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White House Proposal Rolls Back Fuel Economy Standards, No Exception For California (npr.org)
The Trump administration has proposed a rollback of Obama-era fuel efficiency and emissions standards, while simultaneously taking aim at California's unique ability to set more stringent rules. From a report: Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency called for the fuel economy standards for new vehicles to ratchet up over time. The increasingly strict standards were designed to combat climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. On Thursday, the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released a new proposed rule that would instead freeze the standards at their 2020 levels for six years. "Cars and trucks are just part of the basic fiber of the American economy and the American experience, so we take what we're doing very, very seriously," Bill Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator, told reporters on Thursday. The agencies say that increasing fuel efficiency requirements contributes to an increase in the cost of new cars and trucks, which may discourage consumers from buying new vehicles. Because newer vehicles have advanced safety features, the administration argues, increasing fuel economy requirements therefore harms highway safety, as well as having economic effects.
"...and oil wells."
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Modern safety features like stability control, auto-braking, and collision warning add minimum weight and don't affect economy. This is a 1980s way of thinking -- build a safety-box that takes a hit well but doesn't prevent crashes.
"Because newer vehicles have advanced safety features, the administration argues, increasing fuel economy requirements therefore harms highway safety, as well as having economic effects."
Really now ?
Enjoy your world burning to death stupid Earthicans!
oh. wait. crap...
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
New cars regardless of mileage emit so little that I don't get why the focus is simply on that one factor. Emissions should be the primary factor. And then there's the focus purely on cars when lawn mowers, leaf blowers, construction vehicles, etc, all spew out a lot more pollutants per minute than the hugest SUV or pickup truck.
Tax the top income bracket an extra 0.001% and use that to fund tax discount vouchers for all new cars with better fuel efficiency. Pocket the savings from population health improvement - not spending billions on fifth and sixth yachts but instead letting millions buy new cars that will give them and their families and their communities healthier environments to live in, and increase economic productivity by living longer. That is, unless this is all deception to further whatever short term goals Trump and the US leadership have been paid/bribed to represent instead of their constituents. That misrepresentation is failure to do their actual jobs, and they all need to be fired then.
The quest for better fuel economy ultimately comes down to physics.
To get even more economy, you need to reduce weight. Take away weight and you ultimately take away strength (unless you can afford a $500,000 carbon composite car.
while simultaneously taking aim at California's unique ability to set more stringent rules
Trump, his Republican cronies, and their voters, are such a collection of hypocrites.
For decades, all Republicans do is bleat "STATES' RIGHTS!" - But when those states actually exercise those rights (emissions / drug policy / guns) the Republicans do everything in their power to stomp all over them.
World standards do not follow US standards. All vehicle makers have to conform to worldwide standards, not just the US. Besides, California standards are not the most strict when compared to international standards. Also California standards have been ratified by 12 other states. Since this is a proposed bill, it will not get out of committee without providing states the ability to set their own limits.
"Cars and trucks are just part of the basic fiber of the American economy and the American experience, so we take what we're doing very, very seriously," Bill Wehrum, EPA assistant administrator, told reporters on Thursday
What does that have to do with your job at the EPA, Wehrum? You're not a cultural ambassador.
This is just "we don't want to have to change, whaaaa!" wrapped in a flag.
At this point, I'd really welcome some robot overlords.
Soon the US could be building gas guzzlers nobody outside the US wants to buy...and then when gas prices go back up, nobody inside the US will want to buy them either...remember how awesome it was last time that happened around the OPEC oil crisis? #MAGA!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You've bought how many smartphones now?
Right.
If everyone would just buy a Tesla we would solve two problems: Tesla's balance sheet and the emissions problem. Solution: buy a Tesla.
When the first round of CAFE standards took effect, car makers managed to increase efficiency by improving engine efficiency.
When the second round happened, they started shrinking cars down to reduce weight. This is why a mid-size sedan from the early 2000's is about the same size, or larger, than most full size luxury cars these days.
Now car companies are skimping on seat fill, or leaving out spare tires, or using glue to hold components together instead of heavier rivets, to shave every possible ounce of weight off of a car to get the MPG up.
