I love internal combustion. The sound of my Accord is Salieri to the Boxster’s Mozart, while the distinctive putt-putt of the VW [Real] Beetle is like some endearing melody from childhood, or maybe the rap version of Eensy Beensy Spider (yes, there is such a thing). The ICE is probably the most refined machine on the planet. In contrast, electric drive has all the elegance and soul of a washing machine. Nonetheless, I think global heating threatens civilization, and so I drive with guilt. In so far vain attempts to assuage that guilt, I skim anything dealing with capturing and sequestering carbon, in the so far vain hope that in this version of the Iliad, Achilles won’t die, and I’ve attended talks on the subject at places like MIT. I’ve even concocted wild schemes for personal absolution like cutting my trees and burying them in the peat under my backyard, and growing new trees. Nothing helps. And forget spewing particulates into the atmosphere, because even if that mitigated global heating without bringing on a new ice age–fat chance that we’d get it just right–it would do nothing about ocean acidification from CO2, something that will likely kill off most of our seafood. But now comes a little ray of hope from the 10 January issue of New Scientist.
The magazine describes a variety of schemes for scrubbing carbon, and sucking it right out of the air. And while several of these require such high temperatures–800-900 degrees Celsius–that the net benefit is likely scant, one can do the job at just 40oC. Its inventor, Klaus Lackner of Columbia U, thinks the cost of collecting the CO2 could be low enough ultimately to sell it to greenhouses. Fruit and vegetable growers pay up to $300/ton for concentrated CO2, in order to boost plant growth.
David Keith of the University of Calgary tells New Scientist that once governments price carbon high enough to justify investments in capture and sequestration, it may become commercially feasible to “…capture CO2 and combine it with hydrogen to make fuel,” eliminating net carbon emissions by recycling element number 6. Then we could all drive easier and breathe easier at the same time.
Aside from the fact that every scheme proposed above has no thermodynamic benefit (ie. it would consume more energy than produce).
Aside from the fact that there is no proven causation of man’s influence on the global climate (only a very loose correlation, and only if you ignore significant periods in history. There is a big difference between correlation and causation).
Aside from the fact that when governments “price” anything, someone else has to pay for it.
The solution sounds like hibernation. You’d cut down on your consumption of food and energy, generation of waste and CO2.
And the sleep you’d get would cut down on stress; for you and for those of us who would rather focus on more important things than fighting ever more government omnipresence in our lives.
Get yourself a PZEV, like the 4 cylinder Ford Focus of a certain year. It has extra filters in it, and the emissions coming out of the tailpipe are cleaner than the air if you live in any major metropolitan area.
Plus the vehicles are manufacturer warranteed for 150,000 miles, and I think you can get it in stick shift.
Sorry about the lightness of facts in this post, as these facts were pulled from memory.
The best thing to do, even if you don’t “believe” in Global Warming, and are only interesting in your OWN pocket is, where-ever possible, USE LESS ENERGY. It doesn’t have to be any harder than that.
In my experience most people hardly understand anything about energy, and certainly not CO2 accounting. Nor do they understand scientific method.
Witness the use of a reference to “thermodynamics” and then “consume more energy than produce”, and then “proven causation”.
Get yourself a PZEV, like the 4 cylinder Ford Focus of a certain year. It has extra filters in it, and the emissions coming out of the tailpipe are cleaner than the air if you live in any major metropolitan area.
That just makes matters worse. The cleaner the air, the less global shade there is to offset the effects of ever-increasing CO2 levels.
Nonetheless, I think global heating threatens civilization, and so I drive with guilt.
LOL! Here in the Midwest it’s negative 21 right now. Maybe you should have held off your post for summer when it’s “naturally” hot outside as spreading your guilt around would work better. LOL
http://www.globalwarminghoax.com
Assuming all the doom sayers are true. Why do we continue to produce half as much energy with twice the volume. 2 stroke technology has advanced to the level of cleanliness of the 4 stroke and yet doubles the performance value. It is cheaper to produce, maintain, and uses less resources.
My point is, assuming the end is near, why AREN’T we using technologies to solve the problem?
Because it is not politically (financially) productive to do so. If you solve a problem, you cease to use it to FEAR people into swaying to your control.
Think of just one thing the has been CURED since Small Pox? The drug companies would be out of business if the cured anything. Same with the Automobile world.
Witness the use of a reference to “thermodynamics” and then “consume more energy than produce”, and then “proven causation”.
Thanks, Professor.
Maybe you could describe (for the rest of us) the benefits of an endothermic system as an energy source.
