Learning From China

[pushka]

Got this from another website that I visit often... www.bagism.com

http://www.bagism.com/webboard/msg/7580.html

What are your thoughts?

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Some good points, but a totally unrealistic proposal for a solution in his mention of alternative energy sources like geothermal, wind, solar, etc. Those sources are simply too expensive and land-intensive to provide anywhere near the energy that will be needed.

In omitting nuclear power, he demonstrates he's not serious.

[Guest curvette]

I see Christianity as the biggest threat to China (as far as resource consumption.) If they embrace the "multiply and replenish the earth" philosophy in the same way that many Old Testament literalitsts do, that will be the end of the world as we know it. The eastern philosphies are more environmentally friendly.

[pushka]

So are you suggesting that Nuclear Power is the sole way ahead?

Can you suggest other 'economic' measures regarding the food crisis...etc.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Originally posted by pushka@Mar 12 2005, 02:20 AM

So are you suggesting that Nuclear Power is the sole way ahead?

Can you suggest other 'economic' measures regarding the food crisis...etc.

At present, the only energy source capable of meeting future needs without increasing CO2 omissions is nuclear power. Alternative energy souces just don't have the potential to provide what we need. You'd need to basically pave over Texas with solar cells, cover the entire Northern Plains with windmills, and so forth. Wind and solar are way too land-intensive to be economically or environmentally sound; geothermal is limited to a few sites, and hydropower is already maxed out in the U.S. -- environmentalists will prevent the building of new hydropower dams, and we've pretty much dammed everything dammable anyway.

As for the "food crisis," I'll believe it when I see it. There is plenty of excess capacity in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Argentina, etc. We pay people not to plant, just to keep commodity prices from dropping into the basement. Plus China will not be adopting an American style diet, particularly the dairy aspect. Asian cuisine generally doesn't use milk much.

[Outshined]

I have to go with PD on this one. Nuclear is about the most clean, reliable and efficient power generation resource we have right now. Malfunction is always a concern, and safety has to be a priority, but no other system proposed yet is nearly as good.

[Cal]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck+Mar 12 2005, 09:30 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (TheProudDuck @ Mar 12 2005, 09:30 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--pushka@Mar 12 2005, 02:20 AM

So are you suggesting that Nuclear Power is the sole way ahead?

Can you suggest other 'economic' measures regarding the food crisis...etc.

At present, the only energy source capable of meeting future needs without increasing CO2 omissions is nuclear power. Alternative energy souces just don't have the potential to provide what we need. You'd need to basically pave over Texas with solar cells, cover the entire Northern Plains with windmills, and so forth. Wind and solar are way too land-intensive to be economically or environmentally sound; geothermal is limited to a few sites, and hydropower is already maxed out in the U.S. -- environmentalists will prevent the building of new hydropower dams, and we've pretty much dammed everything dammable anyway.

As for the "food crisis," I'll believe it when I see it. There is plenty of excess capacity in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Argentina, etc. We pay people not to plant, just to keep commodity prices from dropping into the basement. Plus China will not be adopting an American style diet, particularly the dairy aspect. Asian cuisine generally doesn't use milk much.

You'd need to basically pave over Texas with solar cells,

PD--I can't imagine a better suggestion!

[Cal]

Originally posted by Outshined@Mar 12 2005, 10:26 AM

I have to go with PD on this one. Nuclear is about the most clean, reliable and efficient power generation resource we have right now. Malfunction is always a concern, and safety has to be a priority, but no other system proposed yet is nearly as good.

I agree regarding nuclear power. However, our auto manufacturers in cooperation with our polititions have been dragging their feet on the production and promotion of fuel efficient automobiles for over 20 years. The technology exists to make cars twice as efficient as they have been until recently. There is absolutely no valid reason for not requiring that all vehicles evolve toward hybrid, or better, engines.

I agree that food is not the problem--our own midwest farmers can produce enough wheat to feed the whole world. But air, water and soil pollution will cause catastrophic damage to life as we know it if we don't get population growth and fuel consumption under control in both the USA and other developing countries, especially China. China has done the best job of any large major developing country in addressing its population problem--their methods may seem draconian to the hardcore bible thumper, but, despite rightous chest thumping, the world cannot support an unlimited number of people, especially at the standard and methods of living we are accustomed to in the good old, fast-food eating, petroleum burning, CO2 producing USA.