There isn't much left to do. Electric cars are great for short haul, but sometimes people need to drive farther. Small cars are fine for a lot of people, but try jamming a rear-facing car seat in one and you'll find the front seat is nearly unusable.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
if the extra air pollution that it will cause would, somehow, be kept within the borders of the USA. It does not: it follows the winds and ends up harming the rest of us. If it did stay within the USA then those who caused it would suffer the consequences; but pollution is a global problem, not a national one - so it upsets me to see those who seemingly put, what they see, as their interests first and do not act in global interests.
Please do not take this as an attack of most who live in the USA, I have friends who live there. Most are good guys who want to behave in a responsible way. It is unfortunate that your current president does not care about the planet, only making money for those who support him.
Which aspects of fuel efficiency was an executive order to the EPA, and which ones are backed by legislation? Yesterday NPR was talking how Trump will extend the short-term insurance rule 3 months to 3 years. Is that possible because the ACA grants the executive the ability to set the maximum length of a short-term health care plan? It's funny to me what they put in the statutes and what they grant to various committees and offices.
Roll back fuel standards, - what it could mean? Will we witness 5 tons SUVs instead of 3 tons? 700 hp motors instead of current 500 hp? 400 km/h speedometers instead of 300 km/h?
I mean, - could it be even worse standards than we had all these years, and which led to these monsters on the roads.
So that the main champions of thwarting and reversing attempts to combat greenhouse gas based global warming can be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court in the future?
Many legal tests are based on "what a reasonable person should have known" and "what action a reasonable person would take, given this knowledge."
Criminal negligence, fraud (in communication about the issue), criminal conspiricy (between fossil fuel industry and corrupt politicians acting on their behalf). etc. etc.
Let's start this effort, please. The current policy insanity cannot continue.
There is no excuse of ignorance at this late date.
Read https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
for a good history of "when we knew".
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
More catering to out-of-control capitalism from this Administration.
'Human-caused global climate change' isn't good for profits, so it's ridiculed and ignored, officially. Screw the future, who cares about 100 years from now, that's someone else's problem, make The Rich richer, now, and to Hell with everyone and everything else.
Got lead or other toxic chemicals in your tap water or the air you breathe, giving you cancer, ruining your childrens' brains, and so on? Tough shit, it's your fault for being The Poor.
Wildfires out of control? Wild weather destroying your homes? Ocean levels rising, flooding you out of your city? Etc, etc, etc? Tough shit, not their problem, deal with it, LOL.
The Dominionists I'm sure will love this. Anything that gives them more money to further fortify their private compounds against the ravening hordes of Unbelievers when the apocalypse happens is great so far as they're concerned, and the faster the Earth and our civilzation is destroyed, the sooner the Second Coming will happen, and they can all make like rats fleeing a sinking ship and go back home to Heaven (or so they think will happen).
Would almost like to be there when they discover none of that will happen, there won't be any Second Coming, and there's nowhere for them to flee. Earth is all we've got, and we'd damned well better take better care of it than we have been or else.
.. of american life? Cancer.
Reformulating gasoline, and more efficient cars dramatically reduce the risk of cancer.
Source: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/st...
New cars regardless of mileage emit so little that I don't get why the focus is simply on that one factor.
Because the science shows that the #1 factor in climate change are cars.
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-v...
I don't respond to AC's.
Note that the electric vehicle market - led by Tesla Motors - has taken off in the wake of Trump's election. If (and this is a big if) one of the primary factors in this is consumer reaction against Trump's pro-fossil fuel policies, this could accelerate that trend, perhaps to the point where it starts to take a real bite out of the oil market.
Finding God in a Dog
Go right ahead, Trump, play into the hands of the Dominionists if you like. But it won't have the long term effect you think it will. You think you can just roll back the calendar to the 1940's or something? LOL, you're living in a fantasy world, Trump.
Businesses and corporations, even in the energy sector, are already embracing solar and other renewables. You can't halt that without interfering in the free-market economy.
