[QUOTE=draugur;39574707]I have an idea Obama. How about you buy me a nice new car so I can stop driving my POS 20 year old car that gets 10 gallons to the mile.
[B]The only reason we have this problem is because you practically have to take out a housing loan to buy a new fucking car in this country[/B].[/QUOTE]
You clearly don't know anything about climate change or how much cars cost in other countries.
Yay, more circumventing of the legislative branch of government. Sorry Mr. President. The constitution requires you go through the legislative branch of government to make new laws.
[editline]14th February 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;39585353]My point isn't that cars aren't expensive[/QUOTE]
Cars are very expensive, hence why you can take up to 5 year loans on them. While $20,000 for a new car is [B]very[/B] inexpensive considering, that doesn't mean $20,000 isn't a lot of money.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;39585353]Right now public transport isn't - to my knowledge - all that great in the US[/QUOTE]
Your knowledge serves you correctly. In big cities, sure, busses and subways carry a lot more people than cars on the road, but it is important to remember how large the United States is. In a rural town of 5,000 people, there isn't going to be much public transportation.
In some places, there is a bike lane on the regular road.
So how long until congress unfairly attacks V8s while conveniently ignoring coal fired power plants, filthy strip mines, and other sources of greenhouse gases?
[QUOTE=Reviized;39576981] It doesn't seem like it because they produce oil and natural gas and are [B]quite adamant about US cars not quite being as efficient as European counterparts[/B][/QUOTE]
Wrong. US cars are inefficient because we simply do not want to buy efficient ones. Gas is cheap and we like roomier stuff, so we buy the 15-30MPG cars. Cars that get European fuel economy are, in fact, available here. Volkswagen will happily toss their 2.0L TDI diesel engine and a 6MT gearbox into any sedan and hatch on US lots if you special order it. But nobody does. The diesel is too slow. People are more than willing to get the less efficient V6 instead. The smart ForTwo is probably the only one I've personally seen, and the Fiat 500 is only selling in places like NYC, LA and San Fran. I live far enough from the downtown grind that I've never seen one in person, not even on the dealer lots.
On top of that, we tend to demand a lot more from our cars than your typical Euro-style supermini can deliver. Just in my own driveway, we need a vehicle that:
Can be serviced in our driveway
Is piss cheap to service
Can handle standing water up to 2 feet deep
Can handle carrying 500 pounds of hay bales
Can handle towing 5,000 pounds on a trailer
can handle mud and snow
can handle carrying large objects, such as appliances and lawn mowers. We live too far away from town for store delivery services to be cost effective when buying such things.
Can handle rough roads
Will last 30+ years
Nothing on a typical European dealer lot will fullfill those requirements, and to get such a vehicle in Europe requires a special order. Here in America? You can walk onto any random used car dealer and buy a pickup truck or SUV that will do everything listed with pride, and only expect to pay no more than 5 grand for it. Since gas is piss cheap, and it's not being serviced in a shop, upkeep costs are trivial as well. So yeah.
Americans simply do not want super efficient cars. We don't pay $9/gallon for fuel, we can afford to have an engine that makes a bit of power and isn't smaller than a toaster. 15-30MPG is A-OK for us, and if that's what it takes to have a car we actually enjoy being in we'll gladly live with it. So we buy them. It has nothing to do with some sort of bullshit oil baron conspiracy.
Co2 makes up 0.1% of the atmosphere.
I hope this will potentially include more research into alternate solutions besides solar and wind.
Perhaps some well researched [URL="http://www.wimp.com/lftrminutes/"]Thorium?[/URL]
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;39585353]My point isn't that cars aren't expensive (though compared to Denmark your stuff costs nothing), but rather that you should have some other means f transportation making the car obsolete. Instead of driving 10km, take the bus or your bike - cheaper and much better for the environment. Right now public transport isn't - to my knowledge - all that great in the US, and the people I know who's been over there have told me that bike parths are vritually non-existent, so fix that up instead f making cars cheaper.[/QUOTE]
Public transit ain't gonna do us much good. Our transportation network is built around the car and nothing else. Suburbs are absolutely terrible places to try installing public transit, and for many of us, we're simply too far out for it to be cost effective to offer such services at all.
