Congratulations to Caribbean Wawrzyniak of Austin Community College (ACC) for winning today's leftist abuse award. Caribbean highlighted ACC's policy of doling out preferential parking spots to students who drive (new, pricey) "green" cars. With apologies to Marie Antoinette, the policy seems to be "let them drive green." Click through to read the whole story.

In its ever-continuing quest to "go green", ACC decreed that it would give students access to "new preferred parking spots at each ACC campus" provided they drove "fuel-efficient, low-emission" cars.  ACC provides a list of approved green cars, which you can view on the ACC site or at the bottom of this post.

The top of the list of ACC-approved cars is a 2009 Audi TT Coupe. No, really. A 2009 Audi TT Coupe with a base price of $36,025 that can also scale up to $44,295 if you add on the bells and whistles. That's a car ACC wants you to drive.

The gist of the entire list is simple. If you drive an older, affordable, used car -- like most students -- you're out of luck. If you drive a car made before 2000, you're out of luck. If your car is any larger than a Civic, you're out of luck -- unless you had the foresight to purchase an electric car (e.g. a 2000 Ford Ranger electric pickup).

Writes Caribbean:

I find it highly unfair that the students who have expensive, new cars who could easily afford to pay the meter instead get more benefits for no reason other than the type of car that they have.

And:

[The policy is] meant only as a way to increase the college's smugness on their environmental friendliness. It is also clearly discriminatory to those students of less well off economic backgrounds. The 'green car' list includes many new (0 - 3 years old) models that get good gas mileage and very few old models with expensive electric modifications; however, affordable used cars are almost completely absent from the list.

The kicker, according to Caribbean?

Plenty of studies have shown that used cars are a better option if you are trying to limit your CO2 emissions because new cars use so much energy in production and shipping.

This demonstrates the odd "logic" of the environmental crowd on campus: policies pursued in the name of environmentalism and sustainability are good things unto themselves, regardless of their unfair -- and oftentimes perverse -- effects in the real world.

The message from ACC is simple: let them drive green or, at the least, buy an Audi.

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