Meanwhile plug-in electric cars and hybrids are gaining more and more of a foothold in the United States, and they're becoming more affordable. More and more infrastructure to support them is being invested in and installed.
Oil prices won't stay low forever. They'll spike up, and driving gas-guzzlers around will become prohibitively expensive. Electrics will become more and more attractive in the face of that.
Clearly and objectively we need to move away from fossil fuel use anyway and everyone except apparently the Trump Administration sees this. Making ICEs less efficient will just help make electrics and renewables more attractive.
I am car enthusiast and I approve of this decision. Emission standards on ICE are well past diminishing returns point, it costs A LOT of money for hardware and A LOT of development expenses to squeeze additional marginal gains.
Shipping, manufacturing, agriculture all produce a lot more emissions than personal transportation. Yet it is cars that are over, over, over regulated.
Many car companies subsidize their small cars and make more profit on large vehicles. They do this to meet the fleet efficiency. If you reduce the required efficiency standards then they will be able to meet the efficiency standards with large vehicles and will stop subsidizing small vehicles. This will result in more bigger vehicles on the road. It will cause chain reaction since once you reach critical mass of big vehicles, people in small vehicles will feel less safe. A collision between two vehicles is more deadly than collision between two small vehicles. Collision between large and small vehicle is more deadly to small vehicle. Already America is lagging behind Europe in road fatality because it has more percentage of large vehicles. This will make it even worse.
I don't see how this affects California. They make their own rules and standards. I guess it only affects them if car makers don't want to sell cars in California.
breath of fresh air
And now they're working on fixing that.
Regular gas engines do better WITHOUT ethanol - I would say it was actually worse for the environment due to decreased efficiency and decreased life-span of other parts in regular gas engines. Also, gas doesn't keep as long with Ethanol. I have a big gas can for my lawn mower, I use it for a couple of months, then dump what's left in my car and go fill it up again. If it were just plain gas I could just keep it until I emptied it through the lawn mower - could take a couple of years.
I recently rented a flex-fuel vehicle, and I ran it with both E15 and E85. That vehicle probably did produce less pollution running E85, enough to justify the decrease in efficiency, but making us run it in our normal gas engines isn't helping anyone but the corn lobby.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
The agencies say that increasing fuel efficiency requirements contributes to an increase in the cost of new cars and trucks, which may discourage consumers from buying new vehicles. Because newer vehicles have advanced safety features, the administration argues, increasing fuel economy requirements therefore harms highway safety, as well as having economic effects.
Interesting claim, have any references to support that? Seems to me that most people would buy a car that met their budget either way, and that buyers with little cash might appreciate the better fuel economy and savings from a more efficient car.
The funny thing about republicans.
When it comes to denying rights based on race or sexual preference the republicans are always banging on about states rights.
Want to prevent people from getting insurance? States rights.
Gay cannot get married. States rights.
Not let blacks into uni? States rights.
Want to prevent your children from breathing poison? Who do they think they are? States cannot just do what they feel like.
If are a Republican and support states rights to discriminate against people you hate dont support their rights to protect their residence, then you are a racist piece of shit. Full stop.
Sure, you can pretend you are not a racist steaming pile of shit, but we all know you are. Personally, I could not care if you are steaming pile of shit racist or not. What bothers me is your hypocritical. Stop being a coward and just admit what you are. A steaming giant pile of shit.
Bawack Ubama Isn't godking anymore. That may come as a shock to California.
California had its own emissions standards before Obama. That may come as a shock to racists looking for a way to pin all America's problems on him.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A 1998 basic civic got you 107 hp and 103 lb ft of torque. A 2018 basic civic gets you 158 hp and 138 lb ft of torque. The 2018 does push around a heavier can and the result of almost 50% better power and a slightly bigger and heavier car is the same fuel economy. For the most part we've made HUGE gains in fuel economy. We've just wasted them on more power and bigger cars.
Volkswagen Jetta.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I had a tall friend who had problems getting one behind the driver's seat of his Accord. We had problems with a newer Chevy Malibu, though the older model was fine.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
...a 0.1% reduction in car emissions is much better for the total environment then if all emissions were eliminated from leaf blowers, lawn mowers, construction vehicles, etc.