America is significantly more spread out than any European country you care to name. What works for Europe won't necessarily work here.
[QUOTE=UziXxX;39587301]Co2 makes up 0.1% of the atmosphere.[/QUOTE]
And? That's still easily enough to have a significant effect on the climate.
[QUOTE=UziXxX;39587301]Co2 makes up 0.1% of the atmosphere.[/QUOTE]
actually 0.035%, what does that have to do with anything?
[editline]14th February 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=CatFodder;39587571]And? That's still easily enough to have a significant effect on the climate.[/QUOTE]
all our greenhouse gasses make up less than 0.1% of the atmosphere. obviously that "small chunk" is able to keep our planet warm.
[QUOTE=joes33431;39583718]It technically pollutes far less in other aspects than crude oil does. It still releases carbon dioxide when burning, however.
[B]There's really no catch-all good answer to this problem[/B]. Currently-known fossil fuel resources at current consumption rates are only going to last for another few centuries, with consumption rates only rising considering that industry is flourishing in East Asia and beginning to sprout up in Africa. Technologies to capture carbon emissions only eliminate one side of the problem - fossil fuels are still non-renewable, and they're going to run out eventually. Meanwhile, many of the alternative sources have a host of problems.
Wind technology is unfavorable in urban areas, solar panels themselves are highly inefficient, geothermal plants are terribly expensive to maintain, hydroelectric dams cause massive dislocations and water distribution issues, and as far as nuclear power goes, there's no effective form of long-term storage of radioactive waste and decommissioned nuclear reactor parts.
And this is all ignoring the fact that it takes fossil fuels to build these things.
But the optimist in me says that there's a light at the end of this tunnel - probably because I'll be dead before any of these problems end up affecting me.[/QUOTE]
there is, is just that no one wants to actually do it, switching to nuclear energy en mass globaly would go a VERY long way to fix this, also thermo-solar energy, changing our consumerist civilzation is also a necessity(contrary to what people believe, it doesn't mean living like its the fucking middle ages), but oil companies(and other ones too) don't want that so... :suicide:
at least i'll be dead by the time the worse effects of climate change hit the planet.
[QUOTE=crazyjames;39577287]Yes with the current plans to invade 35 African countries, and the fact China and Japan are having high tension over land, North Korea testing its 3rd nuke, France invading Mali and a host of other conflicts we are closer than ever to the next world war. I actually laugh that you don't know the powers of hemp its really sad that people are so misinformed about it.[/QUOTE]
THE POWWWWERS OF HEMP
WORLD WAR 3 IS COMING MAN BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER
[QUOTE=Craig Willmore;39588102]THE POWWWWERS OF HEMP
WORLD WAR 3 IS COMING MAN BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER[/QUOTE]
WORLD WAR 3?? MORE LIKE TOKE WAR 3!! AMIRITE??
(seriously though, even though it's retarded marijuana is illegal, it's still not gonna solve every problem magically)
[QUOTE=crazyjames;39577178]They are going to do the old run around and make it look like they are "solving climate change" but in reality this is going to do nothing. With a failing economy and world war 3 on the horizon this should not be an "Ultimatum" leave that to Jason Bourne. Taxing oil and Gas drilling is not the answer just decrease the demand for the products by introducing new and innovative technologies like hemp production and make everything from plastics to houses, from gas and other natural resources and stop ruining the atmosphere and drinking water with toxic chemicals. I mean seriously people if you are still close minded about hemp production you are just an idiot that listens to to much CNN/MSNBC. Hemp will improve even the most desolate soil and turn it into lush land after only 1 plant cycle. In turn you can grow even more food or hemp on said land. over 30,000 products can be made from hemp and its still illegal. Realize that the people in power are using your fear and ignorance to line their pockets with your hard earned money. HEMP IS RENEWABLE, OIL IS NOT.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=crazyjames;39577287]Yes with the current plans to invade 35 African countries, and the fact China and Japan are having high tension over land, North Korea testing its 3rd nuke, France invading Mali and a host of other conflicts we are closer than ever to the next world war. I actually laugh that you don't know the powers of hemp its really sad that people are so misinformed about it.[/QUOTE]
Crazyjames really [i]is[/i] crazy.
