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Post by echnaton on Apr 27, 2010 9:52:57 GMT -4
The problem is that there are an awful lot of SUVs with just one person inside commuting into cities where the need for large tires, high ground clearances, powerful engines, and high torque for pulling trailers are completely unnecessary. Someone commuting to the office alone does not need a SUV. I drive a pickup to work every day so I can pull a trailer on the weekends or go to places were most can't go. This past weekend, we went to a beach where we were half a mile from the nearest person. Should we throw out any laws that get in the way of our personal freedoms when it comes to our cars? I want to drive realllllly fast but those darn laws make it impossible. There is large distinction in regulations between rules that apply equally to all and rules that require government permission based on some subjective criteria of need. They are simply not equivalent and the latter case leads to inequality and resentment.
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Apr 27, 2010 22:50:20 GMT -4
The problem is that there are an awful lot of SUVs with just one person inside commuting into cities where the need for large tires, high ground clearances, powerful engines, and high torque for pulling trailers are completely unnecessary. Someone commuting to the office alone does not need a SUV. If people are willing to work for and pay for the cost of an SUV, then it doesn't matter to us. Cities can start looking at ideas like variable rate tolling and variable rate parking to better reflect the true cost of driving into the city. Let's build more roads and lanes. If it inspires people to be more productive so that they can afford the cost of driving the SUV, then the world will be a better place for it. We are the generation that put man on the moon. Let's be careful not to throw away that achievement by spending our futures downsizing our lives. If anyone cares: Article discussing variable rate tolling, etc.
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Apr 27, 2010 23:37:14 GMT -4
There is a difference between a law that attempts to improve the safety of drivers using a road and one that attempts to mandate efficiency in gas consumption. I think both types of laws are ultimately for the greater good of society and should override individual freedoms. There is really no such thing, though, as the greater good of society. Good is characteristic of a person's life, and it is different for each person because of differing circumstances and goals. The purpose of traffic laws is not to limit freedom, but to maximize the personal freedom of the drivers on the roads. By following the laws, drivers have a better chance of driving wherever they wish in a tolerable time without getting into accidents. Clean air is a byproduct of wealth. To get where we are today, we had to pass through a phase of heavy pollution, just like every developing nation today that is modernizing itself. Once people achieve enough wealth, then they devote more interest to living in a cleaner environment. Clean air is not automatically a good. It is up to the individual to determine that, and that will be influenced by his or her individual circumstances and goals. The government's role is to maximize freedom and minimize conflict among individuals. On the other hand, energy consumption has been fundamental to our progress. I think a high-energy society will be in a better position to develop synthetic and alternate sources of hydrocarbon fuels. The Morality of Climate Change (About Energy)
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Post by gillianren on Apr 28, 2010 0:03:13 GMT -4
If people are willing to work for and pay for the cost of an SUV, then it doesn't matter to us. Provided one of the things they're willing to pay for is the additional cost of pollution, sure. Let's not. I live in what I, and many others around here, believe to be one of the most beautiful places in the country. In fact, enough people agree with me that we have shot down initiatives to build more roads twice in the last ten years. We don't want more roads in Washington. Besides, where are you going to put more lanes in downtown Olympia? What's this "we" business? I'm not. I'm of the generation that will keep breathing the tainted air you don't, apparently, care about. I'm all for raising standards on fuel efficiency and tightening emissions standards, and I think that, if we put as much into it as was put into Apollo, it can be the next great accomplishment. So long as pessimists don't keep going on about how we'll have to destroy our future to do it. Having breathable air sure sounds like a better future to me.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Apr 28, 2010 1:13:52 GMT -4
If people are willing to work for and pay for the cost of an SUV, then it doesn't matter to us. It might not matter to you, but it does matter to me. My concern is not whether they can afford the monetary cost of the vehicle, or the cost of the fuel. My concern is whether humans can survive the environmental impact of those vehicles. People think the cost of gasoline is the only factor in deciding whether or not to buy an efficient vehicle, but I worry more about the dwindling supplies of oil and the pollution it produces. I would buy an efficient car even if money was not an issue for me. There is probably enough material in a Hummer to build three or four smaller cars, and it annoys me that it's all being used for just one. I'm not complaining about people who have a legitimate need for buying a truck, but how many people who buy SUVs built by companies like Cadillac or Porsche actually drive them off pavement? How many actually pull trailers? The closest they come to nature is the city park, and the closest they come to driving up a mountain is the curb at the end of their driveways. And if they actually did find themselves out in the wilderness their SUVs wouldn't even be up to the task of serious off road driving because they aren't really designed for it, they're designed for city driving. They live in the delusion that their SUVs are capable of taking abuse like military vehicles, but they are just luxury cars disguised to look like trucks. Do you also want us to be known as the generation(s) that selfishly squandered the Earth's resources and made the planet barely inhabitable for future generations?