[Outshined]

Originally posted by Cal@Mar 12 2005, 03:29 PM

I agree regarding nuclear power. However, our auto manufacturers in cooperation with our polititions have been dragging their feet on the production and promotion of fuel efficient automobiles for over 20 years. The technology exists to make cars twice as efficient as they have been until recently. There is absolutely no valid reason for not requiring that all vehicles evolve toward hybrid, or better, engines.

I suspect that the foot-dragging has to do with a relationship between auto makers and the oil industry. Then again, I could just be paranoid...

[Cal]

Originally posted by Outshined+Mar 12 2005, 02:49 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Outshined @ Mar 12 2005, 02:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Cal@Mar 12 2005, 03:29 PM

I agree regarding nuclear power. However, our auto manufacturers in cooperation with our polititions have been dragging their feet on the production and promotion of fuel efficient automobiles for over 20 years. The technology exists to make cars twice as efficient as they have been until recently. There is absolutely no valid reason for not requiring that all vehicles evolve toward hybrid, or better, engines.

I suspect that the foot-dragging has to do with a relationship between auto makers and the oil industry. Then again, I could just be paranoid...

If you are paranoid, then you have a heck of a lot of company! :)

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Cal,

My thinking re: China's abominable population-control policy (mandatory abortions, etc.) is that it's not necessary. It's pretty well-demonstrated that societies' populations explode once they get access to Western-developed antibiotics and solve their infant mortality problems (a good thing, I'd say; nobody likes to see kids die by the bushelful), and then contract once the societies industrialize. The attitudes and choices and costs imposed by modernization weigh strongly against large families, which is why Europe's population growth would be steeply negative if not for Muslim and African immigration (the former being a whole new problem, as the Dutch and others are finding).

Even without the Chinese autocracy's freedom-killing population policy, China would likely have followed Japan's example as it moved towards capitalism. In Japan, the "birth dearth" and the aging of the population are starting to pose real problems, and are causing some to try to calculate how much smaller Japan will be in a hundred years.

As for hybrid technology, it's promising -- but one good reason it's not more widely applied is that it is naturally more expensive. Two engines cost more than one.

[pushka]

Thanks for your comments everybody...I'm not clever enough, or 'well read' enough in these matters to suggest any solutions of my own...lol, so I really appreciate your suggestions! :)

[Cal]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Mar 12 2005, 03:35 PM

Cal,

My thinking re: China's abominable population-control policy (mandatory abortions, etc.) is that it's not necessary.  It's pretty well-demonstrated that societies' populations explode once they get access to Western-developed antibiotics and solve their infant mortality problems (a good thing, I'd say; nobody likes to see kids die by the bushelful), and then contract once the societies industrialize.  The attitudes and choices and costs imposed by modernization weigh strongly against large families, which is why Europe's population growth would be steeply negative if not for Muslim and African immigration (the former being a whole new problem, as the Dutch and others are finding). 

Even without the Chinese autocracy's freedom-killing population policy, China would likely have followed Japan's example as it moved towards capitalism.  In Japan, the "birth dearth" and the aging of the population are starting to pose real problems, and are causing some to try to calculate how much smaller Japan will be in a hundred years.

As for hybrid technology, it's promising -- but one good reason it's not more widely applied is that it is naturally more expensive.  Two engines cost more than one.

Energy techonology first. Almost ALL technologies are expensive at first. Even conventional gasoline burning engines were once much simpler--the public got used to the extra expense of emission controls etc. Secondly, the public doesn't think twice about spending 40 or 50,000 dollars on a gas guzzling SUV. If such cars didn't exist, do you think they would stop buying cars?

China--you might be right that China's entry into the Western-style economy MIGHT curb its population problem--but that is a future HOPE. What they have done lately, though draconian, was, from a practical stand point--probably necessary. If China's current population came anywhere near the US mode of consumption, the world environment would be in even more trouble--Global warming etc.

[USNationalist]

I do not encourage recycling. Its useualy worse for the air then just getting new matierials to make stuff (not that i care) and also- reuse of natural recources hinders our technological advancement. The sooner the earth runs out of copper to make our pennies with the sooner we will need to conqure the moon and other planets so we can deplete them.

