While Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and New Democrat Jack Layton all took turns denouncing the analogy, Prince Charles was making much the same point as May in a speech in London.
“I do not want my children and grandchildren, or anyone for that matter, saying to me, ‘Why didn’t you do something when it was possible to make a difference and when you knew what was happening?” the prince told a business conference Tuesday at St. James Palace.
“We can do it, just think what they did in the last war. Things that seemed impossible were achieved almost overnight.”
I’ve linked to this before, but it seems appropriate to do so again. The Prince of Organics might pause to consider his own planet destroying gardening practices;
“In particular, organic agriculture poses its own environmental problems in the production of some foods, either in terms of nutrient release to water or in terms of climate change burdens.”
Using data from previous studies, the researchers singled out milk as a particular example of the environmental challenges presented by organic farming. Organic milk requires 80 per cent more land and creates almost double the amount of substances that could lead to acidic soil and “eutrophication” – the pollution of water courses with excess nutrients.
The study found that producing organic milk, which has higher levels of nutrients and lower levels of pesticides, also generates more carbon dioxide than conventional methods – 1.23kg per litre compared to 1.06kg per litre. It concluded: “Organic milk production appears to require less energy input but much more land than conventional production. While eliminating pesticide use, it also gives rise to higher emissions of greenhouse gases and eutrophying substances.”
Similar findings were recorded with organic chickens, where the longer growing time means it has a higher impact on all levels, including producing nearly double the amount of potentially polluting by-products and consuming 25 per cent more energy.
Vegetable production was also highlighted as a source of increased use of resources. Organic vine tomatoes require almost 10 times the amount of land needed for conventional tomatoes and nearly double the amount of energy.
Isn’t it odd that some studies on human contributions to global warming provoke wall-to-wall media coverage – while others receive nearly no mention at all?
I’d say it’s more poignant to point out that the family with more heated square footage under roof than anyone else on the planet should not be lecturing anyone about cutting back on their lifestyle. What’s the tab for heat at Windsor, Buckingham, St.James’s, Holyroodhouse, Hillsborough, Sandringham, Balmoral, Craigowan Dalnadamph, Clarence House, Highgrove, Birkhall, Llwynywormwood, Tamarisk, The Royal Lodge, Bagshot Park, Gatcombe Park, Kensington Palace, Barnwell Manor, Wren House… All used by one fricken family. I wouldn’t care if the damn inbred retard wasn’t shooting his mouth off about what the rest of us need to do to use less. *&%$ him!!
Prince half-wit is the best argument for a republic since King John.
I would also venuture a guess that recycling (excpet aluminum) creates more CO2 than it apparently “saves” since it’s all just about feeling good. To hell with truth and reality.
For those that long for a mediaeval life style, I’ll say it again……GO MOVE TO CUBA.
Then Prince Charles should heed one of the “Knights of the Dinner Table” per the article:
“Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientist, also told The Independent he agreed that organic food was no safer than chemically-treated food.”
Why would Jack Layton denounce the anology? He’s used it himself. On Paul Martin. In Canada.
“Hon. Jack Layton (Toronto—Danforth, NDP): Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. We have been hearing those kinds of comments from the Prime Minister for 16 years since he began promising to clean up the air for Canadians and instead we have worse pollution than ever. He makes Neville Chamberlain look like a stalwart in standing up to a crisis.”
From: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=1727147&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=38&Ses=1#Int-1194809
Oh chris, that is surely painful!
That’s the sound of a thousand hippie’s heads exploding simultaneously.
Whenever he weighs in on an issue he usually does the cause he endorse a disservice by lowering the level of their argument by association.
I do heartily enjoy his line of biscuits however. I’d encourage him to stick to things like that.
Jose, I didn’t know you liked Milk Bones? What do you know! My poddle does too!
more of the ultragreen,he didnt drive but did he promote a healthy lifestyle- or a low carbon a$$print. – nay say it aint so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Browne,_Baron_Browne_of_Madingley
another bedded canadian. did the last one make Elton John the new queen of Canaduh?
“Jose, I didn’t know you liked Milk Bones? What do you know! My poddle does too!”
You belittle the Duchy Original line sight unseen. A classic mistake.
People don’t forget Glenn Beck on CNN is running a hour long program called Exposed The Climate Of Fear. It’s on at 7 & 9 PM/ET
today.
