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Opinion

Cash for Clunkers and the Cost of Convenience

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Cash for Clunkers and the Cost of Convenience
A car dealer uses a colorfully painted old car to promote its Cash for Clunkers sales promotion in Los Angeles. Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
Mollie Engelhart
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Commentary

In 2009, in all of our environmental wisdom, we launched a program that came to be known as Cash for Clunkers. That wasn’t the official name, but it is the one most people remember. In just a couple of months, nearly 700,000 cars were traded in under this program, backed by taxpayer subsidies of up to $4,500 per vehicle.

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Mollie Engelhart
Mollie Engelhart
Author
Mollie Engelhart, regenerative farmer and rancher at Sovereignty Ranch, is committed to food sovereignty, soil regeneration, and educating on homesteading and self-sufficiency. She is the author of “Debunked by Nature”: Debunk Everything You Thought You Knew About Food, Farming, and Freedom—a raw, riveting account of her journey from vegan chef and LA restaurateur to hands-in-the-dirt farmer, and how nature shattered her cultural programming.