And while you’re at it, you can establish how correlation proves causation.
@ Kurt
2-stroke is not (yet) clean enough, nor fuel efficient enough, which would make your other conspiracy theories a bit shaky perhaps.
@ RangerM
And while you’re at it, you can establish how correlation proves causation.
You’re confusing your chickens with your eggs. You get correlation on the way to causation, and the scientific method exists to explore how/why. (Simplistically, for the rest of us).
I imagine if you believe it all began in the Garden of Eden, then you might as well reject the entire scientific enterprise (which is in virtually complete agreement about the reality of global warming)and proceed on to the inevitable: conspiracy theories involving PLANS to take CONTROL and ENSLAVE mankind. Sound absurd? Travel the blogosphere and you shall see. The Luddites are back. Or did they ever really leave?
The Earth is in a cooling trend and has been for the last ten years.
No folks a tiny amount of CO2 is not going to flood and boil the Earth.
The economy on the other hand is something that is very scary.
Winston Churchill
“A five minute conversation with the average voter is the best argument against democracy”
I don’t personally consider myself a leftist hippy environmentalist. However, I know [KNOW] that pollution is bad. Would anyone like to take the opposing view?
With that common understanding, why is there such an emotional (and negative) reaction to the need to deal with pollution?
For those who don’t want their toys taken away (me!) why don’t you look for a “third way” which meets both the need to reduce pollution and minimize government intervention/taxation/regulation?
My proposal: 80%+ nuclear power/0% coal power. Plug-in electric vehicles with a small purchase incentive. $1.00 federal gas tax to fund nuclear infrastructure, plug-in infrastructure installation, and rebate program.
Plug in vehicles would not be mandatory, but an infrastructure would exist to support them. That way we can keep our traditional IC engines (all with catalytic converters, however) since they don’t pollute that much.
Focus energy on fighting pollution, not other people who largely agree with your point of view.
This debate again? Ok, its fun. I personally do not believe in man made global warming and I think the whole global warming industry is a sham. People like Al Gore stand to make big bucks trading carbon credits based on unverifiable claims. The potential for corruption in the carbon trading business is astronomical.
Still, I know a solution we could implement today for free that would cut oil consumption and CO2 emissions from motor vehicles by 75%. Its called telecomuting. There is no reason whatsoever to go into an office if you work a desk job. Why not take advantage of the advances we’ve made in internet communication? If anyone were serious about reducing CO2 emissions from cars this would have to be on the top of the agenda.
@ bluecon
The Earth is in a cooling trend and has been for the last ten years.
All of the meteorological bureaus around the world can tell you that the 10 warmest years since such records have been kept have occured since 1997.
PeteMoran:
You’re confusing your chickens with your eggs. You get correlation on the way to causation…
I can get roosters from eggs, but from roosters I get….
If A (causation) then B (correlation)
does not mean
If B (correlation), the A (causation)
I’m all for efficiency and reduction of pollution, but not by force or fraud.
Transportation only accounts for 30% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the US.
source: http://epa.gov/otaq/climate/index.htm
Automobiles are some smaller percentage of that 30%.
Buildings account for something like half of all green house gas production (source:http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/05/buildings_accou_1.php).
What we (as a society, country) should be focusing on is increasing efficiency in ALL areas of energy consumption and production.
Transportation and automobiles in particular are just the tip of the iceberg, but right now they’re a political lightning rod. And really, transportation is one thing that could be made much more efficient by making some small relatively simple changes (hybrid powertrains, more public transportation, less sprawl, more car pooling).
Wow, lots of global warming skeptics here. I bet you all don’t believe in evolution as well, and think that Bush blew up the towers on 9/11. Arguing with somebody that doesn’t believe in global warming is like arguing with somebody who doesn’t believe in gravity.
In any case, this seems to be the way to go-create global cooling as opposed to attempting to reduce carbon emissions (which, to actually stop global warming by doing so, would basically require a ban on modern society).
Jeff Waingrow: I imagine if you believe it all began in the Garden of Eden, then you might as well reject the entire scientific enterprise (which is in virtually complete agreement about the reality of global warming)and proceed on to the inevitable:
So a believer in one religion mocks the believers in another. I’m sure that the irony is lost on you.
PeteMoran: All of the meteorological bureaus around the world can tell you that the 10 warmest years since such records have been kept have occured since 1997.
And how long have those official records been kept? Not that long, as I recall.
Please take your guilt indoors and keep the road in front of me clear, thanks!
