GM buries the Hummer

It won't be missed. U.S. sales, two-thirds of the total, plunged from 56,000 in 2007 to 9,000 last year. The days of the infamous Hummer, symbol extraordinaire of gas-guzzling excess, are numbered. After Chinese regulators rejected a $150-million bid for the brand by Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Co., General Motors announced that unless it receives another bid "in pretty short order," it will wind the brand down.

Jobs will be lost (hopefully to be replaced by jobs building sensible cars), but the environment will benefit. It will not miss what has been referred to as "the most polluting way to get from one place to another in the most public way." A loss for conspicuous consumption will be a gain for the planet.