Seriously though- everyone is always talking about how big the dang universe is... why the crap are we saving our crumbs on this stupid little ONE planet? The cost is one thing i suppose- and that there is no immediete need. But come on- all this talk about running out of natural recources is just girlish nonesence. Stupid hippies

I urge you all- for your great grandchildrens sake, trash this blue marble. The sooner its dried up the sooner we will "reach for the stars"- and jack them for all their worth.

[Outshined]

Originally posted by Cal@Mar 13 2005, 01:11 PM

Energy techonology first. Almost ALL technologies are expensive at first. Even conventional gasoline burning engines were once much simpler--the public got used to the extra expense of emission controls etc. Secondly, the public doesn't think twice about spending 40 or 50,000 dollars on a gas guzzling SUV. If such cars didn't exist, do you think they would stop buying cars?

Things might be better if two-thirds of my neighbors weren't driving Suburbans that get 8MPG. Maybe the gas reaching two dollars a gallon again might make some rethink that, but I doubt it. Image is everything.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Originally posted by Cal+Mar 13 2005, 12:11 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Cal @ Mar 13 2005, 12:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--TheProudDuck@Mar 12 2005, 03:35 PM

Cal,

My thinking re: China's abominable population-control policy (mandatory abortions, etc.) is that it's not necessary.  It's pretty well-demonstrated that societies' populations explode once they get access to Western-developed antibiotics and solve their infant mortality problems (a good thing, I'd say; nobody likes to see kids die by the bushelful), and then contract once the societies industrialize.  The attitudes and choices and costs imposed by modernization weigh strongly against large families, which is why Europe's population growth would be steeply negative if not for Muslim and African immigration (the former being a whole new problem, as the Dutch and others are finding). 

Even without the Chinese autocracy's freedom-killing population policy, China would likely have followed Japan's example as it moved towards capitalism.  In Japan, the "birth dearth" and the aging of the population are starting to pose real problems, and are causing some to try to calculate how much smaller Japan will be in a hundred years.

As for hybrid technology, it's promising -- but one good reason it's not more widely applied is that it is naturally more expensive.  Two engines cost more than one.

Energy techonology first. Almost ALL technologies are expensive at first. Even conventional gasoline burning engines were once much simpler--the public got used to the extra expense of emission controls etc. Secondly, the public doesn't think twice about spending 40 or 50,000 dollars on a gas guzzling SUV. If such cars didn't exist, do you think they would stop buying cars?

China--you might be right that China's entry into the Western-style economy MIGHT curb its population problem--but that is a future HOPE. What they have done lately, though draconian, was, from a practical stand point--probably necessary. If China's current population came anywhere near the US mode of consumption, the world environment would be in even more trouble--Global warming etc.

Cal,

True, technologies get cheaper as they're more widely used, and alternative energy sources undoubtedly will as well. The question is whether the decrease in alt-energy's cost will ever get those costs below those of fossil fuels.

"The public" doesn't buy many $50,000 SUVs. Most are priced, as far as I can tell, in the $30,000+ range. And make sure you compare apples with hybrid-powered apples. You can't substitute a Prius for a Yukon; the Yukon buyer wants a big off-road vehicle. You'd have to substitute a hybrid-powered Yukon for a conventional Yukon. And the hybrid Yukon would be more expensive (because it has two engines instead of one), discouraging its purchase. (Although with gas getting more expensive, we might start to see hybrid SUVs becoming a rational long-term investment, given the much higher fuel-cost to purchase-cost ratio of big vehicles.) So yes, if $50,000 SUVs didn't exist, people would still be buying cars. They'd be buying $30,000 SUVs or pickups, or $50,000 sports cars with marginally better mileage.

I do agree with USNationalist that we'll never "run out" of resources. In a flexible (read: capitalist) society, prices move, and act as a signal of impending mismatches between demand and supply. When resources begin to be depleted, their prices rise, encouraging people on the demand supply to limit their use and innovators on the supply side to develop alternatives. By the time we come anywhere near running out of oil, oil won't be used anymore. It will have been replaced by something newer and cheaper. This is where Thomas Malthus (and the modern Jared Diamond) got it wrong, in trying to extrapolate the experience of preindustrial, pre-capitalist societies to the present day: Those societies were far less flexible, far less able to innovate and seek substitute resources, and so when the resources those societies were based on gave out, so did the societies.

