Dams filled, forests saved! Here comes your paper-free Open Road

I have bad news and good news. The bad news is the number of trees we kill producing one issue of Open Road.

Based on figures published by the Worldwatch Institute, 6048 trees were chopped down for the issue you are now reading. Your copy is one of 1.5 million printed and posted to NRMA Members. We used 252 tonnes of paper (from certified forests), around one million litres of water and close to 40,000 tonnes of various other resources.

The good news is that Open Road will soon go monthly - without killing any trees. It will be available to all Members with internet access.

You will still get your bi-monthly print edition, but Open Road will become a monthly e-zine that you can download or view online, using your mouse to turn the pages.

To check out how it works, visit openroad.com.au/emag where you can access the electronic version of this issue.

Many NRMA members have contacted us to say how much they have enjoyed our digital e-zines, especially the November/December edition with its bonus pages expanding some of the stories from the print version.

Here are a few more sobering Worldwatch Institute figures for all of us who enjoy reading words on the printed page:

• One fifth of all wood harvested in the world ends up as paper.
• Pulp and paper are the fifth largest industrial consumers of energy in the world.
• Making paper uses more water per tonne than any other product in the world.

For the whole shocking story about the impact of paper production, go to worldwatch.org.

and the winners are ... Germany and Japan

The 12 winners of Australia’s Best Cars 2007 included only two brands -– Ford and Land Rover - that were not German or Japanese.
 
Honda won two awards, Lexus two, Volkswagen two, BMW two, Nissan one and Toyota one. The Toyota Aurion AT-X, named best large car, was the only winner made in Australia.

I was privileged to attend the black-tie awards night in Melbourne, along with car company executives and the top people and other editors from all the state auto clubs. Australia’s Best Cars is a joint venture between the state clubs.

The NRMA team included Open Road competition winners Luke and Martin Phillips of Kings Langley who, along with other state club members, had won tickets to the big night, plus an overnight stay at the plush RACV City Club.

My personal favourite among the top cars – based purely on whim and certainly not on the fact that it had the highest overall score of all the finalists - is the Lexus GS45Oh, named best luxury car. With its $121,964 price tag, I put this car in a category of my own: In my dreams!

David Naylor Editor-in-chief