[QUOTE=imptastick;39575104]I was taught this in one of my ecology classes last year. Apparently when they drill at an angle they cause cracks in the containing layers that allows the gas to move up into wells. Because they are drilling over a larger area when going in at an angle there is more cracks over a wider area increasing the amount that leaks upward.
This seems to visualize it pretty well.
[img]http://today.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/fracking.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
The term is "fracking".
[QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;39574980]As far as I can remember it's not the actual drilling or drilling method that cause that, it's poor containment of the run off type shit that they keep in huge pools near the drilling sites, it's contaminated water that's just left sitting around and without properly constructed pools it just seeps into the local water table and aquifers.
Read it a while ago and I can't remember where so feel free to disregard it but that's what my memory is saying.[/QUOTE]
Nat geo.
[QUOTE=Wizards Court;39587663]there is, is just that no one wants to actually do it, switching to nuclear energy en mass globaly would go a VERY long way to fix this, also thermo-solar energy, changing our consumerist civilzation is also a necessity(contrary to what people believe, it doesn't mean living like its the fucking middle ages), but oil companies(and other ones too) don't want that so... :suicide:
at least i'll be dead by the time the worse effects of climate change hit the planet.[/QUOTE]
Eeeexcept that we still have no way to safely and permanently store the spent fuel assemblies and reactor parts when we have to decommission the nuclear plants, as they're typically less expensive to take apart and rebuild than they are to repair.
Aaaand the fact that it takes construction to build nuclear plants, and construction not only uses machinery that uses fossil fuels, but also causes a great deal of pollution (on average, the majority of materials used in construction end up in landfills).
The point is, energy is a big business on which many systems rely. It's absurd to say that we can just suddenly change a factor on which billions of peoples of lives rely on, and equally absurd to say that it's simply due to consumerism and corporate greed. Those have effects, sometimes significant ones, but they're not at all the only factors.
We've pretty much dug ourselves a hole, particularly because we thought that the flammable black stuff we were pumping from the ground was unlimited, and public perceptions are only now becoming effectively aware of fossil fuels' true limits.
[QUOTE=crazyjames;39577287][b]Yes with the current plans to invade 35 African countries[/b], and the fact China and Japan are having high tension over land, North Korea testing its 3rd nuke, France invading Mali and a host of other conflicts we are closer than ever to the next world war. I actually laugh that you don't know the powers of hemp its really sad that people are so misinformed about it.[/QUOTE]
Are you fucking kidding me
You're not familiar with the term "military advisors", are you? Or does being this illiterate in terms of international matters come naturally for you?
[editline]15th February 2013[/editline]
Please be a fucking troll nobody is this stupid
[QUOTE=TestECull;39587283]Americans simply do not want super efficient cars. We don't pay $9/gallon for fuel, we can afford to have an engine that makes a bit of power and isn't smaller than a toaster. 15-30MPG is A-OK for us, and if that's what it takes to have a car we actually enjoy being in we'll gladly live with it. So we buy them. It has nothing to do with some sort of bullshit oil baron conspiracy.[/QUOTE]
I do, and have one. I do not work to buy gas, I buy gas to work. But yeah, many have a genuine need for big trucks.
[QUOTE=Metalcastr;39594884]I do, and have one. I do not work to buy gas, I buy gas to work. But yeah, many have a genuine need for big trucks.[/QUOTE]
You're one of the few...and honestly I think the trucks are too big as it is. A modern quarter ton, say Nissan Frontier, is physically as large as my 30 year old half ton. WTF?
-snip snip snip-
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