The threat of global warming is the only thing that might alter this equation, because the effect of burning fossil fuels imposes an externality -- a cost that isn't borne by the person causing it. The problem with crafting a rational response to this problem is that no one knows with any workable certainty what that cost is. It could be small, or it could be great. Even the most politicized, worst-case scenario global-warming advocates present gigantic ranges of possible effects. The actual scientific consensus on GW is basically this: The earth's climate is growing warmer. (How much warmer, and when the warming began, is still uncertain.) C02 in the atmosphere is one of many materials that can trap heat. (How much warming can be expected from increased C02 is still uncertain.) C02 in the atmosphere is increasing (although by a few hundredths of a percentage point, as a percentage of the atmosphere). It is likely that some (unknown) portion of the observed warming in the atmosphere is attributable to human emissions of C02. It may be a major factor, or it may be a drop in the bucket.

The effects of anticipated warming range from a net benefit (increased crop yields, growing seasons, milder weather) to a net detriment (shifts in rainfall patterns, species dislocation, nastier weather [although that's unlikely, since severe weather is largely caused by differences in temperature between the polar regions and the tropics, and global warming, whose effect is expected to be chiefly in raising the temperature at the poles, will reduce the temperature difference], and raised sea levels (or just the opposite, as warming in the polar regions from unbelievably bone-chillingly frigid to just damn cold allows more snowfall -- it's mostly too cold to snow much in the polar regions, causing them to be basically deserts of ancient ice -- and causes greater glaciation.)

Based on this information, some peole think that the Kyoto accords, which promised to cost billions of dollars to possibly lower the [vaguely] anticipated global temperature at the end of the enxt century by less than one degree Celsius, was a good idea. I, obviously, don't agree. To conduct a rational cost/benefit analysis, you need to have some general idea of the benefit before you can judge whether a cost is worthwhile, and global-warming predictions at this point are basically useless for this kind of scientific analysis.

So there we are. It seems to me that the most rational approach to GW would be, first, to take whatever precautionary measures could be taken without significant cost, as a kind of just-in-case approach. That is, if an emissions-limited policy could be imposed without a measurable cost, if GW turned out to be a mostly false alarm, we'd be no worse off, whereas if it turned out to be a major problem, we'd be better off. One possibility might be to tighten up the present tax exemption for SUVs, requiring a showing that they actually be used in a business. Second, we ought to invest in research into alternative energy sources (including safer nuclear power, with acceptable waste-storage provisions), which will likely eventually be useful as substitutes for depleted fossil fuels regardless of what happens with GW. Third, we ought to focus on narrowing the range of possible GW-related effects down to the point where a rational cost/benefit analysis can be made and the proper further remedies selected.

As a side note, if the worst-case scenarios of the GW proponents are accurate, then we're basically hosed no matter what we do -- because avoiding those scenarios would require us to reduce our per-capita energy use to preindustrial levels, with all the fun stuff that comes with it, like mass famines, pandemics, and insane infant mortality rates. As the original post pointed out, with China and India coming online (and my money, by the way, is on India to eclipse China in the rising superpower department) we can't possible conserve our way out of the worst-case GW scenarios without causing the end of civilization as we know it. Only a revolution in energy technology could avoid both that result and GW, and that revolution isn't going to involve a bunch of wind farms and solar cells in the desert. They just don't have the potential to do the job, being way too land-intensive -- and as they say about land, they're not making any more of it.

[Cal]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck+Mar 14 2005, 11:53 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (TheProudDuck @ Mar 14 2005, 11:53 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Originally posted by -Cal@Mar 13 2005, 12:11 PM

<!--QuoteBegin--TheProudDuck@Mar 12 2005, 03:35 PM

Cal,

My thinking re: China's abominable population-control policy (mandatory abortions, etc.) is that it's not necessary.  It's pretty well-demonstrated that societies' populations explode once they get access to Western-developed antibiotics and solve their infant mortality problems (a good thing, I'd say; nobody likes to see kids die by the bushelful), and then contract once the societies industrialize.  The attitudes and choices and costs imposed by modernization weigh strongly against large families, which is why Europe's population growth would be steeply negative if not for Muslim and African immigration (the former being a whole new problem, as the Dutch and others are finding). 

