Edmunds.com | Inside Line | Auto Observer Your Account | Help | Directory
You are here:
![[F]](http://a332.g.akamai.net/f/332/936/12h/www.edmunds.com/media/townhall/webxicons/site.gif){kind=small}
Forums
Automotive News & Views Are automobiles a major cause of global warming?
6849 messages, Last post on Nov 27, 2009 at 1:15 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
|
|
|---|---|
|
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/10/18/drought.woes.ap/index.html This article was interesting in that it did not try to tie the dry spell to global warming. And that was a good thing because we do not know if there is a connection. It did make me think of how when weather is normal people do not think much about climate. As soon as you start seeing unusual weather events people begin to wonder why. One area where I see a lot of progress in is computers. We are starting to see some really powerful PCs and supercomputers. Given enough time scientists should be able to model our weather and climate well enough to make better predictions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model I decided to join the climateprediction.net (BOINC) using a spare computer. Only 552 hours, 57 minutes till we get an answer. 
|
|
|
Replying to: avalon02wh (Oct 18, 2008 7:44 am) A computer is only a number cruncher. The results are only as good as the formulae that are put into, and that it works on. It is getting the formulae right that is the difficult part. You need to 1) identify all the variables that go into changing the climate and 2) how much each affects the climate ( and this can be complicated by that fact that each variable affects the other - sunlight, deforestation, population growth, GDP, CO2, methane, cloud cover, chemical reactions in the atmosphere, solar flares, ozone and magnetic field protection from cosmic rays, amongst others ...). How fast the computer runs is secondary. |
|
|
Replying to: avalon02wh (Oct 17, 2008 6:17 pm) What made you think I douted the validity of your assertion that you are a scientist? Like I said: little touchy are you? Correction: WAY touchy! Funny as scientist in every field as part of scientific inquiry build on successes or add to the scrap heap of failed and successful hypothesis, either proven or not. So a thin skin can perhaps be a liability. So get over it, you are really whining to the choir. ..."Using that type of reasoning you could never take any medication because medications are formulated by scientists who are just doing the evil bidding of the drug companies. How many things have been developed by scientists over the last few hundred years? Better not use any; it is all a scam"... That certainly is your take, but it is certainly not mine, nor a logical conclusion of the reasoning presented. But keep in mind you all would be working for peanuts if it wasn't for the high cost of insurance to cover the exceptions; when those very same drugs are prescribed to the general population. Lethality in the medical field is absolutely rampant. But as you probably would agree, your response and my response to yours is off topic. More on topic: ..."And as to the question of MTBE, the refinery industry wanted to use MTBE even though they knew it would leak out of fuel tanks and pollute local ground water. It was a bad decision. But it also illustrates why we need to do a better job of defining GW before we jump to solutions. "... Indeed NOT !! To me this was a case of a product in search of a problem!!!!?? This is about as back wards as it gets! This clearly illustrates what Gagrice said is true! What magically changed in the calculations (after)? NOTHING! However what became apparent/revealed actually) (especially as you say if it was totally known beforehand) were the costs FAR (exponentially by the way) outweighed the so called benefits !!!!???? Indeed it was that way from the start! Indeed as I have said in the past, it took literally BILLIONS to legislate, BLIIONS to implement, billions to reconfigure, billions to test and REVEAL/find out (even as it was known all along) and billions to de-leverage. All WASTE !!!! To boot not only nothing was mitigate, but the products had to be cleaned up! Thats the good news! The bad news? Absolute travesty!! So was lack of integrity a portion of the equation? Absolutely! Let me ask another way, do you think they would have listened to an actor like Damon Wayans doing his drunk ghetto guy schticked, complete with his misuse of industry buzz words? 