The special is in the same vain as ITV 4’s The Great Global Warming Swindle but with an North American look at the new religion.
**I do not want my children and grandchildren, or anyone for that matter, saying to me, ‘Why didn’t you do something when it was possible to make a difference and when you knew what was happening?” the prince told a business conference Tuesday at St. James Palace.**
I hope this is actually practical and not artsy-fartsy.
Personalities are delightful, yet we are sitting here blissfully unaware that Emergency services, Police and Power repair teams banking on Bio-diesel and hybrids are dead in the water without gas.
The bio-diesel requires regular fuel for starting and stopping.
The hybrid can not be driven on battery alone. serious damage results. We are open and vunerable.
France has 10,000 EVs for postal service. They get their mail, gas or no gas. Can Fwance be smarter than Canada?
US Municipalities are buying Phoenix EV- 4 door Sport untility Trucks. [ SUTs] . Smart?
To save you from endless scanning of poor enviro sites, try,
AutoBlogGreen.com and my TonyGuitar.blogspot.com = TG
PS: a gift for indulgence: Joost.com
This is great. You do not want to miss the Glen Beck Flea Circus. True, it is much harder to really see than, say the Cirque du Soleil, actually it can be difficult to see that there is anything there at all. But it is always a hoot to see Glen make saucer eyes and run on with his Dick and Jane homilies. Catch him while you can, CNN changes its line up more often than women’s fashions, these days.
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/04/climate-skeptics-guest-post-why-david.html
A climate skeptic’s guest post: Why David Evans bet against Brian Schmidt over global warming
(Editor’s note: I invited David Evans from Science Speak to write the guest post below explaining his viewpoint and why he is betting against me over global warming. David welcomes a substantive debate in the comments. Obviously, we don’t agree on all the issues, but I’m sure I don’t need to remind anyone the value of civil debate with someone like David, who is genuine enough to put his money where his mouth is.)
I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry (Google on “FullCAM”). When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause. I am now skeptical. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
In the late 1990’s the evidence suggesting that carbon emissions caused global warming was basically:
1. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Proved in a laboratory a century ago.
2. Global warming has been occurring for a century, especially since 1975, and concentrations of atmospheric carbon have been rising for a century, especially since 1975. Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit.
3. Ice core data, starting with the first cores from Vostok in 1985, allowed us to measure temperature and atmospheric carbon going back hundreds of thousands of years, through several dramatic global warming and cooling events. To the temporal resolution then available (data points were generally more than a thousand years apart), atmospheric carbon and temperature moved in lock-step: there was an extremely high correlation, they rose and fell together. Talk about a smoking gun!
4. There weren’t any other credible suspects for causing global warming. So presumably it had to be carbon emissions.
This evidence was good enough: not conclusive, but why wait until we are absolutely certain when we apparently need to act now? So the idea that carbon emissions were causing global warming passed from the scientific community into the political realm, and actions started to happen. Research increased, bureaucracies were formed, international committees met, and eventually the Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 — with the aim of curbing carbon emissions.
And the political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990’s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn’t believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; and there were international conferences full of such people. And we had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!
But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed. Using the same point numbers as above:
2. Closer examination of the last century using better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled at about 0.1C/decade while atmospheric carbon increased. But any warming effect of atmospheric carbon is immediate. By 2003 or so we had discovered global dimming, which might be adequate to explain this 35-year non-correlation. But what had seemed like a good fit between recent atmospheric carbon and global warming now looks shaky, in need of the recently-discovered unquantified global dimming factor to explain 35 years of substantial cooling. I reckon the last century of correlation evidence now neither supports carbon emissions as the cause nor eliminates it. Further quantitative research on global dimming might rescue this bit of evidence, or it might weaken it further.
3. As more ice core data was collected, the temporal resolution was improved. By 2004 or so we knew from the ice core data that in the warming events of the last million years the temperature increases generally started about 800 years *before* the rises in atmospheric carbon started. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999 — it runs the opposite way. Presumably temperature rises cause a delayed rise in atmospheric carbon because it takes several hundred years to warm the oceans enough for the oceans to give off more of their carbon.
It is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past warmings then went on to cause more warming (“amplification” of the initial warming), but the ice core data does not prove that. It could just be that the temperature rose for some other reason, that this caused the oceans to raise the atmospheric carbon levels, and that the increased atmospheric carbon had an insignificant effect on the temperature.