Even without the Chinese autocracy's freedom-killing population policy, China would likely have followed Japan's example as it moved towards capitalism.  In Japan, the "birth dearth" and the aging of the population are starting to pose real problems, and are causing some to try to calculate how much smaller Japan will be in a hundred years.

As for hybrid technology, it's promising -- but one good reason it's not more widely applied is that it is naturally more expensive.  Two engines cost more than one.

Energy techonology first. Almost ALL technologies are expensive at first. Even conventional gasoline burning engines were once much simpler--the public got used to the extra expense of emission controls etc. Secondly, the public doesn't think twice about spending 40 or 50,000 dollars on a gas guzzling SUV. If such cars didn't exist, do you think they would stop buying cars?

China--you might be right that China's entry into the Western-style economy MIGHT curb its population problem--but that is a future HOPE. What they have done lately, though draconian, was, from a practical stand point--probably necessary. If China's current population came anywhere near the US mode of consumption, the world environment would be in even more trouble--Global warming etc.

Cal,

True, technologies get cheaper as they're more widely used, and alternative energy sources undoubtedly will as well. The question is whether the decrease in alt-energy's cost will ever get those costs below those of fossil fuels.

"The public" doesn't buy many $50,000 SUVs. Most are priced, as far as I can tell, in the $30,000+ range. And make sure you compare apples with hybrid-powered apples. You can't substitute a Prius for a Yukon; the Yukon buyer wants a big off-road vehicle. You'd have to substitute a hybrid-powered Yukon for a conventional Yukon. And the hybrid Yukon would be more expensive (because it has two engines instead of one), discouraging its purchase. (Although with gas getting more expensive, we might start to see hybrid SUVs becoming a rational long-term investment, given the much higher fuel-cost to purchase-cost ratio of big vehicles.) So yes, if $50,000 SUVs didn't exist, people would still be buying cars. They'd be buying $30,000 SUVs or pickups, or $50,000 sports cars with marginally better mileage.

I do agree with USNationalist that we'll never "run out" of resources. In a flexible (read: capitalist) society, prices move, and act as a signal of impending mismatches between demand and supply. When resources begin to be depleted, their prices rise, encouraging people on the demand supply to limit their use and innovators on the supply side to develop alternatives. By the time we come anywhere near running out of oil, oil won't be used anymore. It will have been replaced by something newer and cheaper. This is where Thomas Malthus (and the modern Jared Diamond) got it wrong, in trying to extrapolate the experience of preindustrial, pre-capitalist societies to the present day: Those societies were far less flexible, far less able to innovate and seek substitute resources, and so when the resources those societies were based on gave out, so did the societies.

The threat of global warming is the only thing that might alter this equation, because the effect of burning fossil fuels imposes an externality -- a cost that isn't borne by the person causing it. The problem with crafting a rational response to this problem is that no one knows with any workable certainty what that cost is. It could be small, or it could be great. Even the most politicized, worst-case scenario global-warming advocates present gigantic ranges of possible effects. The actual scientific consensus on GW is basically this: The earth's climate is growing warmer. (How much warmer, and when the warming began, is still uncertain.) C02 in the atmosphere is one of many materials that can trap heat. (How much warming can be expected from increased C02 is still uncertain.) C02 in the atmosphere is increasing (although by a few hundredths of a percentage point, as a percentage of the atmosphere). It is likely that some (unknown) portion of the observed warming in the atmosphere is attributable to human emissions of C02. It may be a major factor, or it may be a drop in the bucket.

The effects of anticipated warming range from a net benefit (increased crop yields, growing seasons, milder weather) to a net detriment (shifts in rainfall patterns, species dislocation, nastier weather [although that's unlikely, since severe weather is largely caused by differences in temperature between the polar regions and the tropics, and global warming, whose effect is expected to be chiefly in raising the temperature at the poles, will reduce the temperature difference], and raised sea levels (or just the opposite, as warming in the polar regions from unbelievably bone-chillingly frigid to just damn cold allows more snowfall -- it's mostly too cold to snow much in the polar regions, causing them to be basically deserts of ancient ice -- and causes greater glaciation.)

Based on this information, some peole think that the Kyoto accords, which promised to cost billions of dollars to possibly lower the [vaguely] anticipated global temperature at the end of the enxt century by less than one degree Celsius, was a good idea. I, obviously, don't agree. To conduct a rational cost/benefit analysis, you need to have some general idea of the benefit before you can judge whether a cost is worthwhile, and global-warming predictions at this point are basically useless for this kind of scientific analysis.

So there we are. It seems to me that the most rational approach to GW would be, first, to take whatever precautionary measures could be taken without significant cost, as a kind of just-in-case approach. That is, if an emissions-limited policy could be imposed without a measurable cost, if GW turned out to be a mostly false alarm, we'd be no worse off, whereas if it turned out to be a major problem, we'd be better off. One possibility might be to tighten up the present tax exemption for SUVs, requiring a showing that they actually be used in a business. Second, we ought to invest in research into alternative energy sources (including safer nuclear power, with acceptable waste-storage provisions), which will likely eventually be useful as substitutes for depleted fossil fuels regardless of what happens with GW. Third, we ought to focus on narrowing the range of possible GW-related effects down to the point where a rational cost/benefit analysis can be made and the proper further remedies selected.

As a side note, if the worst-case scenarios of the GW proponents are accurate, then we're basically hosed no matter what we do -- because avoiding those scenarios would require us to reduce our per-capita energy use to preindustrial levels, with all the fun stuff that comes with it, like mass famines, pandemics, and insane infant mortality rates. As the original post pointed out, with China and India coming online (and my money, by the way, is on India to eclipse China in the rising superpower department) we can't possible conserve our way out of the worst-case GW scenarios without causing the end of civilization as we know it. Only a revolution in energy technology could avoid both that result and GW, and that revolution isn't going to involve a bunch of wind farms and solar cells in the desert. They just don't have the potential to do the job, being way too land-intensive -- and as they say about land, they're not making any more of it.

It doesn't really matter whether or not alternative energy sourses can do the "job" or not as to global warming because the oil and automotive industries have so much political clout and access to the public mindset that no serious "revolution" in energy use is likely to happen before the effects of global warming, ocean, land and air pollution alter our lifestyles FOR us. We won't have to do it to prevent global warming, global warming is going to spank us so severly that we won't have a choice at that point.

The essential point about messing with the global weather system is, just what you alluded to, and that is, that the weather systems are essentially a "chaotic" system and are extremely hard to predict. Add to that the cascading effect on ecosystems, aggraculture, life cycles etc and no one really can say what the outcome will. Perhaps the most predictable outcome will be rizing ocean levels--which will be, eventually, disasterous enough. Geological history shows that ocean levels were higher during globally warmer periods, so your theory that more snow on the poles will prevent sea level elevation is not realistic from a geological history perspective.

As to SUV's---people buy SUV's because detroit decided they would, not because people actually need them. How is it that soccer mom's managed to get by in the 50's, 60', and 70'ss with out them? They have been sold bill of goods by the oil and auto industries. If they wanted to, the auto companies could just as easily convince people that down sized hybrids are the cool thing--with no serious decrease in carrying capacity or really utility.

[USNationalist]

Seriously guys.... whats the point in putting their entire post into a quote for your post?

You guys seem to expend alot of time and energy dueling it out- i do hope its enjoyable for you.

And either way- i already won this discussion- conserving is for weenies.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Cal,

You may have a point that Detroit is thrilled that people like SUVs (since they're about the last automobile line American industry still dominates, plus they're basically just gussied-up trucks whose basic technology hasn't changed since the sixties), but I'm not sure I buy the John K. Galbraith-style "it's all Madison Avenue" line of thinking.

Specifically, I really doubt whether the automobile industry, even with the best advertising money could buy, could have created the SUV phenomenon out of whole cloth. And I doubt even more if they could just as easily wave their advertising magic wand and make Priuses cool.

SUVs appeal to the kind of guy who thinks bigger and badder is better. These are the guys who, in the 1970s, would have been buying big Hemi-powered muscle cars. It's a foregone conclusion that these people are never going to go for high-mileage, high-tech hybrid golf carts, no matter how many members of the Swedish Bikini Team you pack into the tiny back seat, even with Vin Diesel at the wheel and full-bore heavy metal blaring on the commercial soundtrack.

In other words, it's a foregone conclusion that these guys are going to be driving ridiculously impractical gas guzzlers. The only thing advertising can change is precisely what kind of ridiculously impractical gas guzzler they'll buy. Most advertising is like that -- identifying a consumer niche, and pumping up your particular product to fill that niche. The message is less "Buy a SUV!" than "Buy OUR SUV!"

How is it that soccer mom's managed to get by in the 50's, 60', and 70'ss with out [sUVs]?

They drove big gas-guzzling station wagons and conversion vans, if my memory serves. Then the CAFE standards came along and drove those cars virtually out of production. But the CAFE standards exempted "light trucks" -- so naturally the large-vehicle market was turned over to the SUVs the industry developed to fit the CAFE loophole.

[Guest TheProudDuck]

Cal,

Geological history shows that ocean levels were higher during globally warmer periods, so your theory that more snow on the poles will prevent sea level elevation is not realistic from a geological history perspective.

Sea levels were higher during period where the earth's temperature was a lot warmer than it is now (as in dinosaurs-in-Alaska-warmer). Anthropogenic global warming, even according to the most pessimistic models, won't warm things that much. And there's a consensus forming that a milder warming would cause glaciers in Antarctica to expand because of increased snowfall, while continental and Greenland glaciers would contract.

Antarctica contains 80% of the world's ice, so the net effect of glaciers increasing/decreasing would be positive, with the additional water being locked up in Antarctic ice more than offsetting the additional water released from Greenland and continental glaciers.

It's not just me saying this -- look it up.

[Traveler]

Science of energy. Currently the cheapest form of energy is gas. Despite the current cost the actual cost of finding oil, refining oil distribution of gasoline and pumping gas at stations is just over 11 cents a gallon. All additional costs are money that is used to make somebody very very rich.

Nuclear energy comes in two types. Fission and Fusion. Since the only form of fusion that we have learned to use is a bomb we are very limited. It just is not available and there is not much effort being put into fusion as a form of distributable energy. Fusion as currently designed will give off water and electricity. With fusion and hydroponics we could turn northern Africa into the world’s greatest producer of energy and food. A resource not used currently – some estimates indicate this process could more than double, all by itself, the current world food production.

There is another source of energy that a scientist name Nicola Tesla (pardon my spelling) claimed to have discovered over 50 years ago. As it turns out, when ever there is a nuclear event – ie fusion as is taking place on the sun there is a free electron created in the reaction that creates an enormous source of power. The problem is that this energy is transmitted from the sun at an extremely high frequency that varies. Mr. Tesla claims to have been able to use this transmitted energy using high rectifying vacuum tube technology. A technology that currently has been abandoned in our society and all research has been dropped.

Like fusion there is little being done to use the electrical energy transmitted by the sun. Westinghouse cut off funding to Tesla because of the return of investment for central power and transmission lines. This source of power is in today’s terms unlimited and free. For the cost of a radio one could access and share all the electrical power to run over 100,000 times as much as all the energy currently being used on the earth.

The Traveler

[Traveler]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Mar 15 2005, 05:53 PM

Cal,

Geological history shows that ocean levels were higher during globally warmer periods, so your theory that more snow on the poles will prevent sea level elevation is not realistic from a geological history perspective.

Sea levels were higher during period where the earth's temperature was a lot warmer than it is now (as in dinosaurs-in-Alaska-warmer). Anthropogenic global warming, even according to the most pessimistic models, won't warm things that much. And there's a consensus forming that a milder warming would cause glaciers in Antarctica to expand because of increased snowfall, while continental and Greenland glaciers would contract.

Antarctica contains 80% of the world's ice, so the net effect of glaciers increasing/decreasing would be positive, with the additional water being locked up in Antarctic ice more than offsetting the additional water released from Greenland and continental glaciers.

It's not just me saying this -- look it up.

PD. The ice in Antarctica is being threatened by a warming currently going on Antarctica. Many that adhere to junk science of global warming point to the fact that Antarctica has warmed up 3 times the rest of the world are spelling this as the great destroy on its way to happening.

The problem is that Antarctica is not getting warmer because of greenhouse gasses. As it turns out one of the world’s largest active volcanoes is almost at the South Pole. It seems that there could be a major eruption. But the environmentalist with an agenda have nothing to exploit in this so they are ignoring it. Of and when this eruption takes place the oceans will rise from 15 to 20 feet and over 75% of the world population will have to move.

The Traveler

[Cal]

Originally posted by USNationalist@Mar 15 2005, 03:27 PM

Seriously guys.... whats the point in putting their entire post into a quote for your post?

You guys seem to expend alot of time and energy dueling it out- i do hope its enjoyable for you.

And either way- i already won this discussion- conserving is for weenies.

And either way- i already won this discussion- conserving is for weenies.

Yeah, lets just trash the earth, pollute the crap out of it. After all, we'll all be dead--we can let our grandchildren suffer the consequence--who cares about them anyway.

By the way, was that Hebrew National or Ballpark brand?

[Cal]

Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Mar 15 2005, 05:53 PM

Cal,

Geological history shows that ocean levels were higher during globally warmer periods, so your theory that more snow on the poles will prevent sea level elevation is not realistic from a geological history perspective.

Sea levels were higher during period where the earth's temperature was a lot warmer than it is now (as in dinosaurs-in-Alaska-warmer). Anthropogenic global warming, even according to the most pessimistic models, won't warm things that much. And there's a consensus forming that a milder warming would cause glaciers in Antarctica to expand because of increased snowfall, while continental and Greenland glaciers would contract.

Antarctica contains 80% of the world's ice, so the net effect of glaciers increasing/decreasing would be positive, with the additional water being locked up in Antarctic ice more than offsetting the additional water released from Greenland and continental glaciers.

It's not just me saying this -- look it up.

Yes, I've read it. It's a nice theory. But it ignores what is ACTUALLY happening. The Antarctic glaciers are melting, not getting bigger. World ave temps have been rising significantly for 100 years. We're still waiting for the Antarctic ice shelves to get bigger.

[Cal]

Originally posted by Traveler+Mar 16 2005, 04:13 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Traveler @ Mar 16 2005, 04:13 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--TheProudDuck@Mar 15 2005, 05:53 PM

Cal,

Geological history shows that ocean levels were higher during globally warmer periods, so your theory that more snow on the poles will prevent sea level elevation is not realistic from a geological history perspective.

Sea levels were higher during period where the earth's temperature was a lot warmer than it is now (as in dinosaurs-in-Alaska-warmer). Anthropogenic global warming, even according to the most pessimistic models, won't warm things that much. And there's a consensus forming that a milder warming would cause glaciers in Antarctica to expand because of increased snowfall, while continental and Greenland glaciers would contract.

Antarctica contains 80% of the world's ice, so the net effect of glaciers increasing/decreasing would be positive, with the additional water being locked up in Antarctic ice more than offsetting the additional water released from Greenland and continental glaciers.

It's not just me saying this -- look it up.

PD. The ice in Antarctica is being threatened by a warming currently going on Antarctica. Many that adhere to junk science of global warming point to the fact that Antarctica has warmed up 3 times the rest of the world are spelling this as the great destroy on its way to happening.

The problem is that Antarctica is not getting warmer because of greenhouse gasses. As it turns out one of the world’s largest active volcanoes is almost at the South Pole. It seems that there could be a major eruption. But the environmentalist with an agenda have nothing to exploit in this so they are ignoring it. Of and when this eruption takes place the oceans will rise from 15 to 20 feet and over 75% of the world population will have to move.

The Traveler

Please Trav!!!!!!!!! That volcano, you speak of in Antarctica is like a pimple on the face of a giant. It might cause a little local heating, but no geologist I've spoken to thinks it amounts to a hill of beans. It certainly won't cause much more than some localized melting. A much more likely explanation for the Antarctice melting is the same as for the melting of the rest of the world's glaciers. Simple global warming.

There really isn't much dispute among scientists in the the relevant fields that global warming definitely has a human-causal connection.