psarhjinian
You’re just baiting me, right?

No, just pointing out the facts.
Then think of the miles thickness of carboniferous rock that forms the continent.
The carbon from burning fossil fuels is miniscule.

Sorry, but it brings up a larger point.

Namely, you can’t keep telling a large portion of middle-class people, who are basically the backbone of this country (this, after all, is what Obama has said repeatedly), that they are imposing unfair costs on the rest of society, while completely ignoring the choices made by other segments of society, and THEIR impact on others. And you can’t look solely at costs. Look at how PRODUCTIVE people are when they are using resources. Middle class people who live in the suburbs are generating a very large portion of taxes paid.

True, I was being hyperbolic. But the point is that Americans do not bear what I would call a fair cost for their poor urban development.

Um, that’s what many people say about welfare…including my wife, who actually WORKS with low-income people, and was a social worker.

Couldn’t resist, couldya?

My point is that choosing the live in a non-urban community is as much a choice, and carries as much a cost, as choosing to live in high-density urban environments. Saying that coasters or greens “hate freedom” yet denying that said freedom has a cost is disingenuous.

I happen to think a lot of things could be improved through urban planning that wasn’t driven either by cost or by a need to isolate ourselves from others. Integrated communities** not only have lower energy requirements (because you can walk from A to B), they’re socially and economically healthy as well. I understand they’re not everyone’s choice, but they are the lowest “cost”, if you think about cost in holistic terms.

** And no, gentrified urban living is not integrated, no matter what condo-dwellers would like to think.

bluecon: but there is a huge amount of science that points to warming, so it is a bit disingenuous to make a blanket statement that all the science points in one way. Also, the 1936 heat wave confuses weather for climate.

Let me just say to everyone here, that I appreciate that a variety of views can be posted at this site without there being personal attacks. It is nice to see respectful discussion at a website.

psharjinian: Put it to you this way: why should we subsidize your lifestyle choice?

Um, that’s what many people say about welfare…including my wife, who actually WORKS with low-income people, and was a social worker.

It’s not their fault that you’re living a lifestyle that may or may not be sustainable. Large, low-density suburban communities are not sustainable, and simply aren’t done where gas isn’t effectively free.

Put it to you this way: why should we subsidize your lifestyle choice?

It is unwise to ridicule heavily armed nutjobs. “Enviromentalists” are weenies who can be ridiculed.

“If I have 4 sets of 10 samples across increasing Y-axis and I tell you that the 10 sample mean also increases X-axis how would you fit your curve?”

Are you trying to prove that you have no idea what you are talking about? However I can assure that the one that is making a gooey mess in your hands is not M&Ms.

Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right. It was only sequestered millions of years ago, when the climate was completely different. My bad, I completely misunderstood.

You’re just baiting me, right?

So they look at our lifestyle, which is a situation that is totally incomprehensible to them, and blame our cars for everything. Why? Because if you take away our cars, then that forces us to live in places like San Francisco (their headquarters) or New York City or places where, for the most part, we don’t want to live. Or can’t afford to live. Or could afford to live if we wanted roommates. But we grew up, and said, “Roommates are for college!”

The reason I know this is that I live in a suburb of New York City and have had these discussions of what life is like in the suburbs of Atlanta, or Dallas, or Chicago, or Los Angeles.

And they look at me like I’m telling them what life is like on Mars. And they blame The Car for all of it. Take away the car, and it all changes.

I’d like to see more variety in how we do what we do so other technologies could mature faster. Perhaps we gravitate towards singular solutions because industrial scale of manufacturing makes singular solutions cheaper. In the long run though -not an easy thing for the ADD human to grasp- a variety solutions is better. Eggs in one basket.

I think it is ironic that in the world’s largest free economy that we tend to all do some things exactly the same way using the same products from the same sources.

Our government encourages singular solutions. Trains are much more energy efficient yet our tax legislation favors trucks I’ve been told. It’s how taxes are figured on goods being transported. Can anyone explain this better? A fast truck is favored over a slow train. Of course then there is JIT manufacturing. Again tax is calculated on materials on hand vs materials being shipped. It favors the trucks again.

I would like to see more variety in our software, what we drive, how we make our energy, how we consume it, construction, foods, etc. Yes I recognize that today’s economy is more diverse than it has even been. We need to keep looking for new solutions, new options, etc.

I’d like to see alternatives in the area of transportation reach the consumer market so the technology can mature. It’s a shame that the entrenched interests who are best positioned to manufacture such products instead stand in it’s way so they can extract maximum profits from the way things are now and have been for decades. That is we need EVs to come to market. We have the technology but companies like GM and Chevron impede it’s progress in the name of keeping things the same. The problem is that the same is not anywhere good enough anymore.

Yes this is life in a free market where some have enough riches to control the rest of us by exclusion through legislation and scale of manufacturing.

