Your logic is flawed in several different places.
Now factor in the added cost of a hybrid and you will see your better off with any "normal vehicle" there is no benefit to a prius except to pretend your doing the right thing and make toyota and all these other scammers huge piles of cash.
You are actually putting some stock in EPA numbers as a true measure of mileage. I personally think it's absurd that they try to sum up all the variable in a pair of numbers. Mileage is dependent upon so many factors its only useful for the most basic of comparisons. The mpg you get will depend on your driving habits, your driving environment, the state of the battery etc. Depending on your drive, a certain type of car will get you better mileage - but overall, a hybrid should outdo a similar car in an "average" driving scenario, which is NOTHING like the EPA tests.
EPA numbers, to my knowledge, do not take into account the warm up period, in which FAR more gas is used (not to mention co2 burned) which is the primary reason that people don't get the mileage quoted. Smaller engines and take longer to warm up, but that can be somewhat offset by the battery only drive. The instant mpg readout is also a huge factor that affects driving style and can not be ignored.
In the city, the prius or any hybrid that can run on battery alone will absolutely destroy the mpg of any other car due to engine shut off, battery only drive and regenerative braking. On the highway, a small hybrid and battery a la the civic is better than a large one like the prius. On 100% highway, yes, a non-hybrid theoretically will get better mpg because there is no added weight of battery and no braking....but no one actually lives on a highway.
It's a good talking point and all to quote epa numbers, but it's hardly a swaying argument.
so what happens to the old batteries? old batteries in a junkyard are far worse for the environment than a little filtered out carbon gas, the long term effect is polluting the ground for hundreds or even thousands of years.
2) Batteries do not go to the junkyard...they go to the recyclng plant.
Cars of today put out nearly zip compared to even the cars of the 90's let alone those of the 70's. And i have said it before here but i will say it again the methane levels in cows farts deplete the ozone layer at a faster rate than current carbon levels of auto's do, so untill cows stop farting stop complaining about cars killing your environment. Also remember the ozone layer is in better shape than it was a few years ago and it continues to rebuild itself.
First off, your going to need to cite something if youre going to make an absurd statement like that.
And secondly, it's not the ozone layer and UV radiation we're worried about when it comes to cars - that was a primarily problem with CFCs. It's the actual amount of CO2 in our atmosphere that causes the greenhouse effect. And even if cars put out less than they used to, it's still far too much when you add up the hundreds of millions of cars in the world.
One more point i would like to make in this rant, a few years ago people were worried about "Global freezing" then suddenly that was aborted for "Global Warming", (big shot out to Al Gore, we wouldn't be talking right now if it wasn't for him because remember according to his ramblings he invented the internet ) The point is we are making this stuff up as we go along without enough research. For every scientist who says wine is bad there is one who says its great for you!
Global freezing was never a big public issue, unless you count the poor excuse for a movie they made about it. Global warming is a problem. The VAST majority of scientists are in agreement about this. You can always find someone to disagree and bolster your points, and ongoing research continues, but its trending in only one direction...global warming is a problem and it needs to be stopped. It's not just being "made up". For every scientist that says global warming isnt real you'll likely find 100 that will say it is.
Untill we have enough facts to really make a valid point why must we be so against those who choose to buy hummers, suburbans and tahoes?
Because the vast majority of people that buy them don't need such a beast, and they unequivocally put out more CO2, which is a problem for EVERYONE. It's essentially a selfish act. There is no such thing as a scientific "fact", and if you want to exploit semantics to make your point you're not going to convince anyone but the most gullible.
One day we will do something that pisses off mother earth and we will get shaken off like a bunch of fleas on a dog, or like the dinosaurs that as powerful and strong as they were got wipped out one day to put it into more realistic terms. Life is about survival of the fittest and this earth is much more fit than we are, when our times up trust me we will know it!
That something we will do is called global warming. Short of thermonuclear winter, there is nothing we can do to ruin our planet in one fell swoop. It's going to be slow and creep up on our ass, and we're going to have to deal with it. Life is about "survival of the fittest" in a sense, but thats an evolutionary term that applies to only individuals. And there is no individual organism or species that can survive long term by a policy of destroying it's own home and habitat.
With all that said, our planet is not going to degenerate into waterworld. Because in the end, we won't let it happen. We'll stop it before it's too late. Because we're finally talking about it. But it's a real problem, and it's not going to just go away on it's own, and although we need skeptics to force us into action, that's as far as your contribution will go.