The pre-2000 ice core data was the central evidence for believing that atmospheric carbon caused temperature increases. The new ice core data shows that past warmings were *not* initially caused by rises in atmospheric carbon, and says nothing about the strength of any amplification. This piece of evidence casts reasonable doubt that atmospheric carbon had any role in past warmings, while still allowing the possibility that it had a supporting role.
4. A credible alternative suspect now exists. Clouds both reflect incoming radiation (albedo) and prevent heat from escaping (greenhouse), but with low clouds the albedo effect is stronger than the greenhouse effect. Thus low clouds cause net cooling (high clouds are less common and do the opposite). In October 2006 a team led by Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays affect cloud formation, and thus that
Stronger sun’s magnetic field
=> Less cosmic rays hit Earth
=> Fewer low clouds are formed
=> Earth heats up.
And indeed, the sun’s magnetic field has been stronger than usual for the last three decades. So maybe cosmic rays cause global warming. But investigation of this cause is still in its infancy, and it’s far too early to judge how much of the global warming is caused by cosmic rays.
So three of the four arguments that convinced me in 1999 that carbon emissions caused global warming are now questionable.
The case for carbon emissions as the cause of global warming now just boils down to the fact that we know that it works in the laboratory, and that there is no strong evidence that global warming is definitely *not* caused by carbon emissions. Much the same can be said of cosmic rays — we have laboratory evidence that it works, and no definitely contradictory evidence.
So why did I bet against global warming continuing at the current rate? Let’s return to the interaction between science and politics.
By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions. This was a good and sensible response by big government to what science was telling them.
But after 2000 the evidence for carbon emissions gradually got weaker — better temperature data for the last century, more detailed ice core data, then laboratory evidence that cosmic rays precipitate low clouds. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken the carbon emissions hypothesis. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming? None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to recapture the attention of the political system later on. What has happened is that most research effort since 2000 has assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention.
(BTW, I quit my job in carbon accounting in 2005 for personal reasons. It had nothing to do with my weakening belief that carbon emissions caused global warming. I felt that the main value of our plant models was in land management and plant simulation, and that carbon accounting was just a by-product.)
Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics.
The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effects of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence in favor of carbon emissions as the cause of global warming. Which makes it a good time to bet the other way 🙂
I would like to bet against carbon emissions being the main cause of the current global warming. But I can’t bet on that directly, because all betting requires an unambiguous and measurable criterion. About the only related measure we can bet on is global temperature. So I accepted Brian’s bets about trends in global temperatures over the next 10 to 20 years. Basically, if the current warming trend continues or accelerates then Brian will win; if the rate of warming slows then I will win. Even if carbon emissions are not the main cause of this global warming, I can still lose:
* Global warming might be due to a side-effect of industrialization other than carbon emissions. Possible causes include atmospheric reactions of industrial chemicals that hinder the rate of low cloud formation.
* Global warming might be primarily due to a non-human cause, such as something related to the sun or to underground nuclear reactions. If this cause persists over the next 20 years as it has for the last 30 years then I will lose, but if it fades in the next decade then I win.
I emphasize that we are making a bet involving odds and judgment. The evidence is not currently conclusive either for or against any particular cause of global warming. I think that it *is* possible that carbon emissions are the dominant cause of global warming, but in light of the weakening evidence I judge that probability to be about 20% rather than almost 90% as estimated by the IPCC.
I worry that politics could seriously distort the science. Suppose that carbon taxes are widely enacted, but that the rate of global warming increase starts to decline by 2015. The political system might be under pressure to repay the taxes, so it might in turn put a lot of pressure on scientists to provide justifications for the taxes. Or the political system might reject the taxes and blame science for misinforming it, which could be a terrible outcome for science because the political system is powerful and not constrained by truth.
Some people take strong rhetorical positions on global warming. But the cause of global warming is not just another political issue that is subject to endless debate and distortions. The cause of global warming is an issue that falls into the realm of science, because it is falsifiable. No amount of human posturing will affect what the cause is. The cause just physically is there, and after sufficient research and time we will know what it is. Looking back in another 40 years, we will almost certainly know the answer and Brian and I will be in agreement on the issue.
Given that betting is thus possible on this issue, it seems strange that some people who take strong positions and profit by those positions are not prepared to bet even a small amount of their own money. Betting something of one’s own money adds, shall we say, credibility. And people whose own money is at stake try a little harder — a well known advantage of private business over public. A good side effect of widespread betting would be a market in betting that would represent a community-wide best guess. Such markets exists in sports betting, and are the best predictors of game outcomes.
Let’s hope for the planet’s sake that I win the bets 🙂 Meanwhile let’s do more research, and take cheap measures to curb carbon emissions!
(Editor’s update: a shorter url that David created for this post: http://tinyurl.com/3dbbrb.)
Fred- There are betting markets for Global Warming now. A few of the bets posited are ridiculous, Manhattan being underwater within 10 years being one (at 150-1 odds). I’m hoping they see lots of action as they tend to raise the level of debate.
And I disagree that we’re aren’t treating Global Warming earnestly. As it stands we better hope AGW is false because if it’s true our look at the birdy feel good measures aren’t likely to cut it.
If it’s true, Jose, we are better reserving our resources for adaptation than to embark on a ludicrous folly that we can “change the weather”. The true tragedy will be those millions of us who live on modest incomes who see them chipped away by government taxation and intrusion into the economy, to the point that we may be financially hanstrung when it comes to making the personal adaptations appropriate for our own circumstances.
Kate if it’s true it won’t be a matter preventing the problem from getting worse OR adapting to it you’d have no choice but to do both. And the longer you wait the more expensive both get.
However I’m skeptical about our society taking necessary methods for either in time, many current initiatives are either intermittent (solar), prone to corruption (trading) or worse than useless (clearing rainforest for palm oil).
Let’s hope nuclear fusion pulls through.
All this talk of organic milk and organic chickens and organic vegetables ….
I’m curious – can anyone tell me what inorganic food tastes like?
(Other than table salt, I mean.)
Ever eaten a twinkie?
Thanks Fred for posting the material at:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/04/climate-skeptics-guest-post-why-david.html
This is about as succinct an explanation as I’ve seen questioning fundamental assumptions of AGW with hard science.
Unfortunately the approach that AGW fanatics are moving towards has far more in common with the approach of medieval peasants to dealing with climate change than science. Reading Singer and Avery’s book “Unstoppable global warming every 1500 years” now and they describe major problems caused by the “little ice age” that took place from 1300-1850. Weather became much more unpredictable and in the 1500’s Al Gore’s ancestors knew exactly what the problem was and how to deal with it:
“Some Christians believed that the horrible weather was a sign that Satan was gaining dominence over the earth. Many blamed witches for their suffering. More than a thousand people were burned as witches between 1580 and 1620 just in Bern, Switzerland. The small town of Wiesensteig, Germany, burned 63 women in 1563. Johann Linden, canon of a church in Treves in 1590, explained the public mood in his diary: “Everyone thought the continueous crop failure was caused by witches from devilish hate, so the whole country stood up for their eradication.”” (p109)
Kate,
“Isn’t it odd that some studies on human contributions to global warming provoke wall-to-wall media coverage – while others receive nearly no mention at all?”
It’s not odd at all. I think the next manufactured crisis may just be how our agrobusiness food is depleted of nutrients so we need to go back to organic.
I’ve already seen a TVO debate on this and as soon as one panelist stated that some studies were questioning this, an organic farming supporter chimed in with the now familiar
“those studies were funded by agrobusiness”
Welcome to the future. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
“Let’s hope nuclear fusion pulls through.”
Jose, we can agree 100% on that subject.
I’d be willing to bet that AGW is false and the more I look into historic climatology, the more convinced I am of the absurdity of AGW. What has been surprising is the degree to which the earth’s climate has varied just over the past few thousand years. This suggests that we should be prepared to deal with dramatic climate changes which are _natural_ and wasting time on dead ends like AGW will probably be looked at by future generations the same way we shake our heads and wonder how people could ever be so stupid as to search out witches and burn them at the stake for making crops fail.
The key to human survival is to increase energy available to people, not decrease it. Solar power, wind power and all of the “natural” means of obtaining energy so beloved by the ecologically misguided, are very low density energy sources. Solar cells are neat and I’ll probably be covering my roof with them at some point in the future, but that is for backup power. Oil is a much more concentrated form of energy and nuclear power is even better. Fusion will represent an even higher energy density and the only way one can beat that would be to somehow contain antimatter and slowly react it with matter to produce electricity.
What we should be aiming for are fusion powered vehicles which will be priced the same as an SUV. That may seem like SF now, but as a society we seem to have stopped trying to achieve greatness and seem to be intent on moving backwards.