Actually the science and the scientist are turning away from the AGW theory since there has been a huge increase in manmade CO2 over the last ten years and the Earth’s temperature stopped increasing and is now decreasing. Kinda makes the AGW theory wrong.
http://climatedebatedaily.com/
Satellite data
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/02/06/uah-satellite-data-for-jan08-in-agreement-with-rss-data/
I love how discussions of global warming at TTAC devolve quickly into some really adolescent name calling.
Recess is over, kids.
Oy vey. I’d hoped that my story would elicit some other funny stories of guilt over driving, or funny comments about that, rather than more of the TTAC hundred years war over global climate change. This is all I’m going to say about that: I first learned about global warming when I took Quantitative Aspects of Global Environmental Problems from John Holdren at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975, a class that was all doing calculations about global environmental problems. At the time, he’d been thinking about climate change for more than five years. Also, that was just after the “new ice age” scare which made Newsweek and Time in ’74. I was actually thinking of seeing if Holdren was giving the class these days so that I could audit it–he’s been at Harvard since the mid-90s, and I live 6 miles from Harvard–when I learned Obama had picked him as science advisor.
All of that is to say that the biggest thinkers on the subject are in fact THINKERS, not believers.
geeber: I believe you’re conflating science and religion. One is a matter of faith, the other not. No offense was intended. Most people of faith seem to know the difference, though. I see nothing ironic in that, nor inconsistent. Of course, people will draw different conclusions from a given set of facts, that we all agree. I put much of my faith in the preponderance of scientific opinion, knowing, nonetheless, that it can be mistaken.
“Arguing with somebody that doesn’t believe in global warming…”
It shouldn’t be a matter of belief at all. That’s the problem. It should be a matter of probability defined by verifiable fact. Given that, it’s my opinion that the data shows that there is a strong probability that global warming is indeed affected by human behavior.
As I’ve said before, most approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions have other advantages with the greatest being reduced consumption of difficult-to-extract resources. As our nation becomes more efficient, we all benefit. Productivity rises, costs are controlled and the quality of life improves.
Frankly, no one likes being told they have to change their behavior. But the occurrences of the last year should be enough to make people realize the risks of not doing so. What’s the probability that gas will cost over $4/gallon within the next three years? I’d say it’s signifigantly higher than it was two years ago. Public policy is one way of making adjustments to behavior in a measured fashion. Again, this rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But, when done correctly, it can yield huge benefit. Lots of people hated tailpipe emission regulations. But we all have benefitted mightily from having adopted them. I believe the same thing is true for energy consumption. Yes, the market does work to correct imbalances but this often occurs in sudden and violent shifts in both cost and availability. Isn’t it better to recognize that we need to manage this process rather than be beholden to it?
Gotta laugh at the CO2 acidifies ocean kills all fish idea.
CO2 is at historically low levels right now compared with a few millions of years ago when atmospheric CO2 was multiples of what it is right now the ocean was absolutely filled with fish, corals and what have you.
I to would believe in global warming if the Earth was actually warming.
The Earth is cooling so it kinda kills the AGW thing. And not only is it cooling but it is cooling while there is a huge increase in manmade CO2.
What amazes me is that so many of the so called scientist can just ignore this evidence since it doesn’t agree with their beliefs.
@PeteMoran,
Ah but that’s the rub. 2 Stroke technology has progressed to be as clean.
http://www.maxsled.com/absolutenm/templates/articles_layout.aspx?articleid=1059&zoneid=17
Also I don’t the link but John Deer bought technology from a Florida firm for their lawn care products.
I will give you that with equal cylinders sizes, the 4 stroke will get better milage, it will also produce half the power. Meaning you can run a smaller and lighter 2 stroke engine using less fuel for the same HP output.
The problem is that organizations like California’s CARB care little about solving the problem and would rather use it to control your behavior or sweep you under the rug.
Conspiracy Theory indeed!
CO2 is at historically low levels right now compared with a few millions of years ago when atmospheric CO2 was multiples of what it is right now the ocean was absolutely filled with fish, corals and what have you. -vww12
Implying that the today’s marine organisms are the very same ones that flourished in the sea millions of years ago under higher CO2 levels is silly. Slow change over millions of years allowed for evolution to adapt species to the new environment. Changing that environment in a few dozen (or even hundred) years would be devastating to [most] marine life.
“Arguing with somebody that doesn’t believe in global warming is like arguing with somebody who doesn’t believe in gravity.”
Really. Just like. The same. No difference at all. I see.