It’s why I don’t like corporate interests that get too large. Microsoft has so much of the software market that it is hard to dislodge them even with a good idea. (Go Mint Linux and PCLinuxOS!). They encourage legislation that impedes competition. They try to squash anyone that gets into their way. Look up the Microsoft Halloween Memo.

Let’s hope with the failure of Detroit that some interesting small players will be able to get some traction and bring alternatives to market. Let’s hope that they concentrate on markets beyond southern California.

I’d like to see the gov’t make a big step forward by using alternative energy in their gov’t vehicles where applicable. EV mail delivery vehicles would be a great step. Solar on government buildings. Wind on government installations such as military bases. As the technology gets used, people get more comfortable with it and it reaches the consumer markets through mainstream outlets.

Phoenix Motor Cars has an excellent product coming to market one of these days. (Been showing a vehicle for a few years). We need these on the road to begin the transition away from fossil fuels where they are unnecessary. It’s not about the low cost of fossil fuels – it’s about the long term consequences of using them decade after decade. The technology in the battery is new enough that these vehicles won’t serve everyone’s needs but they can serve ALOT of people’s needs.

Then maybe we can avoid situations like Iraq. Like doing business with Chavez. Or the Bin Ladens of the world who perhaps would be happier living in caves and riding camels again…

We’ve got to quit making choices based only on the lowest initial price. We’ve got to quit making choices based on what is easiest. That knick-knack at Wal-Mart made in China might be the cheapest but if you have to buy three of them to add up to a sinlge quality product made here in America by Americas – why would you?

We’ve got to raise the collective IQ of America so that people get their heads out of dark places and get to work. Giving them a free ride on the government check isn’t accomplishing anything positive. I don’t mind a short ride on the government check but if the do-nothings of the world face living in an unheated hut without cable TV or a cellphone then maybe at least their children will have the gumption to get off their duff and get an education and do better. That’s why the Chinese and Indian kids stand such a great change of kicking the American youth’s asses. They have plenty of examples of poverty around them to remind them of what NOT getting an education holds for them.

We’ve become complacent with a lifestyle that can’t last forever. How much resources have we consumed in the past 150 years? How much have we changed our world? Can we expect this to continue for another 150 years? Hardly.

I am concerned about the world we leave our kids. Of course we live in a world where so many people have so many personal problems that overshadow anything so intangible as what their offspring’s lives might be like good or bad 100 years from now.

They are focused on their needs and wants right now – not what consequence their choices will have 100 years from now. In this regard you can call me a liberal I suppose but I don’t care. We as humans are sloppy and it takes a few neatfreaks to step up and usher everyone to clean up a little.

I will seriously be looking at the Nissan and Phoenix Motor Cars EVs promised to be on the market in a couple of years. Of course the PMC products have been promised for a couple of years already… VBG! I can spend $40K fueling a modern vehicle or I can spend $40K on a vehicle that takes much less to fuel and will likely last MUCH longer simply because it is a more simple product to maintain. Its a vehicle I can fuel at home with a solar roof. Yes, I’ll take two – thanks.

FWIW I installed two new oxygen sensors and a new cat on my daily driver yesterday. Clean air is important to me… (Really, the cat had a meltdown at 160K miles and both sensors were failing. VBG!)

But of course only cars need to change. As noted, low hanging fruit. And it makes for good posturing, as politicians (like BO) can make it look like they are doing something by reducing auto CO2 emissions. Because well, if they tried to change the stuff with the most impact…the change would take longer than would be noticed in time to get re-elected. Which is what its all about anyway.

NADA:
http://www.nada.org/NR/rdonlyres/41566B81-7576-47DE-AF46-A59D4803B5AA/0/NADAData_scrappagepdf.pdf

Jack Baruth also comes close to explaning another reason behind the car focus with his puritan comment. I don’t see it as remnants of a puritanical past, but rather as part of the human attraction to judgement and censure (I’d say this is what makes puritanical viewpoints attractive in the first place). It feels good to look at someone and know that what they are doing is wrong, stupid and, more importantly, not up to your standards. That kind of knowledge leads, at it’s root, to an inflated sense of one’s own power. It’s almost impossible to ascribe a human face and identity to the coal industry, or even one particular power plant, so that satisfaction is denied.

I think last summer’s $4-a-gallon for regular unleaded and a collapsing housing market (no home equity to buy a $40,000 SUV on a $60,000 annual income) are doing just that.

PeteMoran: Along with the nutjobs at the NRA, perhaps these people should be “psychoanalyzed and ridiculed”?

When one participates in any discussion involving firearms and the gun control, one quickly discovers that those “nutjobs at the NRA” know what they are talking about, while the gun control advocates range between clueless and laughably ignorant. Trust me…same with the NMA on automotive issues.

Taking the mean of a group of data points reduces the amount of information contained in the data set to a single item…

If I have 4 sets of 10 samples across increasing Y-axis and I tell you that the 10 sample mean also increases X-axis how would you fit your curve?

@ Pch101

Well said. Thank you.

