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Automotive News & Views Are automobiles a major cause of global warming?
6790 messages, Last post on Nov 23, 2009 at 7:44 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-01-01-mammothimpact_N.htm I really think that whether GW (or Climate Change or whatever the vogue word of the day is) is 1%, 10%, or 25% contribution by man, that we spend our energy and resources on the more important threats to the environment. As theorized in that article, these impacts set fire to the entire continent of North America! We need to have our scientiic resources focused on these planet-killer threats, not running around trying to figure out the small part man has in putting CO2 in the air. Or how to stop a 1C increase! There aren't many resources right now focused on detecting or stopping these sorts of comet/asteroid collisions. To me spending money on GW is like worrying about what is causing a skin-rash, when you really should be focusing on preventing a heart-attack. But since we have some sort of "religious" subconcious-psych-issue going with "man is bad", and "we must repent for sins against nature", we spend time worrying about the less important issues.
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Replying to: kernick (Jan 06, 2009 9:59 am) Skin rashes can be fatal too. 
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Replying to: steve_ (Jan 06, 2009 10:41 am) A 1C or few C rise in temperature would allow more organisms to thrive in wider parts of the globe. On the other hand the natural planet-killer events will wipe-out most large species either immediately, or make the climate harsh for years and kill the initial survivors that way. I have 0% chance of dying from GW in the next decades; my chances of dying from a planet-killer are similar to buying a lottery ticket each day. I'd prefer any GW-research-$ be used for scanning the skies, and developing technology to prevent impacts. |
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Replying to: kernick (Jan 06, 2009 11:32 am) Oh, NASA is tracking some 1,000 potentially hazardous asteroids. |
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Replying to: steve_ (Jan 06, 2009 11:45 am) If an asteroid hits, we won't have to worry about bark beetles, climate change or even another episode of Rosie O'Donnell's variety show.
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Replying to: grbeck (Jan 06, 2009 12:40 pm)  You know NASA is going to solve the asteroid issue by putting a few hyperspace shooters in orbit. |
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Replying to: steve_ (Jan 06, 2009 10:41 am) You miss the OP's point. To use you example, you're worrying how you car handles while it is going off a cliff. He was saying that there may be dangers to mankind that are magnitudes greater than GW (even if it is real). |
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Replying to: steve_ (Jan 06, 2009 11:45 am) Trouble is, there are 10,000 out there. 
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Replying to: steve_ (Jan 06, 2009 11:45 am) And the millions of non-periodic comets that can come from the Oort cloud outside of the solar system? Or the comets of the Kuiper Belt by Neptune? Some of these comets are in thousand year orbits of the sun, like the Levy Shoemaker comets that hit Jupiter. If a comet comes from the other side of the sun, travelling at a typical 100,000 mph, you have a few days notice. NASA does not have any accounting of these millions of objects, nor really looks for them. And unless Bruce Willis has been training, we have no ready defense. Jupiter was hit just 20 years ago by comets that would have killed almost everything except cockroaches. Do you like playing a lottery. This issue is many times more important than the UN considering whether mankind can make a small change in what is a normally changing climate.
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Replying to: kernick (Jan 06, 2009 5:39 pm) 
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