Convincing some one that there really isn’t an invisible bungie cord attached to their ass that holds them down is the same as telling someone here in Vermont (-16° today) that if they hadn’t driven their car to work today it would have been even colder.
Got it.
This is the problem with belief. It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
Al Gore and his minions stand to gain tremendously from global warming. How big is his house again? What is the size of his “carbon footprint”? Oh right, he bought offsets from the company he owns, so actually Al and his 6000 sq ft house, his jets, etc. gives energy back and consumes nothing. What a crock. Gore = hypocrisy.
And the other side is just as nutty. What is clean coal? Correct answer: Marketing! Like low fat cookies and fat free potato chips that cause “anal leakage”, it’s good marketing with little else.
I too have enjoyed the bark of well crafted explosions, contained within an engine. What you call soulless, though, I call smooth, elegant, and powerful in ways that the internal combustion engine cannot even dream to contest. Having driven a Ford Ranger EV personally, I can’t wait until electrically driven vehicles hit the mainstream, even if powered solely by gas generators or turbines. The performance can be staggering. All the better to be powered by renewable sources though, in my opinion. One of the advantages of electric drive is that we have choice.
From what I understand, one of the effects of climate change (to which global warming is like a sub-heading) is that, while the average global temperature is rising, local weather systems will become more extreme in both directions. Some areas will get colder, some hotter, some wetter, some dryer, but there will be more frequent and powerful storms and hurricanes, tornadoes, and the like. It is a very complex system, with effects that are more complicated than common sense can fathom. Any models I have seen so far take into account a vast array of factors most people wouldn’t even think to include. Scientists are smart people, educated, knowlegable and many have been recearching this phenomema for decades. The debate within legitimate scientific community at this point is not a matter of if climate change exists, but how bad it may get and how quickly.
It irritates me when people who would very quickly defend thier own expertise and knowledge in an area they have worked in for years, crying out “it’s more complicated, you wouldn’t understand!” or “I’ve been doing this for years, I know what I’m doing!” turn around and profess that scientists, who have trained, and worked in thier field just as long, are blithering idiots and know less than someone sitting in an armchair spouting opinion rather than tested fact. It is both ignorant and arrogant to think that the layperson can deduce correctly in moments, as a matter of faith, intuition, or common sense, what others have spent decades tirelessly labouring over.
What worries me even more, however, when it comes to cars and emissions, is the problem of smog. Even if there are those who cannot bring themselves to believe that climate change is a problem, urban smog most definitley and indesputably is. It’s also quite clear what effect traffic has on the levels of smog gasses in urban cores, and not just greenhouse gasses, but all the other nastys that are produced by internal combustion engines when they are new, and especially as they age. For this reason especially, I am an advocate of EVs and alternate power sources.
Dont’ knock ’em ’till you’ve tried one. The symphony you hear today may turn to merely a cacaphony, once your perspective shifts.
It’s 9 degrees F (-13 metric) outside right now and was 0 (-18) when I woke up this morning.
I wand my Global Warming, and I want it now!
Count me as a moderate GW skeptic. There is no question that the CO2 levels have increased over the last 150 years, from about 0.025% to 0.035%. That is definitely a trend to be concerned about. But I don’t believe the level is yet high enough to cause significant climate change. At the ever increasing rate that we are burning carbon, I could see reaching 0.1% or 1% in a relatively short amount of time. But I don’t believe GW has occured yet. I think the extremists on both sides are wrong. GW skeptics are not the same as gravity skeptics. It is not self evident that the climate is changing due to CO2, regardless of what the arrogant greenies say. But the very measurable increase in atmospheric CO2 is not something we can ignore, either. At the rate we are going, there will eventually be an effect.
The debate within legitimate scientific community at this point is not a matter of if climate change exists, but how bad it may get and how quickly.
Totally untrue. The scientific community is moving away from the AGW theory.
Because the science doesn’t support the theory. When the Earth’s temperature falls while the manmade CO2 is hugely increased the theory and the scientists look rather foolish.
People who do not believe in anthropogenic climate change run into 3 sticky facts:
1) CO2 (and other society-generated greenhouse gases (GHG) such as methane, CFCs, and sulfur hexaflouride (used to make solar photovoltaic panels) are greenhouse gases. Their infrared absorption spectra are not determined by Al Gore, they are determined by the Laws of Physics.
2) The amount of CO2 (and GHG) in the atmosphere is increasing. Furthermore, the increase is definitely man-made, and the rate of increase is much faster than that caused by natural processes.
3) The rapid introduction of GHG is almost certain to have some effect upon the world’s climate. Given that the planet has 6 billion people, many of whom are dependent upon mass industrial agriculture in specific locations, it seems prudent to do what we can to slow these effects.