A slight bit of critical thinking would do you a world of good.
A slight bit of researching the issue is also a great idea.
Motor scooters with 2-stroke engines pollute about three orders of magnitude more than a modern gasoline car. There are enough of these scooters that in many cities they are now a worse problem than gasoline cars yet they remain barely regulated.
Two-stroke scooters are a dominant source of air pollution in many cities
Scooters: Europe's Pollution Machines
If the scooters by themselves are enough to be a problem, it can only be worse if we add up all the 2-stroke engines of all sorts.
I pretty much hate 2-stroke engines. I am in favor of allowing them where nothing else will do, like professional chain saws. But modern battery tech has gotten to a place where an electric scooter ought to be a practical replacement for a 2-stroke scooter and I'd like to see the 2-stroke scooters aggressively taxed or outright banned.
Also, I am now very dubious about the value of additional restrictions on cars. If the goal is to maximize the net benefits to society, then it's better to take old clunkers off the road than to have the new cars pollute 0.1% less.
It's literally true that one old clunker pollutes more than dozens of new cars. (A study found that the worst 25% of cars produce over 90% of pollution!) If you can get clunkers off the road, and their owners start driving anything even remotely modern, it's a huge win for air quality. Making new cars more expensive will only encourage people to keep their clunkers running as long as possible, so I am dubious about anything that makes new cars more expensive. Is it better for new cars to cost $3000 more each but pollute 0.1% less? Or is it better to leave the standards alone, let the car makers get their factories well set up to make cars to that standard, and let the costs of new cars gradually fall over time? My gut instinct says the latter is preferable.
I first started thinking along these lines when I read this essay in 2009: https://keithhennessey.com/2009/05/19/understanding-the-presidents-cafe-announcement/
On the other hand, if the government forces insane emissions standards, the only way to meet them will be electric cars. So companies like GM that make the minimum number of electric cars they can get away with will be forced to make more electric cars. So maybe it's better in the really long run?
Just as I'd like to ban 2-stroke scooters I would like to see aggressive taxes on old clunkers that make them no-longer-affordable to run. However, I am well aware that the burden of those taxes would fall on the poorest people in our society. That's a problem. But it's also a problem that old horribly-polluting clunkers are exempted from emissions standards.
P.S. I don't actually care if the Trump Administration wants to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. If it's the right thing I want to stand back and let it happen. IMHO, leaving standards where they are is the right thing.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
What I don't understand the industry itself (Chrysler, Ford, GM, Honda and Hyundai) were at the table from the beginning on this. They agreed to and signed off on efficiency changes. What has changed since then other than oil prices currently being somewhat lower than originally expected?
Is there specific objective evidence to support assertions current standards are unreasonable or would even raise rather than lower total ownership cost for consumers?
Not that it much matters at this point... ICE vehicles will eventually be forced out of the market as trend line of energy storage costs continues to reinforce the inevitable.
-and the attendant mass species and eco-system losses,
- ocean warming and acidification including complete loss of reef eco-systems and shellfish, global movement or loss of food fisheries, and proliferation of jellyfish and algae.
-desertification of arable land areas,
-removal of glaciers and irrigation and drinking water in highly populated areas,
-coastal inundation,
-resource scarcity wars and increased migration conflicts,
-malaria and dengue in northern-hemisphere (formerly) temperate regions (i.e. where you live),
and damn most of the consequences that are less important than those events.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Innovation is important, because it's an area where American manufacturers can show leadership. Even if the US lowers fuel efficiency standards, the rest of the world won't Trump and his minions are complete dumbasses.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
The CAFE standards are set as MPG. But MPG is the inverse of fuel efficiency. As a result the bigger the MPG number gets, the smaller the reduction in fuel consumption. Imagine you drive a car 100 miles. How much fuel will it use?