That’s a contradictory statement. Vehicles are the focus because they are among the main culprits.

In any given year, the usage of fossil fuels contributes about 95% of the C02 produced by the US. Of that C02 produced, the primary source is electricity generation, followed by transportation. It’s just a function of arithmetic, not part of a conspiracy to destroy the middle class.

I am also not seeing how drivers are a targeted oppressed class in this discussion. The climate change literature geared toward consumers that I’ve seen does not focus exclusively on cars, but also promotes efficient energy use within the home. Those sorts of suggestions are perfectly reasonable, for as noted, the main culprits are electricity generation and transportation, so it is sensible to discuss how to become more efficient users of electricity and transportation.

People just want easy fixes. They don’t want to hear that they need to sacrifice, or to think before they act. Talking about climate change in this context is like talking about diet and exercise with the obese — they don’t want to hear about it, and they’d rather wallow in their status quo than look in the mirror and take some responsibility.

It should be possible to tell the corpulent that they need to reduce their intake without being told in response that the messengers must hate food. We don’t dislike food, we just dislike the idea of choking on it.

Yes, but what do your enemies say? More importantly. All studies are not created equal. Some are better than others. The real problem here is that we do not have good data for global measurements before the late 20th century. We don’t know if our these observations reveal a long term trend or are simply noise.

“Also, please note that NASA’s failure to launch was actually a failure by Orbital Sciences, a private company.”

So what? the company was their contractor, they picked the company and set the terms of the contract. They are responsible.

And, I don’t want to punish NASA. I do want the Federal Government to stop throwing my money around like they don’t care about anything other than the re-election of the ruling party. If it makes you feel any better, I also want to shut down the Agriculture Department.

# PeteMoran: “I respectfully suggest you go back and review the first year statistics course you might have taken.”

What I learned in Graduate School was that the mean is the lowest level statistic. Taking the mean of a group of data points reduces the amount of information contained in the data set to a single item, one that cannot be used to generate the data set. Look at it this way. Knowing that the mean of a series is 10, does not tell you whether the series was generated by the function:

y = 10 (-10, 10) or,
y = x + 10 (-10, 10) or,
y = -x + 10 (-10, 10) or,
y = (sin x) + 10 (-2pi, 2pi)

That is why you need to use curve fitting techniques to analyze data sets.

Yes the scientific data all show the Earth in a cooling trend. There is little activity from the Sun, a La Nina, a cool PDO in the Pacifac and more, all causing a cooling that is likely to increase. And in the last ten years there has been a huge increase in manmade CO2. All the scientific models predicting the Earth’s temps are now proven wrong.

ALL THE DATA SHOWS THE EARTH IS COOLING

Burning fossil fuels is net new carbon.
Fossil fuels are not new carbon.

The reason cars got the attention is simple: there’s a lot more low-hanging fruit there (and, as one other astute commenter pointed out, fruit that can be more quickly picked).

Yeah, we’re not going to get everybody to take public transportation, but getting 90% of the people who use SUVs as single-occupant commuters to drive Civics instead would be a huge benefit at fairly little cost compared to the other ways to get that large a reduction in CO2.

The problem is that personal transportation is an easy target, while going up against industry takes balls that most governments don’t have, and would require every nation to sign on so as not to create (or increase) a productivity gap between compliers and polluters.

Simplistic greens (eg, me, when I was in first-year university) attack cars because their easy marks; greens who’ve been marinated in realism have come to understand that going after the smokestacks is very hard (the best we could probably do is cap-and-trade), while cars are easy and have the satellite benefit of reducing refinery emissions.

Along with the nutjobs at the NRA, perhaps these people should be “psychoanalyzed and ridiculed”?

What people need to be worried about is what changes in weather patterns do to our ability to grow enough food to feed ourselves, or if certain highly-populated areas will end up with rainfall levels that are problematically high.

Global warming is not like, say, a nuclear holocaust that scythes the planet clean of life above the level of, say, tetanus.

Really? Is that so? You may want to actually research that. (and by research, I mean “read what actual scientists have measured” rather than “listen to what people I agree with are cherrypicking”).

Because cars represent freedom of choice. Choice does not fit with an environmentalist agenda.

Then why is it that, say, people who tend to disagree with global warming are statistically more likely to hate freedom of religion, sexuality and learning?

The sword of demagoguery cuts both ways.

Can’t blame cows either. Cow farts add methane. But methane does not have the staying power of carbon dioxide. Methane concentration in the atmosphere has stabilized. Carbon dioxide concentration continues to rise.

People who mention cow farts, forest fires or, well members of Greenpeace who talk too much fail to understand the the carbon cycle. Cow farts are not net new carbon; ethanol (when you’re not burning gasoline to make it) is not net new carbon. Burning fossil fuels is net new carbon.

So rise up, fellow owners/driver, viva la revolution!”

There is a lobby group. It’s called the National Motorists Association (NMA). Here is their site:

http://www.motorists.org/

“Protecting Motorists Since 1982″