I would also note that the vast majority of people (whether or not they believe in anthropogenic global warming) are badly underinformed about the evidence, and constantly confuse climate with weather. The local temperature in any given area, or variations in global temperature on scales shorter than several years are meaningless when discussing the global climate.
For more information, I encourage everyone to investigate for themselves what actual climate scientists who publish research in peer-reviewed journals have to say:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/
I enjoy “guilt-free” motoring pretty much every day of my life. That’s because I refuse to feel guilty about it.
Regardless of your beliefs regarding ice-age/global warming/climate change/whatever name they come up with next, I think we can agree on the following facts:
1. There are more than two billion people in India and China. Nearly ten times what we have in the US.
2. And over there they are venting factories to the air, poisoning the water, and committing environmental atrocities which have never been seen before in human history, not even during the Industrial Age of Europe.
Which leads us to the classic “Prisoner’s Dilemma.”
If I “clean up” my life, and they don’t, they will overtake me economically, obtain more goods and services, and the earth will supposedly die.
If they “clean up” their lives, and I don’t, then I’ll pull ahead, they’ll fall behind, and the earth will die.
If we both clean up, good things will supposedly happen.
If we both fail, terrible things will.
Right now, I’m going to wait for them to quit pouring mercury into the water before I worry about opening the throttle on my race car.
Save the polar bears. When the polar ends shift, as they have and might again in a few years….do polar bears turn black?
Using Real Climate as a source for the truth on AGW is like using Karl Marx as a source of how the economy works.
If you believe the one you will believe the other.
kgurnsey :
I too have enjoyed the bark of well crafted explosions, contained within an engine. What you call soulless, though, I call smooth, elegant, and powerful in ways that the internal combustion engine cannot even dream to contest. Having driven a Ford Ranger EV personally, I can’t wait until electrically driven vehicles hit the mainstream, even if powered solely by gas generators or turbines. The performance can be staggering. All the better to be powered by renewable sources though, in my opinion. One of the advantages of electric drive is that we have choice.
I’m well aware that others differ quite reasonably, and that I myself may ultimately change my opinion. Also in my likes and dislikes in this sphere I am very much a product of my era (born in Eisenhower), and this is emotional, not logical. And as a matter of policy I agree with you. But I just love internal combustion, and so far, I find electric drive to be appliance like. But I do hope they get batteries with great ranges (I’m not confident though), and I am confident that there will be plenty of renewable energy to power them. And that will help assuage my guilt over my ICE car.
David, there’s nothing you can do to stop global warming. That’s because every evening I light up a 55-gallon drum of industrial coal dust to compensate for any carbon people like you don’t emit. I figure, better global warming than an ice age, which is just as likely.
@ bluecon
the Earth’s temperature stopped increasing and is now decreasing
Your unsupported claim is not supported by meteorological evidence. 11 of the warmest years since records have been kept have been recorded in the last 13 years.
Such data does not fit with your statement and would not be described as a “decreasing” trend.
@ Kurt
Current 2-stroke technology is amazing, but it is still not quite as clean or efficient as 4-stroke, especially now that 4-stroke engines are receiving DI technology like their 2-stroke brothers. As an example, all 2-stroke engines for marine applications have been banned in Australia.
Sorry Pete
Look at the data you supplied.
2007 was cooler than 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 and 1998 was the warmest year. Your supplied data shows cooling.
And 2008 is cooler than all of them and many more.
2008 was the 15th warmest according to this temperatures.
So after all the huge increases in manmade CO2 2008 is cooler than 15 other years and that according to the global warming believers.
The global warming believers are running out of wiggle room.
So much for globaloney warming.
@ Bluecon
Do you not understand or are you being deliberately contrary? If you have year after year ABOVE an average (no what sequence they occur in) the average will rise.
This site contains a more simplified version of the statistical analysis of the data.
I’m skeptical of AGW. Not that I think it’s necessarily wrong, but that the case has not been proven to me.
But the anti-AGW people are just so… well, what’s a word I can use that doesn’t count as flaming?
CO2 is at historically low levels right now compared with a few millions of years ago when atmospheric CO2 was multiples of what it is right now the ocean was absolutely filled with fish, corals and what have you.
Yes, life existed on Earth back when we had an atmosphere of mostly CO₂. Yes, even in the oceans. But it is not life that the man on the street would recognize. And that life in the oceans would take a few million years to re-adapt to the new equilibrium before it would be useful to humans at all.