Bush vs Science

[ALLCAPS]

WHAT IF I CONVERT MY F350 DIESEL TO RUN OFF OF BURNING HIPPIES? WILL THAT KILL THOSE DAMN ENDANGERED OZONE CREATURES FAST ENOUGH?

[DirtyHarry]

Don't try it, petchulli clogs fuel injectors.

[jon]

How many hippies do you need to get the 1.21 jiggawatts from the flex capacitor?

[iain]

flux capacitor you tool

[DirtyHarry]

depends on whether you're runnin' a Delorian or not.

[iain]

are those recyclable? I left three out by the trash in the tin cans area but they remain.

[G-spotter]

Global Warming is essentially the same as the Tragedy of the Commons. Substitute the global environment for a common sheep pasture. No one has an incentive to do anything because there is no way to get everyone to comply.

 

I'd rather have the sheep pasture thanks

[jon]

flux capacitor you tool

 

In JayZ's Delorien he uses a FunkmasterFLEX capacitor, and it uses Jiggawatts instead of jigawatts.

[skykilo]

Regardless of oil, there is enough coal to keep us running on fossil fuels for millenia. The Nazis made coal from oil during WWII when their oil supply was blocked. The technology already exists; it's only prohibitively expensive since oil is still relatively cheap.

 

Ten times one's life span doesn't seem all that myopic.

 

Not that I don't support each individual making all the little differences they can...

 

Jon, surely you know sex with condoms is only marginally better than masturbation? Admit it, you like playing with your test tubes.

[Cobra_Commander]

flux capacitor you tool

 

In JayZ's Delorien he uses a FunkmasterFLEX capacitor, and it uses Jiggawatts instead of jigawatts.

 

don't forget the diamond-encrusted autographed nutsack hanging from the towing hitch.

[cj001f]

only if you give her a pearl neckless.

 

IT'S CALLED A CHENEY SON!

[jon]

only if you give her a pearl neckless.

 

IT'S CALLED A CHENEY SON!

 

ROFL!!!!!!

[JayB]

Opps - falling of the flat earth again. Yep, not matter what we're doing we're headed for hell in a hand basket so best not to do anything. Shoot - compared to the Negev nomads we're consuming so much that any dent in consumption is negligible. So why bother?

 

I'd have to go along with CBS's observation that government has a role here. Rather than favoring legislations that favors the oil companies some modest steps, such as increasing the CAFE standards (what? - it's been like 20 yrs since updating?) and similar pushes for reducing green house emmissions can make a difference. A few clicks will get you to the widely accepted data.

 

Can we turn the monster ship in time? Maybe. But if we do nothing, as usual, the results are inevitible. We've become a fat, complacent, and unchallenged populace.

 

Everyone can do things to reduce the amount of resources that we consume to produce a given output - be it heating or cooling homes, transporting ourselves from point A to point B, etc - but doing any of these things hardly makes any of us ecosaints, so I think a bit of humility should supplant the fingerpointing at the guy in the SUV. Odds are you'll consume just about as much energy over the course of your life as he does, and even if you don't you are still going to consume way, way more than the average occupant of this planet - so those of you who feel like ecosaviors because you drive an outback are like the priest who molested 20 choirboys loudly condemning the guy who molested 22 for the error of his ways.

 

Public policy changes can have a dramatic effect on resource consumption and pollution - changes in CAFE standards and emissions trading are a couple of good examples, but so can supply and demand. If we really are running out of oil, then you should all be jumping for joy every time the price goes up by $1 a gallon, because that will do a hell of a lot more to change behavior than a million years worth of smarmy condescension. Ditto for every other natural resource. Supplies grow scarce, price goes higher, and consumers either make substitutions or consume less or both.

[underworld]

deloriens, sheep pastures, diamond encrusted nut sacks and now choirboys... this thread has it all

[Jim]

While not fond of the Volvo stickers; it's easier to paste that on then actually DOING anything, the assumtion that driving a small car vs an SUV amounts to negligible differences is false, and your ususal elitist derision for such efforts punctuates lack of comprehension.

 

Maybe this is why you're driving one around Boston:

 

Fred J. Schaafsma, a top engineer for General Motors, says, "Sport-utility owners tend to be more like 'I wonder how people view me,' and are more willing to trade off flexibility or functionality to get that. " According to Bradsher, internal industry market research concluded that S.U.V.s tend to be bought by people who are insecure, vain, self-centered, and self-absorbed, who are frequently nervous about their marriages, and who lack confidence in their driving skills. Ford's S.U.V. designers took their cues from seeing "fashionably dressed women wearing hiking boots or even work boots while walking through expensive malls. " Toyota's top marketing executive in the United States, Bradsher writes, loves to tell the story of how at a focus group in Los Angeles "an elegant woman in the group said that she needed her full-sized Lexus LX 470 to drive up over the curb and onto lawns to park at large parties in Beverly Hills. " One of Ford's senior marketing executives was even blunter: "The only time those S.U.V.s are going to be off-road is when they miss the driveway at 3 a. m. " --from High and Mighty, Kieth Bradsher

 

Edited March 21, 2006 by Jim

[foraker]

"then you should all be jumping for joy every time the price goes up by $1 a gallon"

 

Another stupid conclusion.