12.5 MPG large SUV = 8 gallons
25 MPG sedan = 4 gallons
50 MPG hybrid = 2 gallons
100 MPG super-car = 1 gallon
Notice how every time MPG doubles, the fuel savings is half that of the previous doubling? So even though going from a sedan to a hybrid is an "impressive" +25 MPG increase, the fuel savings is only 2 gallons. Meanwhile, switching from a large SUV to a sedan yields only a +12.5 MPG increase (apparently half that of going from the sedan to the hybrid), but it saves twice as much fuel - 4 gallons. That's because MPG is the inverse of fuel efficiency. The bigger MPG gets, the less of an improvement makes. It's why the rest of the world measures it in liters per 100 km (which is an inverse of MPG).
Put another way, MPG is the number you want to use if you have x gallons of gas, and want to know how far you want to drive with it. Nobody except race car drivers drives this way. The inverse of MPG, gallons per 100 miles, is the number you want if you need to drive x miles, and want to know how much fuel it'll take. That's how everyone drives.
You can't even average MPG easily. If you drive a 20 MPG vehicle and your spouse drives a 40 MPG vehicle, and each of you drives 100 miles in a week, your average is not 30 MPG. It's the harmonic mean, or 26.7 MPG. You only get a 30 MPG average if each car uses the same number of gallons in a week, not drives the same distance.
What this means for CAFE and fuel efficiency standards is that we shouldn't be concentrating on high-MPG vehicles like hybrids, or even the average MPG like CAFE does. To maximize the reduction in fuel consumption, our fuel efficiency standards should be set to raise the minimum MPG - that's where the most fuel is used and wasted. e.g. Increasing a tractor trailer's fuel efficiency from 6 MPG to 7 MPG saves as much fuel per mile as switching from a 23 MPG sedan to a 50 MPG hybrid. Yes, that +1 MPG improvement is the same as the +27 MPG improvement (slightly more actually). Factor in that long-haul truckers typically drive about 100k-110k miles/yr, vs 15k miles/yr for the typical commuter car, and improving that one truck's mileage by +1 MPG is equivalent to getting 7 people to switch from an old sedan to a hybrid. Raising the low-MPG end makes a helluva lot more difference than increasing the high-MPG end. The environmentalists scoffed when automakers put hybrid drivetrains in SUVs, but that's precisely where they can generate the biggest reduction in fuel consumption.
Or is it better to leave the standards alone, let the car makers get their factories well set up to make cars to that standard, and let the costs of new cars gradually fall over time?
Just like CD prices came down after all the music companies recouped the cost of switching from making cassettes?
Nope, no sig
Putin must be laughing his head off after convincing 304 American electoral delegates to put a degenerate in power.
No, he's laughing his head off hearing all the useful idiots who keep saying stuff like this. It feeds his ego and makes him feel good when people ascribe more power to him than he really has. It's like the best practical joke is the joke that never happened, but everyone keeps congratulating the joker on what a great joke it was.
If you want to find a true Putin supporter, look in the mirror.
Just like CD prices came down after all the music companies recouped the cost of switching from making cassettes?
Why CDs are expensive Hint: the cost of the actual CD technology always was a small fraction of the record company costs.
Also, cars are not the same as CDs. Honda, Nissan, and Ford might all be selling a similar car at a similar price; but if you want the latest music by $ARTIST you don't have a choice of multiple companies selling that music. Only if music consumers said "I'm not loyal to $ARTIST but rather to $GENRE" and shopped on price would the two be comparable. I don't even pay attention to what company makes the CDs of my favorite artists; I buy the specific music I like.
There are some people who are very brand loyal and will buy a particular car brand no matter what, but those are IMHO few when we are talking about the low end of the car market. (It's different with prestige brands like BMW, Mercedes, etc.)
The cost of computers has come down over the years, and cars are more like computers than they are like CDs in terms of competition based on price.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
the huge spike in car costs is largely down to expensive new safety features. Cars don't kill you when they get in a fender bender like the Tsuru did in Mexico. Fuel economy improvements largely paid for themselves on a month to month basis, especially when you take into account that most people have a car loan. Not sure about you, but I factor the cost of gas into my overall car & driver budget.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So, when will Xi Jinping and Ram Kovind be making an appearance? Oh, this is about your feels and not facts.