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Post by echnaton on Apr 28, 2010 9:21:39 GMT -4
I'm not complaining about people who have a legitimate need for buying a truck, but how many people who buy SUVs built by companies like Cadillac or Porsche actually drive them off pavement? Who do you propose should have the right to make the determination that one person has a legitimate need while another doesn't? This is nothing but prejudice. How many people really think there SUVs are military hummers in capabilities? Please provide something other than your speculations. Being from Texas I know many people that drive SUVs and pickups, none of them hold the pretense they are driving military capable vehicles.
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Post by echnaton on Apr 28, 2010 9:32:57 GMT -4
Do you also want us to be known as the generation(s) that selfishly squandered the Earth's resources and made the planet barely inhabitable for future generations? I presume you mean "barely habitable." Pure FUD. In many ways the environment in the US has improved since the introduction of oil stopped the burning of coal and timber for home heating fuel. For example much of the North East was almost stripped of forests, now the area is covered in woods. Another example, farming productivity, partially supported by teh use of petrochemical fertilizers, has reduced the need for cropland, allowing much of it to return to undisturbed grasslands, yet somehow we feed more people. Make your case that we are in eminent danger of making the planet barely habitable.
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Apr 28, 2010 10:12:40 GMT -4
I'm not complaining about people who have a legitimate need for buying a truck, but how many people who buy SUVs built by companies like Cadillac or Porsche actually drive them off pavement? Who do you propose should have the right to make the determination that one person has a legitimate need while another doesn't? How about a death panel?
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Post by echnaton on Apr 28, 2010 11:39:20 GMT -4
Who do you propose should have the right to make the determination that one person has a legitimate need while another doesn't? How about a death panel? The government wouldn't dare allocate limited resources to one person while withholding from another. The President promised! Say it's not so, Joe!
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 8, 2010 18:10:36 GMT -4
As anyone who has been following the issue knows, a panel hired by East Anglia University recently cleared the East Anglia scientists of attempting to manipulate data. Yeah, big surprise that the panel did what it was hired to do.
Anyway, the NYT has this interesting explanation for the work of the climate scientists:
All right. Now which seems more likely? 1. That in 1960 trees worldwide suddenly all stopped responding to temperature changes the way they had for thousands of years for some "mysterious reason" 2. That there is something wrong with the the temperature data as reported by EAU's Climate Change Unit?
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Jul 8, 2010 23:49:17 GMT -4
All right. Now which seems more likely? 1. That in 1960 trees worldwide suddenly all stopped responding to temperature changes the way they had for thousands of years for some "mysterious reason" 2. That there is something wrong with the the temperature data as reported by EAU's Climate Change Unit? I don't know if something is wrong with the CRU's temperature data, but I have been looking this over and am quite worried about climate change. Take a look at this. Below are plots of ice core data, one from Greenland, one from the Antarctic. They are not global temperature plots, but they tell pretty much the same story. I marked the rise of the global warming era in red in the upper graph. It got lost in the resampling and compression of the lower graph, so ignore that part. The temperature has indeed been rising for the last 300 years. It's no wonder that Al Gore has been feeling a little tense, that Prince Charles has felt the need to leave one of his many palaces to lecture us on consumerism, and that Leonardo DiCaprio has taken time out from his acting career to tour the world in his private jet warning humanity of the dangers of, well, touring the world in private jets. You can see the series of ice ages that occur every 100,000 years. All of modern human civilization from the development of agriculture to the iPad happened in that very last warm period of 8000 years. Here's the thing, though, that keeps me up at night. We are due to fall into the next ice age. And I don't even own a good pair of winter boots.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 9, 2010 11:35:59 GMT -4
Source?
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Post by Joe Durnavich on Jul 9, 2010 12:03:04 GMT -4
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Post by Apollo Gnomon on Jul 9, 2010 12:34:37 GMT -4
Are those the only choices?
What about "there are variables unaccounted for in the above."
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 9, 2010 13:03:46 GMT -4
Are those the only choices? What about "there are variables unaccounted for in the above." That would work too. But that's not the position the EAU CRU took.
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