Wait. Isn’t it interesting that all of us “toxic food” eaters are pushing the envelope of longevity. Historically, my grandparents had a real chance of dying young of food poisoning from home canned goods.
I’m not saying that I don’t wish Big Agriculture shouldn’t diminish the use of pesticides, hormones and antibiotics in feed. Antibiotic resistance is a looming crisis. Walmart now stocks organics at a decent price. Go for it, if you feel a need to .
Prince Charles has made moonbat utterances before. After mom dies, the Windsors are all downhill.
Hey, Josie, you’ve grabbed my heart with the Twinkie comment, best line you’ve ever done. I admit I’m a sinner(a thin one, credit where credit is due) that loves that junk.
Loki “What we should be aiming for are fusion powered vehicles which will be priced the same as an SUV. That may seem like SF now, but as a society we seem to have stopped trying to achieve greatness and seem to be intent on moving backwards.”
It’s a neat sounding idea but ITER is the size of a supertanker. Their is a dark house fusion technology which might only be as a little bigger than a three bedroom house.
Don’t expect any of these to fit under your hood anytime soon.
Sub Critical reactors are a very exciting prospect. Not as wonderful as a fusion reactor but probably much more feasible in the short term. Unfortunately I suspect that the public might be too technicaly and scientificaly illiterate to grok the necessary “pitch”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcritical_reactor
Early days, but it’s looking like hydrogen is new micro (cars,etc) with nuclear as macro (electric power). That oughta drive the moobats crazy.
Did you hear that Peter MacKay did the same thing?
Lets not forget that most “organic” food is grown in bovine excrement; it is also marketed in the same stuff.
The insanity that is Political Correctness began around the time of multiculturalism courtesy of Trudeau.
We have all been (and continue to be) judged on how we regard and treat women, but not how they regard and treat men.
We have all been (and continue to be) just on how we regard and treat minorities, but not how they regard and treat the rest of us.
Now we can add all this other stuff courtesy of the religion of climate change. No the reality, but the religions courtesy of Reverend Gore.
We are all now being judged on the following:
What car you drive
How many you own
How big your house it
How you heat it
What kind of light bulbs you use
How many computers you have
How long they are left running when not in use
How many Television sets
How long they are left on when there is only crap to watch (it’s all crap actually)
How much toilet paper you use
What kind it is
What kind of toilet you have
Only low flush is acceptable (you know the ones you have flush three times to get rid of what’s there)
How far you drive to work
Whether you car pool
What company you work for
How much money you make
How much of it you donate to save Africa, the planet, the homeless or whatever.
To name a few. Admit it, you look at others and think this stuff already. I’ll bet you feel guilty about some of these things yourself. Ahhh guilt … the greatest tool a totalitarian elite ever had.
It should occur to the smarter people that the ball in space is just that. It’s spins around the big star and will continue to do so for about four or five more billion years … with or without us.
It does not care whether we are here or not. It does not need saving. It is a ball in space, not a sentient being (Gaia crowd notwithstanding). Species come and go. Most of them are pretty innocuous and do their time then vanish. Humans may not be very innocuous, but that only applies to how we treat each other for the most part. We cannot insult the ball of molten magma with a thin damp crust that happens to support the infestation known as life.
We are luckier than most species since we have big brains and can get a lot more out of our short time here by learning a lot of neat stuff. Like how to build a house and a car and a computer etc.
Most other species have even shorter lives and many live in caves, like many bears and many Muslims do.
As the crust of the ball of magma shifts and cools and occasionally erupts like a big zit on teen-agers forehead, we get variation in climate. The big star, not far away, does the rest of the temperature changes. Sometimes as much as forty degrees Fahrenheit in only a 24 hour period and even more seasonally.
What WE are doing is introducing a lot of chemicals and particulate into the atmosphere that sometimes makes our eyes water and make us cough, but we are no competition for the big star when it comes to affecting temperature. In fact, one good Mt. Helen’s or Krakatoa can put more particulate into the atmosphere than manufacturing plants do in several years in the USA.
This climate change thing won’t kill off the human race, but rather may provide more arable land and more hospitable areas in which to live in more northerly reaches. I seriously doubt we will have a high water problem. There simply won’t be enough ice melting to raise the 75% of the surface of the planet more than a few inches. Do the math. Any land we may lose to high water will be made up for further up mountain sides and on the tundra of Canada’s north.