Carry on.
Charge a carbon fee on fossil fuel, and give it all back to all California residents as a dividend.
Initially, set the fee so that a person who drives an efficient small to mid-size vehicle a median number of miles per year breaks even.
If they drive a more efficient or smaller ICE vehicle or drive less, they are slightly ahead financially.
If they drive an EV they are way ahead financially, at least on the fuel cost side, enough that they can afford the EV.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The cost of computers has come down over the years, and cars are more like computers than they are like CDs in terms of competition based on price.
Then why is the cost of cars going up so much?
Nope, no sig
...so that the reduction will be easy when 2020 ticks over.
It's already happening in Europe:
Not everyone who wants a Coupe will drive a Mustang.
I will not drive an SUV or Truck, so I drive older Cars.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Putting aside your perennial American interstate commerce circlejerk, why is driving *within* California "an interstate activity", too?
Ezekiel 23:20
If growing plants for personal consumption in your garden is "Interstate Commerce" then you can apply that label to anything. I believe the excuse used is "your (local) activities affect demand in other states".
http://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/9578/why-are-cars-so-expensive
HTH, HAND.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Americans, on the whole, are idiots. The rest of the developed world are laughing at you.
the article says "rolls back". It doesn't roll anything back. It freezes it at 2020 levels for up to 6 years.
I'm all for lower emissions but the fact of the matter is that it adds costs to the cars. At the same time automakers are adding every gadget under the sun. That adds weight to the car, forcing them to add more power to the engines to provide at least comparable performance to last years model. The other option is to try and trim weight by using aluminum or other light weight materials and that adds cost.
Everyone is using turbo charged engines now. Even in trucks that traditionally had V8s. While the turbos provide better gas mileage they are not as durable as the tried and true V8 engines. Time will tell how well they hold up but I have my doubts.
What I would like to see are some cars without all the useless gadgets. I don't want a touch screen. It is distracting. And given that nearly everything is controlled by the touch screen, God help you if it stops working. It's not like the old days where, say, your tachometer stopped working. The rest of the gauges would work and you could fix it - cheaply - at your leisure. Over the next 5-6 years you're going to see a lot of these touch screens start to fail and it won't be like putting in a new iPad. These things will cost thousands to replace. My guess would be $6000 and up for the fancier ones. Same thing with the 10 speed transmissions. When those things start to fail it might cost more than the car is worth at that point to replace it.
All in the name of good gas mileage. A noble cause but we are creating a generation of un-repairable cars. We are fixing one problem only to create another.
>> why is driving *within* California "an interstate activity", too?
Because we all globally inhale the particles and shit exhausted by those cars.
Because we all globally get the pollution generated from building, recycling, and fueling those cars.
aaaaaaa
>> It was years ago and the data might be obsolete but i suspect that now it is even worse.
Nope .
Average efficiency of a gasoline car is 15% small-tank-to-wheel
Average efficiency of a fossil powered electricity plant feeding EVs through the grid is 35%, big-tank-to-wheel
You burn over two times less fossil fuel by going 100% fossil electricity.
Germany today has 48% of fossil electricity. This figure decreases yearly.
So your typical EV in Germany is responsible today for only 20% of the emissions of the same gasoline powered car.
aaaaaaa
... was the number of European models he sees driving around. He thinks that cars should be all American all the time. I wonder how giving US companies a free pass to not innovate and produce shittier models than the rest of the world fits in with that world view.
So many on.this site claim that only ppl can make the changes to lower co2, and it has nothing to do with business or gov. If that is believed and/or true, than the far lefties should not care about this. Otherwise, it means that emissions per capita is worthless, since ppl do not control this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I simply don't understand - we all live on this planet together. How can people be so short-sighted? How can they think of money before the environment? There's a place for profit in pouring less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It makes me sick to think we're all going to die without having at least *tried* to reverse the next mass extinction event, just because the automobile industry is too fucking lazy to step up and change the way they do things. It's not all about money. We're already fucked at this point (look at co2.earth ), I'm afraid. We've all been trying to play god for way too long now. I just don't get how people can reject the science and think that it's "us vs. them" capitalist mentality bullshit though. I mean, c'mon. Go Bronco's, I guess. Fuck.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I don't disagree with you. I'm all about reducing total emissions the most economically.
