It seems like this is a pretty big deal, why is it getting no press?

See, this is how I feel.

 

I see global warming as kind of an exaggerated aside to the real issue at hand-we should be working to actively operate at a cleaner, more healthy rate. While your 454 Chevelle may not kill penguins every time it starts, too much uncontrolled air pollution contributes to health problems, birth defects, and the overall quality of life for the people. So I don't see the relevance of global warming in the overall debate-okay, so it's wrong, that doesn't mean we go back to polluting our environment.

2. CFCs and the ozone make a lot of sense based on the chemistry, those molecules will wreck a ton of ozone molecules each. Protocols against CFC have actually been fairly effective. 

3. Fallout is a big deal, much bigger than we like to admit, but so are things like, say, volcanic eruptions that spew massive amounts of CO2 and gasses.

4. If doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity, someone needs to lock me up for biting at FE's trolled lures. He either lacks the mental tools to weigh scientific studies, distrusts science in general (satan manipulates Carbon 14 numbers to discredit the young earth theory, so how could any measurements not be tainted?) or feels that even if something truly cataclysmic were predicted, it would be a fulfillment of prophecy and God's will, and people shouldn't bother trying to avoid it, which is why you should pray over broken bones instead of getting them set by doctors who are probably atheists. He's clearly been inoculated against reason, or just smashed his head one too many times thanks to BMX

BTW- Global warming ended in early August of this year by mah reckoning, praise be to Jeebus!

 

Again though, I'd say the global warming has related to the public in a couple of ways-

 

1:) To promote overall environmental awareness

 

2:) To further Al Gore and other far left enviro-enthusiasts' agendas (I'm being polite with that term)

 

So as #1 I think it worked quite nicely, but when #2 got involved the public began rejecting all environmental progression on the whole.

 

I have no idea how much truth there is to it because it's far different than any direction my education will ever take. I tend to apply Occam's Razor to everything though am an eternal skeptic. I think that the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle-it's real, but we're probably not going to make any major changes to its existence. But that's just off the top of my head reasoning, not scientific data.

Again, there's a big difference between climate and weather, glaciers will grow if there's more precipitation than melt, and hotter weather in certain places puts more moisture into the atmosphere, and more precipitation. It's not going to be a linear rise in temps everywhere, but weather patters will change, which leads to instability in climate and markets. Considering the potential cost of ill effects VS. moving to reduce emissions, coupled with the additional benefits of reducing emissions, it's worth taking a crack at alternative energy.

Nuke reactors are sketchy at best and expensive, I'm all for shutting down a lot of the old style GE plants. VT Yankee can piss off, and the way the NRC does business is screwed. I would at least like to see newer plants build. that said, I don't know how many of our GE style reactors are in danger of tsunamis that knock out electrical generators needed to run cooling pumps. 

 

I think it's slightly more complicated than that. There is no don't pollute-there's an argument as to what level of pollution can be cut versus how much said cut costs. There's misinformation on both sides compounded by a general mystery surrounding the whole subject.

 

So if a company is going to lose billions (obviously a random example) to cut x amount of pollution, yeah it may be doing some good, but what is the level of good versus the economic impact? If you spend 20 million dollars on a feed the homeless program and feed one guy techincally you did some good but the economic impact may have been more considerable than the good accomplished.

 

Not taking a side here, but I wouldn't necessarily classify Americans as walking mouth breathers going WE WONT PAY TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT either.

How do you propose we go about doing it then? I think once the technology is there and actually feasible, someone has to make the plunge to make it nationwide or it will never get done.

You guys should read Why We Hate the Oil Companies. It was written by a former president of Shell Oil. He has a lot of good information about the future of energy.

 

Once the technology is there the market will demand it. Until the market demands it the government

We need not only existent technology that's feasible, but we need it to be cost effective. It's why so few people drive electric cars-they're very expensive and give very little bang for the buck.

 

I think we've made great strides the past decade in introducing people to Hybrid engine designs and alternative fuel sources but this is going to take alot of time and while the government is continually pushing and funding advancements it can't just step in and say "Okay guys, we're tearing down the gas stations and putting in recharge stations."

The worst part about this is that the market will only demand it once the price of gas has gone up to the point it is more cost effective to buy new technology than it is to keep shoveling money to old energy methods. So all the low income families are going to be stuck having to take on a loan for a car that can get them to work when they already have a working car that they can't pay the gas bill for anymore. The reason why electric cars are so expensive is because not everyone will buy them because they don't have infrastructure around them to support the cars. Once electric cars are being built in large numbers, their price will drop and be more affordable.

In no way can this be an immediate change of going from gas to electric. Which is why something needs to be chosen and put forth. Once the time comes where we do have to make a change, it will be so late in the game that we are stuck with an energy crisis.

I would still like to hear who would build the infrastructure across the nation. For the companies that are in the alternate fuel business, none of them are going to be able to pay for it.

 

I completely agree, but I don't think it's hopeless. The current price of gas is really a burden and won't do anything but go up-if we could just get a valid source somewhere close to what we spend on gas and with a similar power output I think Americans would gobble it up.

 

For instance I've mentioned on here I drive an hour every day to work. This usually figures out at around a 72 mile round trip. I do this 4 8-hour shifts a week. Combine that with my 4 16 mile round trips to college and any extracurricular activities plus the fact I'm using two vehicles to cut down on wear and tear my gas bill is around 400 dollars a month. That's with my V8 Mustang and my V6 F-150 getting 25 MPG on average, so it's not like I get absolutely horrendous gas mileage.

 

That's split rent on a nice apartment around here. So I was doing the math the other day and realized that, at my pay, I could easily chop two days a week off of my work and switch to 12 hour shifts and the offset wouldn't be bad enough to convince me to keep working 4 days a week AND doing college 4 days a week. So I dropped 400 bucks a month in pay but I'm now paying around 150 bucks a month less in gas so I figure the offset is worth having 5 days a week off to focus on school.

 

So the market is ripe and I do believe that we're slowly but surely seeing the transition to alternative fuel vehicles take place, but I don't think we'll see gas dethroned in this or even the next couple of decades. I know here in Texas Hybrid stickers are becoming a very common sight.

 

RoboCop wrote: Once the time comes where we do have to make a change, it will be so late in the game that we are stuck with an energy crisis.

 

I think the upcoming energy crisis is going to involve China stepping in and taking a portion of our share of the Middle Eastern oil market. I think this is going to be the source of many future foreign disputes. I highly doubt we'll be on an alternative source before then.

 

I think this is an overstretch of what's being stated here.

 

Let me fix it for you:

 

Mack wrote: In this thread we learn it's okay for the government, media and scientists to oversimplify an argument to the uneducated general public as long as it serves a humanitarian cause. . .

 

Again, subtract the ecoscience and add in economics. Like modern Facebook small government conservatism. People are arguing for a Laissez-faire form of capitalism here lately with absolutely regard for what it means. The general public is only vaguely aware of most issues, be they scientific, economic, huminitarian, etc.