|
|
|
Replying to: avalon02wh (Oct 17, 2008 6:17 pm) You are right. I clumped you all together as I would lawyers and politicians. That was not entirely fair. I do know scientists that studied everything from tundra grass, bears, bowhead whale migrations to ice core samples. And as a whole they were very serious about their field of study. I have no doubt they presented their superiors with accurate data to the best of their ability. The problem and I have discussed it with the scientists in the field is what happens to that data you sent to town? One marine biologist that was tracking whales told me she had little say in what actually happens with the data. This was in the early 1980s. She was making $25k per year with a PHD in Marine Biology. Her boss that did nothing but sit in San Diego submitting the grants and passing on the data made $85k per year. She could have gone to work at Sea World for triple what she got from the outfit she worked for. She loved studying whales in the Arctic. That said, when I bad mouth scientists it is aimed at the ones that are in the middle doing whatever they are told to do by the entity paying the bills. I know they are not above lying to preserve their jobs. So if you are one of the dedicated scientists out in the field or doing research without a preconditioned conclusion. I apologize and assume you are part of the majority of good scientists. My take on MTBE. Bad science used by greedy lobbyist, paying off corrupt politicians. |
|
|
|
|
Replying to: ruking1 (Oct 18, 2008 8:35 am) Nope, If I was way touchy I WOULD WRITE WITH THE CAP LOCKS ON and use a lot of !!!!!!!!! This is only a blog after all. My point about the medications was an analogy. Other examples would be; if you did not trust airline pilots, would you want to fly or if you did not trust engineers, would you want to travel in an elevator or cross a bridge? The MTBE issue was a good example of how the Air Quality folks at EPA pushed a bit to hard on the oxygenates without understanding the water quality ramifications. Another example of that is solid waste folks wanting to incinerate trash when it was looking like we would run out of landfills. The next thing you know we have an air pollution issue because of mercury in the trash (old thermostats and thermometers with mercury in them). More on topic: Cooling climate ‘consensus’ of 1970s never was "The team’s survey of major journal papers published between 1965 and 1979 found that only seven articles predicted that global average temperature would continue to cool. During the same period, 44 journal papers indicated that the average temperature would rise and 20 were neutral or made no climate predictions." http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/37590/title/Cooling_climate_%E2%80%98- consensus%E2%80%99_of_1970s_never_was
|
|
|
Replying to: avalon02wh (Oct 19, 2008 2:00 pm) The first part of your sentence is true, the second part is not. They knew fully. They just neg dec'ed it. . All you need do is look at the public record on the subject. ..."More on topic: Cooling climate ‘consensus’ of 1970s never was"... Just as there are no warming consensus (operatively) in 2000's. |
|
|
often goes almost totally unnoticed!! Isn't it interesting that the environmental activist concept that boosting the price of a barrel of oil brings down use? Indeed doing what they advocate has not only increased the prices but actually increased year over year growth (i.e.,104% to 106 %) What has cut the percentage of growth (rather dramatically I might observe) year over year (i.e., 104 to 102%) has actually been a DECREASE (DIRECT opposite if one continues to overlook the blantantly obvious) in the price of a barrel of oil (147 per barrel to current levels 74/75). OPEC have declared EMERGENCY meetings for they fear it (not cutting production aka price of a barrel of oil) will start the price of a barrel of oil to further SLIDE ( to 50/55!!!!????) 
|
|
|
First is an article. This made me chuckle. Seems the British government paid for a study of the carbon footprints of disposable and regular cloth diapers. (that's almost funny enough all by itself) The study found that regular cloth diapers had a larger carbon footprint than disposables. Whoops! Not exactly what they wanted to hear. So, now government officials have instructed civil servants to not talk about the study and take a "defensive" stance on the study's findings. What a hoot. Blow to image of ‘green’ reusable nappy Second is a blog entry. Mentions many of the arguments that refute anthropogenic GW and much of the polemic surrounding the issue. The interesting point is an assertion that in the very recent, average global temp has actually gone down giving up most of the recent warming, so we may be in for an extended cooling period. The comments that follow the entry are fun as well. Thirty years of warmer temperatures go poof Enjoy!
|
|
|
Replying to: mattandi (Oct 21, 2008 5:34 am) |
|
|
Replying to: mattandi (Oct 21, 2008 5:34 am) It's like coffee cups - things aren't always as they seem. Ceramic mugs take more energy and resources to make and clean than disposable Styrofoam, at least per one older study. But drinking coffee isn't green anyway. Nothing is as simple as it seems on the surface.
|
|
You are here:
Forums
Automotive News & Views Are automobiles a major cause of global warming?
New? Join Now!
Forum Tools
Search Forums
Browse by Vehicle
Browse by Board
Browse by Topic
Today's Chats