But note that the OP did not mention scooters, which are obviously a larger problem.
And remember the conservative freak-out over the Obama-era "Cash for Clunkers" program, because of the idea that undeserving people (a.k.a. melanin-enhanced minorities) might be getting a benefits from a government program?
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
The people who are willing to throw out civilization are those who are fighting against the actions needed to prevent large and destablilizing changes to the climate and the biosphere. Those who are attempting to course-correct to limit the rapidity, level, and damages of the rapid-warming climate change are those who are attempting to safeguard civilization, and more broadly, Earth's eco-systems and suitable environment for sustaining current species., including humans.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
STFU, your low-quality sarcasm isn't helping.
And remember the conservative freak-out over the Obama-era "Cash for Clunkers" program, because of the idea that undeserving people (a.k.a. melanin-enhanced minorities) might be getting a benefits from a government program?
Actually, I don't remember that. I do remember people freaking out over how stupidly the Cash for Clunkers program was designed, where it didn't just take actual clunkers off the road but also newer cars that weren't so bad, and the program funding that was supposed to last a year only lasted about a month (lots of "duh, what did you expect" comments from non-Democrats).
I'm sure there must have been some racists somewhere who thought what you said, but I never saw or heard or read anything about it at the time, so I doubt it was widespread at all. If you have some YouTube videos or web page essays or something that document this alleged widespread racist conservative backlash against Cash for Clunkers, please share the URLs.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
How's life in the hypocrite lane?
And if it is a States Rights issue give all 50 states the right, not just CA.
California got the right to set its own emissions standards to begin with because a) California provably needed stronger standards to combat pollution and b) California set stricter standards than the Federal government, so it clearly wasn't trying to pull a fast one and simply enable more pollution. There's no basis for giving the right to states that will use it to bypass federal emissions regulations.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Just as I'd like to ban 2-stroke scooters I would like to see aggressive taxes on old clunkers that make them no-longer-affordable to run.
Old clunkers tend to fall off the road rapidly, and most of the car guys who are allergic to fuel injection are dead now so we're seeing lots of old clunkers with relatively modern LS engines and the like swapped into them. They are really not a problem like 2-strokes are. Nobody is making more old clunkers and most of the guys refurbishing them now are putting injection on them one way or another.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I do remember people freaking out over how stupidly the Cash for Clunkers program was designed, where it didn't just take actual clunkers off the road but also newer cars that weren't so bad,
If you look at the statistics, the majority of clunker'd cars were in fact gas guzzlers. Sure, it caught up other cars too, but it still did what it said it was supposed to do on the tin. Some other approach might have been preferable, but cash for clunkers was legally feasible, so it actually happened. A big problem in government is that people on both sides of the aisle will only vote for stuff which produces revenue, and cash for clunkers passed that test.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Obviously a paid Chinese troll would be a member of the communist party, and would be telling you how great the communists were. Certainly not denying communists even exist.
Common sense or truth are rarely a requirement for a Windy post though.
What lies would you need to believe?
You have still never shown even one, about any topic.
If only... Electricity would really knock down the fuel costs, and other things like oil changes and timing belt changes and spark plug changes ($400 for a Subaru WRX) so bring on the electrics, the sooner the better.
Nobody is making more old clunkers and most of the guys refurbishing them now are putting injection on them one way or another.
Basically what I would like to see is for the worst-polluting cars to be punished with taxes or fines or something. If someone can fix the car to make it stop polluting so badly, they can keep driving the car. it's not that I hate old cars, I just hate pollution.
Right now it's very economical to drive a clunker: if you fail the smog test, you only have to spend something like $50 to fix the failure. (At least that's how it works where I live.) I get that this is a kindness to people who don't have much money, but it also means there is little incentive to fix a car that pollutes a whole lot. I just want the financial incentives to force horrible cars to be fixed or scrapped.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely