuel production lines and while colour choice is limited, leather upholstery is standard on all models. They are also very good off road.
All in all, however, given the mess that will be left on your driveway, and the beast’s poor carbon hoofprint, you may be better off with a small 4x4. Like the green award winning Jeep Patriot.
Apart from the leather trim, all the Patriot CRD shares with cow-kind is a rather bulky, bullish, profile.
Jeep design has been around the block a few times since the all American, square cut, Cherokee. The next generation was as rounded as Kenneth Branagh’s vowels, before being replaced by the Commander, a sort of Hummer on a hot wash.
Naming policy, on the other hand, has remained staunchly republican.
Patriot can be either an example of The Right Stuff or small ground-to-air missile. All very mid-west, all very homeland security. This is not a naming style we are used to in Europe. Imagine Ford launching a Focus Yorkshireman or Vauxhall introducing an Astra Blunderbuss diesel.
The Patriot is in the mould of a rugged urban SUV, somewhat like the Nissan X-Trail. It has greater off-road ability than the softer Compass but don’t for one minute dream it will take you up Mount Rushmore.

As a modern example of the SUV the Patriot is as fresh as the dawn. |t has a two-litre turbo charged VW engine that will return over 40mpg and cruise the motorway at 80mph. Er, but you might want to turn the radio up.
Off road? Well, promising but a change out of the tennis shoe road tyres would help before getting too adventurous.
There is a good level of equipment and at £16,000 the fierce pricing competes with many hatchbacks let alone 4x4s. Patriot packs plenty of the usual safety equipment like ABS and ESP, along with electronic roll monitoring and full-time active four wheel drive with a locking diff. This, Jeep says, is because its customers find personal survival very important. Unlike the rest of us, who presumably can’t wait to end up in a ditch bleeding from our ears.
All this kit is nicely put together with a comfortable long-range driving position and a six-disc CD and climate console you don’t have to graduate from Caltech to understand. Don’t, whatever you do, look for any rounded edges. The interior is not so much sculpted as hewn by one of Swift’s stonemasons, most attractive in a masculine way.
Performance? Well that’s not what you would buy one for is it? 11 seconds to 60mph and a top end of 117mph is fine for most purposes.
If however, you still fancy an ox and cart I would point out that the Patriot is the most economical Jeep ever and winner of a gold medal in last year’s Green 4x4 awards with 182g/k carbon dumpage. Which means the darling Darling won’t be on your case.
Oxen, on the other hand, will be burnt at the stake.

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