The environment

CLoud 9 we arent saying its bad but to adrubtly leave the natural gas industry.It'll put the economy into a ressession and your saying that America should be the guys doing this...I think all industrial countries should in my opinion and the fact that a lot of people and companies are investing in ways in america to find that lasting industry and resources before we use up all the oil.But to sit here and tell us we should just stop right now and have the country go into debt is unacceptable. I mean you can't sit here and tell me i don't know what its like to starve.Oh I know what its liek my mom knows what its like and my grandparents growing up during hte depression definately knows what its like.Its horrible and thats whats gonna happen to a lot of people who will lose there jobs if we halved our manufacturing.Though it would be tempt.How can you sit ther eand tell a whole population that they have to lose ther ejob and sit there and watch there kids starve and do nothing about it?Though in a way i kinda doubt a depression will hit but it will affect our market in a big way if we just halved it now.Now if we made efforts internationally meaning that all industrial nations will do the same then it'll be more fair.But to put the weaight of the world on one country is stupid and very very selfish.

i don't suggest a total end to oil power immediately. that would be ridiculous. a gradual change starting from NOW. is what I want. no country can afford to immediately shut down it's power plants. you build up (as effeciently as possibe) your new renewable plants and at the same pace start closing the old power plants. people can then walk from the coal plant to the wind or tidal plant. as well as creating new jobs on the way by creating the actual new plants. it needs to be a gradual change. but it needs to be change started now and be a true commitment with a real goal and under real check not "well we cut co2 by 1% lets stop all this hassle"

manufacturing doesn't need to be slowed down at all. it just needs to be made more effiecent and cleaner. effeciency is what every company seeks anyway so this shouldn't be a hard thing to do.

oh now i see were your going at cloud no.9 sorry about this whole debate against you lol i thought you meant a immediate shutdown of oil power lol my mistake.

oh no. i just want a a fast effecient change. stopping all the oil usage right now would leave you with nothing left to build the renewable stuff with. but i think ignoring kyoto and not improving at a rate whcih will truly make a difference and without a clear defined aim is purely not good enough. what i would like right now is for the us government to sign kyoto and to promise to start cutting co2 and oil usage by using renewable energy sources.

continuing the debate though SUVs.... what's the point? the cost more short term and long term, and are hugely polluting shouldn't there be some kind of legislation to start cutting back on their production and/or sale? for example by making them more expenise to buy and keep.

(ps just to clear up i don't mean to take them all off the road right now and burn them, it would be starting with all new cars and possibly by linking road tax or whatever americans have to fuel effeciency and emmissions) (you would exclude business from this to a certain degree)

What do you think is already happening? Power plants that use natural renewable resources are already being developed and built. All the oil/coal/etc. companies know that the nonrenewable resources will run out, someday, and they'll be left with nothing. So they'll have to transfer over, eventually, to nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric, etc. etc.

On to SUVs, and vehicles in general. See, another wonderful thing about Capitalism. Gas costs money, right? People know this. So, logically, fuel efficiency is one of the things people will look for when buying a vehicle. Hence, the better a vehicle's gas mileage is, the more people will buy it, and the more money the company will make. It will bring itself up.

Kyoto would require an immediate decrease in manufacturing to cause the immediate decrease in pollution. It also would place much stricter regulations on the U.S. than any other country--that's what it's designed for, to weaken the U.S. And, again, I don't buy in to "Well America can afford it, we should screw them over."

kyoto would not cause an immediate drop in manufacturing. it would ask for an immediate drop in polluttion levels. this can be done by making the process more effecient or cleaner. don't need to cut anything down for that just need to spend a little extra money here and there. but production levels could remain the same and in fact if you increase effeciency could increase.

Some hopeful news on the SUV front:

This past year General Motors lost over a billion dollars in sales because people began to grow wary of spending in excess of $100 dollars to fill their car up, which is very similar to what was happening in the 1970's when gas prices spiked. Due to this, there is a renewed movement to raise fuel efficiency levels and basically make it a written law for gas-guzzling vehicles such as SUV's to either ship up, or stop being produced.

If this law does get based, and it has a lot of backing from both sides, Dems and Reps, it would lead to a increased production in Hybrid cars as companies would have to start producing cars, trucks and SUVs which can get more miles to the gallon.

My hope would also be that raising fuel efficiency makes it more obvious to the general public and to law makers that we have to really put plans in motion to end our dependence on oil. If we started now and really made it a mjaor issue, studies indicate that by 2015 we could cut our dependency by 50% in the USA, yet there needs to be some sort of motivation to start this process and maybe, just maybe, something like this would be the key.

Take care all.

(What do you know, people are getting tired of paying too much for gas and are demanding vehicles with better fuel effeciency. I thought I called this somewhere...)

I saw something on the History Channel the other day (yes, I watch it, it's great) that mentioned hybrid vehicles, and I think BMW has a car that can switch between gasoline and Hydrogen. However, Hydrogen is still mainly acquired from natural gas, which wouldn't really help much because we'd still be producing the Carbon as a by-product of the Hydrogen.

It's too bad we just can't walk everywhere. We'd all certainly be in better shape.

Take care all.

About carbon as a by product of Hydrogen. That is not always true. The reason they say it is a by product is because to get the hydrogen it requires an immense amount of energy and most power plants still use coal or some sort of fossil fuel. It we used nuclear power that would not be the problem. Although I wonder what will happen when we run out of Nuclear energy. I am just guessing on the Nuclear energy running out. I really don't know how the uranium and plutonium are created. The quest for power may never be over.

hydrogen can be easily made from sea water. nuclear energy potentially has an empty date. but not for a long long time. a few hundred thousand years if we continue to mine and create it at the current rate.

Captain--
So, basically, the auto makers aren't selling so many SUVs and general 'gas-guzzlers', and in response they're working on making cars that use less gas....

So why pass a law to force automakers to do what they're already doing? This here is the beauty of capitalism--the market responds to the consumers' demands.

Hydrogen is easy to make--run electricity through water (sea water works better because the dissolved salt helps it conduct better, but it's not necessary--and it seperates the water into O2 and Hydrogen.

And nuclear power probably won't last forever--by the time it's run out, though, we'll have something else. Remember, back in 1900 everyone used horses, and there's absolutely no problem now with a shortage of workhorses. Why should we assume that science stopped at the car? By 2100, the internal combustion will probably be as obsolete as the horse and buggy. Not because the government said to make it so, not because it's good for the environment, but for the simple reason that whoever creates a viable alternative is going to be filthy rich.

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So why pass a law to force automakers to do what they're already doing? This here is the beauty of capitalism--the market responds to the consumers' demands.

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you of all people should know there is always someone out there whose gonna push it and make a bunch of SUVs when the gas prices lowers a little bit.So why not make a law of it. it may seem like a waste but its a step.

Nuclear power is too dangerous to be used day by day in your car, or trucks cuz' it's too much instable. i guess the best renewable fuel is Hydrogen cuz' it isn't dangerous and some people say that it's even better than oil.

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kyoto doesn't encourage less manufacturing it encourages cleaner manufacturing and to make it cleaner you need technology and someone to build that so there#s some more jobs for you there.

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Kyoto doesn't "encourage" anything. It's purpose is to force people to do things--for a possible .04 Celsius reduction in world temperature, according to a theory that may or may not have any truth to it at all.

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what america is doing right now instead of walking past the begger on the street and not saying anything, he is now stopping and giving him a good quick kicks in the face, stealing his money and spitting on him for being a dirty old begger.

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Wrong. Not just wrong, but offensively, extravagantly--even snidely--wrong. Americans are the most generous people ion the world, and we will and do gladly help anyone and everyone in the world--even people we shouldn't be helping. What we don't intend to do, however, is to give up our job, smear mud on our clothes, and sit in the gutter with the beggar to show how compassionate we are.

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And with regards to the ozone and the greenhouse effect, yes, they are different. And as for the ozone layer hole, why do you think it formed after the use of CFCs were introduced?

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It didn't. The ozone "hole" (a lower concentration in certain areas--there's no area of the world that just doesn't have any ozone over it) has always been present over Antarctica at certain times of the year, and there's no reason to believe that man-made CFCs (because volcanic explosions put out hundreds of times the CFC's we've ever made, per eruption), which are four to eight times heavier than air, are responsible for this. On the other hand, the banning of CFC's has limited refrigeration capabilities, meaning that more food rots before someone can eat it. While this doesn't bother folks in countries that have plenty to spare, the CFC ban caused a lot of deaths in nations that can't afford the food they're eating, much less to replace it.

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Here's a graph of the size of the ozone hole, spanning the years from 1979-2003

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Interesting graph, but where'd it come from? Who produced it, and is there a legible copy out there somewhere?

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lordblazer personal snide comments are not allowed on this forum so politely do stop it, it's not the first time you are guilty of this.

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Please tell me this is some sick joke, or a sarcastic remark. Just in this thread, your quotes include...

"that is when global warming will be important. when america suffers from it. who cares if africans die? they don't vote and don't pay for campaigns."

"i have two hopes in this, that either america in.... or come 50 years it suffers immensly for it's crimes against this planet"

"it comes down to a very small gorup of people owning most of america and not caring how many people die for their swiss bank account."

" of course greedy american doesn't care about that. nope better to have big bank accounts than to save a few africans eh?"

"but you know in a few years it's all gonna be a good chuckle there ill be living off my wind power electricity (alright the coast is a bit closer now cos "some people" refuse to obey kyoto) and watching on my wind powered tv i'll see the american stock market crash, the price of oil soar, it's land flooded and a energy shortages. at that point i'll sit back and smile and sweetly say "i told you so"."

" you hate to see your own people killed by muslims but killing a africans is not a dot on your conscience."

"your absolute contempt for any action taken to spare live is beyond sickening."

" you lack any kind of compassion in the slightest you would happily watch millions die so you can line your wallet."

How you manage to remain unbanned for your flaming and undisguisable hatred of your betters is completely beyond me, but the hypocrisy and utter gall you exhibit make me want to projectile-vomit. Shut up, sir.

Hydrogen will probably be our best bet, although there's still the possibility of fusion. But think about the biggest problems facing us in about 1905... So far as I know, horse manure isn't a major problem anymore, and I doubt someone back then would have assumed the same. To assume that science is going to stand still and no long solve the problems in our lives is simply insane.

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you of all people should know there is always someone out there whose gonna push it and make a bunch of SUVs when the gas prices lowers a little bit.So why not make a law of it. it may seem like a waste but its a step.

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Then the cars won't sell. And it's a step, perhaps, but not in the right direction. Do you actually want the government deciding what kind of car you can drive? I'd assume you don't want them deciding what you watch on TV, what you eat, or where you go on the internet, but a personal decision regarding thousands of dollars of your money is a decision for someone else to force you to make?