Someone forwarded this to us. Merely forwarding on for unbiased purposes: The Fraud of Global Warming [mp3] http://library.mises.org/media/Homeschool%20Classroom/The%20Fraud%20of%20Global%20Warming%20Floy%20Lilley.mp3 iPhone ? - now Free
I'm not talking about doomsday either. I'm certainly not a supporter of the AGW scare tactics and scenarios that seem to be the only way the issue is presented to the general public. I view it is as a pollution problem and not just a climate issue. A pollution problem that is solvable like all pollution problems. However, the solution to this problem also can provide a solution to our energy needs. It takes some foresight to see the solution to CO2 dumping has very powerful economic and social rewards. Once that is seen, the fatalism disappears fast. Your start point was that nothing could be done. I'll agree that getting something done will be hard and take a very long time. However, there is way too much history of successfully addressing most pollution and resource problems to make a statement like nothing can be done. Putting emissions controls on cars and vastly reducing acid rain (power plant scrubbers) are two more examples of where many thought the economics and inertia of the deep pockets would rule the day....they didn't. Everyone wins. (Not to worry, car makers & utilities still make money.) I'm not being argumentative. In my younger days I thought similarly...but then I did my homework.
I don't know about doomsday, but AGW on the current path is an enviro disaster of global scope for humanity. The problem is that the brunt of the problem is a generation or 3 away, so a large fraction of people today just do not give a sh1t. The Mparanoias, tea baggers and Mojos of the world are receptive to propaganda dressed up as skepticism because it fits their desire to only worry about themselves. The irony in all this is that a transition to a green economy would revitalize America, but FUD and scientific illiteracy has allowed the entrenched interests of the fossil fuel economy enough leverage to freeze any significant political action in the near future.
Receptive to propaganda? You have bought into the AGW "doomsday" propaganda hook line and sinker. The sagebrushes, libtards, and icaruses of the world are receptive to propaganda dressed up as "science" because it fits a desire to try and nanny everyone else; all the while forking over their hard earned money, and everyone else's, over to politicians, corrupt scientists and crony corporations. The irony is that the transition to a "green economy" has so far cost the tax payers of America billions of dollars; while the heads of these crony companies party with the politicians that fed them a steady diet of tax money. Obama Fundraises With Players in Solyndra Scandal - ABC News Scientific worship and statism has allowed the crony interests of "green energy" to divide and conquer. Keep the small minded worshipers like you on the attack, while they bleed us all dry.
...engineers/scientists tend to use his equations a lot so there respect on that level. I am not even sure he was the very first to suggest AGW, but one of the first and very vocal, although not an alarmist he thought it might be good to have some warming.
Wow, pretend you are against ad hominem, in a post where you do one against the creator of the equation that explanes the physics of greenhouse gases (and no one disputes that the equation is correct, only debate is on the constant). I could find no link between the man and hitler, perhaps you can. Perhaps you are thinking of henry ford, hitler read his racist dribble and even hung a picture of ford on his office wall. He is more famous for his equation that describes the relationship between heat and rate of chemical reactions. He discovered and explained electrolyte dissociation, for which he received the nobel prize. He was one of the creators of physical chemistry and immunology. Anthony Watts even has given shout outs to the guy. He is no Tesla, but was one of the great scientists of his time. Here is what he thought about ghg based warming. Svante Arrhenius : Feature Articles That seems quite backwards, and you display ignorance of the man. James Watson because he spouted some eugenics non-sense was pushed into retirement, in his old age, he seemed to forget to filter his racism. He did apologize for it. Do we decide now that the science of dna should be forgotten, that the human genome thrown away, because one of the discovers also harbored some racist eugenics beliefs? No! your ad-hominem attack does not work. Here is some 1958 tv science for your enjoyment that illustrates industrial pollution and discusses the cautionary principal.
Did you read my entire message? I never said there isn't a solution. I said we can't really do anything about it because people are not willing to change their behavior because they have money to spend. Like I said, solution is there but since the 70's, people are driving bigger cars and live in bigger houses. Do I really need to repeat everything I said? Having the solutions is the easy part. Asking selfish people to execute them is another story. By the way, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett also want to save the world and modernize some of the third world countries. When I see the word "modernize", I see more pollution coming down the road.
Yes, I read the entire message. The discussion is worth keeping calm about since it is an important one. A solution is not a "solution" if it is never implemented, and I'm talking about implementation, not concepts. Let's look at what is occurring now. Folks previously have been driving bigger vehicles....but at the same time fuel use has actually gone down. Why? CAFE standards are going to have folks driving vehicles that get much better mpg, for all sizes. Also, just because a vehicle is big does not mean it cannot be electric or sustainably fueled. The size of the vehicles is not the real problem. The fuel is. Likewise, the size of the house is not near as important as the energy use of the house. A net zero house can be any size....we just need more of them....and since their fuel cost is vastly less...we will get more. A great number of people will always be selfish, but as I mentioned in my previous examples, it's what the smart innovators take advantage of to implement solutions that are embraced by the selfish....because they are selfish. It's called social economics and it is key to getting the masses moving in the right direction. The Tesla is a car a huge number of selfish folks would own if they could. Let's make it easier to do so. Elon Musk fully understands how a great step forward in sustainability can and needs to be presented as a fashion statement. It's working. Also, a great many folks would like to be free of utility bills. Solar arrays enables that, so that will appeal to those who want to retain their money (long term) regardless of the sustainability advantage. Now if you think that I'm still clueless, please point out why my examples are invalid. The point of discussions is to discuss.
Interesting info. Thanks. I have a few question if you don't mind. When you say "fuel use has actually gone down", I assume you meant gasoline. I'm interested to see how much of the gasoline was replaced by coal and natural gas burning to generate more electricity to power the EV's. Also, which came first, CAFE standards or high oil price? I remember when gasoline was less than $2, only a few people were interested in buying a Prius. The demand for the Prius picked up as oil price went up. When I mention bigger houses, I don't mean just heating and cooling. It takes more materials and energy to build it. It takes up more land, so more for people less for nature. Having bigger houses usually mean the owners would most likely buy more furniture and other craps to fill the house. One of my relatives used to spend $1000/month just to heat his outdoor pool. This is what I meant by as long as people have money to spend, they will generate pollution. Regarding the Tesla car, how many miles does the owner have to drive in order to erase the carbon deficit incurred while building the Tesla car? I assume that you know it takes a lot of energy to extract and process lithium. And I was told that lithium is rare and only a few places in U.S. have enough lithium for mining. And then more energy is used during the battery making process. Also, did someone calculate how much energy it'll take to move the battery around during the life of the car? How long do lithium batteries last? As of today, no one is interested in recycling lithium batteries, where do these batteries go?
Gasoline always had a good deal of natural gas to produce. The amount going to plug-ins is tiny. Its lost in the noise. A bigger contribution has been ethanol. This has land use, electricity, and natural gas (for fertilizer, and production), as well as diesel. Oil use has dropped more than ethanol has increased though. During this round, oil prices rose before new cafe regulations passed. As in the first round of cafe, increase in corporate average fuel economy take years to materialize. Pro oil use policies in the 1990s retarded technological gains in fuel economy from materializing in the US as they did in other countries. Low price of oil, promotion of bigger is safer, increased oil use). Just as these policies increased oil consumption, oil taxes and removal of oil subsidies can reduce oil consumption. This can be done with a drop in other taxes like the payroll tax, to not increase tax burdens. There is not a rock or wood shortage, and homes last a long time. Things like geothermal heat pumps can drastically reduce fuel use. Using natural gas on thermal heaters instead of electricity, solar panels, building for heat and cool flow, has progressed greatly. The Crawford ranch partially designed to be low cost in operation by a UT architecture professor shows how efficient things can be. Fact Check: Is Al Gore's mansion a lot less green than George Bush's ranch house? | members.jacksonville.com Now al and tipper gore have a 10,o00 square foot mansion in Tennesee, a 6500 square foot one in California, a home in virginia, and a farm in Tennessee. For 2 people that are supposed to care about the environment, that is quite conspicuous consumption. It is no surprise that fuel use went up greatly during the clinton/gore 90s. the bushes now conspicuously consume and added a less efficient 8000 sq foot mansion to their efficient 4000 sq foot ranch. Fuel use is going down now. Its partially replacing inefficient coal, with more efficient natural gas and wind, and it may be that as younger generations get more prosperous they don't consume as much as the baby boomer generation. If you are driving a tesla instead of a similar bmw or audi it likely bares no carbon deficit as long as the batteries and body are recycled. Lithium is not a rare earth metal, and it can be recycled. Musk wants the batteries to go to the grid when the capacity is reduced. Why do you think no one is interested in the batteries? I would love to have a 70% capacity tesla roadster
Here is one chart of fuel consumption; This shows the fuel use total. There are about 254 million cars in the US. About 40,000 are EVs. That is about 0.02 percent of the total. The electricity needed to power that 0.02 percent is about the thickness of the trend line. Bottom line is EVs do not account for the downward bend at all. In the future it will matter, but not right now. CAFE standards started in 1975. What to call a "high" gas price varies with the individual (and the country they drive in). I have a 2001 Prius. I can assure you that there were long waiting lists for the very first generation Priuses and extremely few sat on any dealers lot. The second generation Prius I got in 2007 also required me to wait many weeks. If you think the demand for Priuses was weak in these earlier years, you are on the right forum to check other early Prius owners if you think I'm wrong or exaggerating. Only my 2010 was available on the lot. I fully agree that bigger anything takes more resources. But I do not agree that being greedy requires pollution to be generated. If the only power available to your relative comes from solar/wind/renewable, how is he polluting? He probably does not care as long as he gets the best power deal. But his apathy is the secret weapon of those that know how to make sustainability work. By making the cheaper choice the sustainable choice, that problem is being solved instead of being created. Just to be clear. We probably have a point of agreement. Depending on the larger population to start "caring" to improve the pollution situation is a lost cause. The upside is economic motivation can lead the selfish out of the pit just as easily as it can lead them into the pit....including me. The original Prius purchase was for selfish reasons. So was the last Prius purchase. And so will the next EV purchase. It takes a lot of energy to extract everything from the ground. Lithium being one of a multitude of materials mined. But "energy" is not the problem. It's the pollution of inefficient extraction and reckless waste handling that is the problem. That must be addressed just like auto pollution was addressed. Regulation are needed to prevent destructive practices. We know how to do this and will continue to do so. Even greedy people don't like living in a sewer or toxic waste dump. There was a time when lead batteries were not recycled but just dumped. Now they are one of the most hermetically recycled materials handled. Same will happen to Lithium. Eventually the idea of dumping ANY material will be seen as both economically stupid and destructive. Aluminum, plastic, paper, etc. are recycled because money is made recycling them, not because of good intentions. Recycling will eventually extend to everything that was previously mined or extracted. Too much money in it not too. The present state of resources and materials for EVs will change just like every other vehicle technology as the industry matures.