What will kill an awful lot of the human race is Islamofascism. And we can do something about that. We should get started before that gets too heated up. If we don’t do something about those monsters, the climate will not matter to any of us.
When I go shopping for food at Safeway, Super Value etc…and I see
Organic Carrots, potato, peas etc.. io always ask for the Inorganic ones. The clerks look at me sort of dumbfounded…
Have you ever heard of inorganic produce….All produce regardless how it is produced is ORGANIC.
RL
Hey Shamrock.. did you know that Hydrogen powered vehiles emit only Greenhouse gas…Water Vapour which is 90% of all greenhouse gases.
RL
All that so called grenhouse gas cuased by the eco-wackos from GREENPEACE and AL GORE and the other green nut crazies
remember all vegtables are female. its abuse to women plants. just getting the idea to CBCpravda
women abuse death pravda
Yanni said …
** What will kill an awful lot of the human race is Islamofascism. And we can do something about that. We should get started before that gets too heated up. If we don’t do something about those monsters, the climate will not matter to any of us.**
Posted by: Yanni at May 2, 2007 10:53 PM
===================
A TRUTH so basic, so fundamental, so practical its shocking.
Harper and Hillier are doing what they can at the site of the disease.
The least we can do is provide moral support and move away from using gas.
If Acmahdinejad pops the strait of Hormuz or a terrorist cell hits a refinery on this side, will we look like a bunch of goofs sitting at the gas pumps, wishing for petrol?
Moving off gas will deflate Alberta somewhat but not to the extent that it will suck the vinigar out of Iran.
While hybrids are a great start, remember they are just as dead in the driveway as any internal combustion engine, including bio-diesel, when gasoline is cut off.
Can*t hurt to at least learn about EVs, battery cars and motor bikes. Municipalities, UK trucking firms, postal delivery and pizza delivery are buying in. check:
AutoBlogGreen.com and or my blog. = TG
Jose, thanks for the link to subcritical reactors. Another very interesting technology and the safety of such reactors should make them much more acceptable to the public.
Switching from coal/natural gas to nuclear power for electricity generation is easy, but unfortunately it’s hard to beat gasoline for energy density in vehicles. For in-city driving electric vehicles would be practical, but in the country the range of electrics is just too short. Progress in battery technology might solve this problem. Hydrogen looks attractive, but I’d be more concerned about safely handling hydrogen than I am about nuclear power.
I still have hope for cold fusion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_fusion
After reviewing the wikipedia article it appears that cold fusion is real and the only question now is whether it can be used as a practical source of power. If it is developed as a power source, it is a fusion source that would fit into a vehicle.
Yanni “The insanity that is Political Correctness began around the time of multiculturalism courtesy of Trudeau.”
I’m going to call BS on you there. Political Correctness begain in University Campuses in the late 80s.
Yanni you’re correct in saying that the “ball in space” isn’t in danger. If you step back and look at it from a cosmic timescale (billions of years) then mass extinctions seem like brief periods where things get rearranged.
Humans don’t live for billions of years however. To humans the “planet” is what exsists right here and now. Mass extinctions might be interesting periods for study but you wouldn’t want to live in one (and we are).
Wait. Isn’t it interesting that all of us “toxic food” eaters are pushing the envelope of longevity.
Genesis 47:28 And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the whole age of Jacob was an hundred forty and seven years.
Jose,
I agree that political correctness didn’t take hold until 80s but the seeds for it came with the charter of rights and freedoms, the bilingual policies of Trudeau and the multiculturalism that followed. If there had been no Trudeau there would be a lot fewer people outraged at having been ‘offended’ and lot less of the culture of entitlement and a lot less indolence from the population of Canada around their entitlements.
And … we are not necessarily in a mass extinction spiral, but I would think that before the end of this century there will be far fewer humans (and animals) on this planet.
It should be said too, the this trend rose up in the US as well because of the flower power 60s and the new genteel generation of boomers, but in Canada we got it full strength and are paying a high price for it.
Yanni- Political correctness was created by English Canadians in universities. The immigrants weren’t PC! A few of them became PC over time as late adopters of the PC memes.
We did get some good things from political correctness. I for one don’t miss the nigger and paki jokes.
Y2Kooks: Those who are stuck thinking pollution control is more likely to harm them than pollution.