 

You don't have to be an 'ecosaint' to try to affect change do you? What an utterly stupid idea. Why do you consistently argue that only the most extreme endpoint of personal behavior should be attempted otherwise why bother trying? It's exactly the same kind of argument as 'If you support the Iraq war, then you should go enlist'

[DirtyHarry]

I was in an automobile collision last week. If I had been driving a fuel efficient zippy car I would have been FUCKED UP. Big Red took one for the team, for sure, but I'm fine.

[JackY]

You can't solve that problem with a bigger vehicle - it's like an arms race. The kinetic energy just goes up with vehicle weight. If we all had smaller vehicles we'd all be safer.

[cj001f]

You can't solve that problem with a bigger vehicle - it's like an arms race. The kinetic energy just goes up with vehicle weight. If we all had smaller vehicles we'd all be safer.

 

Thar ya go with that durn science again ya libural. ah shucks

[KaskadskyjKozak]

You can't solve that problem with a bigger vehicle - it's like an arms race. The kinetic energy just goes up with vehicle weight. If we all had smaller vehicles we'd all be safer.

 

Thar ya go with that durn science again ya libural. ah shucks

 

all you liberals can drive the small cars. Darwin in action.

[Jim]

The S.U.V. boom represents, then, a shift in how we conceive of safety—from active to passive. It's what happens when a larger number of drivers conclude, consciously or otherwise, that the extra thirty feet that the TrailBlazer takes to come to a stop don't really matter, that the tractor-trailer will hit them anyway, and that they are better off treating accidents as inevitable rather than avoidable. "The metric that people use is size," says Stephen Popiel, a vice-president of Millward Brown Goldfarb, in Toronto, one of the leading automotive market-research firms. "The bigger something is, the safer it is. In the consumer's mind, the basic equation is, If I were to take this vehicle and drive it into this brick wall, the more metal there is in front of me the better off I'll be.

 

The trend to this learned passive behavior seems unique to the US. Rather than driving nimble cars to avoid accidents there is a sense of danger out there that cannot be avoided. Are the best performers the biggest and heaviest vehicles on the road? Not at all. Among the safest cars are the midsize imports, like the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. Or consider the extraordinary performance of some subcompacts, like the Volkswagen Jetta. Drivers of the tiny Jetta die at a rate of just forty-seven per million, which is in the same range as drivers of the five-thousand-pound Chevrolet Suburban and almost half that of popular S.U.V. models like the Ford Explorer or the GMC Jimmy.

[JackY]

 

Kaskadskwhatthefuc,

The laws of physics apply even to you, sorry.

[archenemy]

You can't solve that problem with a bigger vehicle - it's like an arms race. The kinetic energy just goes up with vehicle weight. If we all had smaller vehicles we'd all be safer.

 

Thar ya go with that durn science again ya libural. ah shucks

 

all you liberals can drive the small cars. Darwin in action.

Funny, I drive a truck. Actually, I have two of them: one to drive and one I just work on and enter in shows.

I cannot understand how your world is so cleanly cut into Republicans, Democrats, and idiots who don't vote. Obviously, I am the idiot. But you, my friend, are a piece of work--you got it all figured out.

[JayB]

"then you should all be jumping for joy every time the price goes up by $1 a gallon"

 

Another stupid conclusion.

 

You don't have to be an 'ecosaint' to try to affect change do you? What an utterly stupid idea. Why do you consistently argue that only the most extreme endpoint of personal behavior should be attempted otherwise why bother trying? It's exactly the same kind of argument as 'If you support the Iraq war, then you should go enlist'

 

High oil prices will do more to encourage fuel efficiency than anything else - much more effective than sneering from behind the wheel of the volvo.

 

Related Note - this years MPG info:

 

Subaru Outback: 21/26

Volvo V70R AWD: 18/24

Jeep Commander 4WD: 16/19

Lexus LS 470: 18/25

Audi TT Roadster: 20/28

Honda Insight: 60/66.

Dodge Caravan 18/25.

Hummer H3: 16/19.

Chevy Tahoe 15/19.

Toyota 4-Runner 17/21.

Chevy Impala 18/28.

Toyota Camry 24/34.

 

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/FEG2006.pdf

[cj001f]

High oil prices will do more to encourage fuel efficiency than anything else - much more effective than sneering from behind the wheel of the volvo.

er, and I do cheer everytime gas goes up. 40mpg highway Oh, and the hybrid version of my vehicle costs 50% ($7k )more for those sadsap retards buying into that hype