FL_Prius_Driver - The chart shows that the gas usage peaked at around 07 and 08. Tell me if I remember this correctly, didn't gasoline price also peaked at around that time frame? Responding to your comment on being on the waiting list for a Prius. I said demand for Prius was low, that doesn't mean supply was high. My impression was that people were more interested in other cars than Prius. This is how I saw it. There was X amount of demand for Prius but Toyota didn't make or didn't ship enough of them to U.S. tom meet that demand. Therefore the waiting list was due to lack of supply. Another thing I forget to mention about people having money. When people have money, they also tend to have more activities for their kids or themselves. These activities require transportation. I know I know. You are going to say it's not a problem if they were driving EV's charged by electricity from solar. But EV's aren't mainstream yet.
Lithium abundance in the earth's crust is about 20 ppm, just below nitrogen, a bit above lead, and an order of magnitude above tin. Abundance of elements in Earth's crust
Oh ok. It's not the rare. On TV, they said not many places in the U.S. have enough lithium concentration for mining. If I remember correctly, they said Nevada is a big producer of lithium.
Yes. I'm not sure what your ultimate point is here. There is complete agreement that the supply of the 2001-2003 was limited, but the 2004 version was expected to meet the demand planned. Yet even by 2007 the demand was still not being met. Of course the increase in gas prices were a major factor. But don't overlook a key point...the Prius is a great example that a car built to be more sustainable can be an substantial improvement in transportation luxury, no real compromises needed. Most EV drivers attempt to communicate the same point even further. Driving an EV is not a step down, but a step up....if executed right. Now apply this concept on a wider scale and to the gas consumption reduction graph. Most folks would think that gas consumption is only going up. Why do they think that and why is it not true? The reduction in gas use is not due to preventing folks from driving. It's due to the long term payoff of earlier efforts for vehicles to be more efficient and sustainable. Some of that is government effort, but a lot of other sustainable initiatives by smart thinkers is at work as well. (e.g. hybrids, new engine technologies, more marketing of mpg as a consideration.) Economics plays a part, but not enough to account for the huge bend seen. Sustainable does not mean austere. It means sustaining the present or an improved standard of living indefinitely. Can it be done? I think so. Will it be even attempted? That's the real issue. Let's return to the start of the discussion....What can be done about "AGW"? I was attempting to communicate that a totally negative outlook is too narrow an outlook. There are a great number of local, national, and global success stories. I've mentioned just a few of many. But a huge number more are needed, no question. Most all the success storied previously mentioned were not the result of the larger population spontaneously changing behavior, but a small set of smart individuals making some key changes in regulations, or technology, or public awareness, or something else....that completely leads the direction of society in a better direction. The solution is not to look to politics, but to make sure every smart individual thinks for themselves. I'm convinced that any smart (and moral) individual thinking for themselves will eventually figure out the truth of the situation. Then they fully realize they can make a big difference with small actions.
Total oil use per day in the US is around 18 - 19 millions barrels. There has been around a ~ 6% decrease in total oil consumption from the peak in 2008, but that coincides with the great recession from which the US has yet to exit. I really see no obvious reason to think that the drop in oil consumption cannot be explained by economics alone. As far as gasoline goes, from Wikipedia: I'll repeat: 33 miles a day using 1.49 gallons.
My point is that the waiting list is smoking mirror. Toyota made it appeared that there as a big demand for the Prius by strategically limited the supply. You're the one that brought up the waiting list after I said the demand was low. By 2007, people were panicking about the gas price. Prius was selling like hotcakes then. You kept saying "sustainable". Not sure if it can be over a longer period. Human population is growing. Thanks to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, some third world countries will be modernized. More people will survive from dieases and live longer. We will have to see how sustainable things really are in time with more and more people not just living on this planet but want to live in modern environment like the Americans.
I cannot think of a precedent in human history where a natural resource was left in the ground to avoid damage to the environment. That is the challenge of oil and coal. Frankly, we can only hope that wind and solar are a lot cheaper since the capitalization costs of burning fossil fuels are massive and already sunk.
