And you would be terrified to even stand near a gasoline fueling station, if you've ever personally witnessed the entire fueling platform engulfed in twelve foot flames.
And you would be terrified of tiny little dogs, if you witnessed your brother getting his face torn off by one when you were a young child. What's your point again?
Gas fires are nasty (although incredibly rare), but at 1.2 megawatts, we are not talking about the "funny" electrocution like what happened to that kid in Jurassic Park when he was climbing the electric fence. We are talking about the kind where you become a relatively low-impedence fuse for a very, very brief moment.
Gasoline, in liquid form, is not explosive, nor does it burn all that fast. That's why gasoline fires take so damn long to extinguish.
It only becomes a powerful explosive in vapor form. Cars force tiny trickles of it at a time into vapor with carberators or fuel injections systems. Otherwise, the stuff is just as safe to be around as pretty much any flamable liquid, including vodka, paint thinner, lamp oil, etc.
The kind of wattage we are talking about to charge these cars, however, is the sort of thing utility companies typically put barbed-wire fences around to keep people the fuck away from it.
Maybe you could rig up a system where I park my car on a conveyer belt, and go inside the station for a nice cup of coffee while it is pulled into a fully-automated charging station and then rolled out to be boarded when it's done.
Eastern Kentucky sits on the Saudi Arabia of coal.
Only in terms of production, not in terms of capacity.
There is far more coal, which would be far cheaper (and safer) to get at, out West. The only reason coal mining goes on in your state at all is because of pork-barrel politics "protecting" your local industry.
But instead of strip-mining useless desert that nobody ever sees except for during trans-continental flights, we are digging ever deeper death-traps in the Southeast. Your government at work.
Say, creating an avatar that doesn't look like crap is a skill that can easily take weeks to develop. The monetary cost is low (you need to pay for texture uploads, but you could just use free ones), but the time cost is high, so paying $3 for an avatar turns out to make a lot sense.
Except, isn't one of the pleasures of the game supposed to be creating an Avatar for yourself? It was certainly the most-fun element of City of Heroes. The idea of paying somebody $3 to create a hero for me in that game would seem like utter insanity. How is Second Life different?
$9 of electricity is about 100 KWh at national average rates. Passing that in 9 minutes gives you an average rate of 1.2 megawatts. What the hell knid of household has the circuit to handle that?
I would be terrified to even stand near such a fueling station, let alone use one or install it in my home.
Imagine the mortal dread of having your 1.2 megawatt car running low on power during a rainstorm.
For all it's potential energy, at least liquid gasoline is relatively stable and safe. Gasoline car crashes generally only cause explosions in the movies. Unless it's an old Ford Pinto, or a truck being tested on NBC's "Dateline."
How about a system in which cars connect to electric lines along the highways, like they use for electric busses and trollies, and use ultra-capacitors to get from the highway to your home?
Which makes me wonder... If nearly everybody is playing "Second Life" to generate money, who's putting all this money into the system?
I mean, say I'm an aspiring archetect, and I've decided to design and sell virtual homes on Second Life. The first thing I'd do is figure out how to look like a half-way respectible member of the virtual community while investing a minimum of my own money into it. If everybody in there takes that very sensible approach, nobody can possibly make much money.
The business model only works if you have a lot of people playing Second Life who only want to be consumers... and what could possibly be the draw of the game for them? If they want to build a social network, they can make a MySpace page. If they want to play dress-up with an online avatar, they can download Zwinky. If they want to socialize in a cute MMO, there's Ragnarok.
So I'd be a little surprised to find that this sort of career choice is working out very well for more than a small handful of individuals. (And the usual Chinese sweat-shop gold farms, obviously.)
Except that he generally doesn't do that. In fact, his new single "Don't Download This Song" is a parody of that very sort of attitude on the part of his fellow wealthy rock stars.
By the way, other languages, particularly Asian ones, do not have the "double negative" issue that English has.
If you are talking to a Japanese person with limited knowledge of English, and want to have fun confusing him, say something like:
"Wow, Akiko, that new car of yours is not too bad! I bet it wasn't exactly inexpensive, though. I wouldn't dislike having one of these myself."
For example, in Japanese, you can say "not good" (yoku arimasen) because "arimasen" basically means "is not."
The word "amari" is another negative word. It means "not very much".
However, you can only use it with a statement that is already negative, so "amari yoku arimasen" means "not so good" even though the literal word-for-word translation would seem like "not very much not good." (This gives you an idea of why 1980s VCR instructions or current Google translations make such a pig's breakfast of grammar when going from Japanese to Enlgish.)
So the idea that negatives usually cancel each other out in an English sentence is a really hard concept for some Japanese expatriates wrap their heads around.
Once they are advanced enough that they think they have their heads wrapped around how English works, you can throw "flammible" and "inflammable" at them in the same paragraph.
Then you can come at them with the ebonics. Heh heh. Ours is a cruel language.
He's releasing a "dual disk" CD that has a DVD of videos on the back side of it. Somebody probably swiped one from a pre-release stock room and ripped it.
A roof antenna gets me all that, minus the Ted Turner channels, and I can also record any station without jumping through DRM hoops *and* do so in HD.
$20 for CNN and CSPAN? What a waste! News is on the Internet.
(And what would you want to record of CNN anyway? Other than a couple "shouting at each other" shows, they just run the same half-hour news broadcast about 40 times a day.)
People say that bowling actually feels like bowling
Somehow I doubt that hype, unless the Wiimote weighs 16 pounds.
The Zelda fishing demo is pretty unique too
Well, "Deer Hunter" was a #1 game at one point, so maybe there are people out there who want to jig for virtual pan fish with a wireless controller. I think I'll pass though, thanks.
Say there are 8 shows I really like @ $2 a show for 20 episodes = $320. That is $26.66/mo
If those are cable shows, that's a bargain. Nobody gets cable TV for $26/month. If you only like a handful of shows, disconnect the cable service and download them.
If those are not cable shows, then there's no need for TiVo service either. An EyeTV box will let you tune them in over the air for free and record them to your Mac in glorious HDTV.
Mind you, I would not have reccommended using iTMS for any TV shows a month ago. The crap resolution was a deal-killer unless you planned on only watching them on your iPod screen. The new 640x480 progressive-scan resolution ain't bad though. Apart from a few wide-screen shows, it's not a bad way to go. In many cases, the iTMS season packages are cheaper than the DVD box sets of the same show.
Jobs was quite emphatic during the Stevenote where this was presented that "iTV" was a code-word name they definitely will not use for the final product. IIRC, his exact words were, "we will come up with a better name for it." I'm sure it will be something people can live with.
Stupid code name, cool final product name. Sort of the opposite of what Nintendo just did this year.:P
Thanks to the sensor bar, the Wii has what's missing from the PS3: absolute positioning in space.
Yeah, like I said, you can move it or tilt it. BFD.
And the nunchuk also sports a set of accelerometers & gyroscopes
An add-on controller which not all gamers will have, meaning developers can't make cames which completely depend on it, any more than they can for "alternative" PlayStation controllers.
Again, how is this so much better than a third-party hardware maker sellinng similar controllers for the old PS2?
People have to stop associating a "mature" title with blood, gore, or anything of the sort. That's not what 90% of the people who want a mature game care about. ... Do I want any of this replaced by sex or violence? No. I want it replaced with a serious atmosphere. Try telling people that "Green Eggs and Ham" is just as good a book as "Pride and Prejudice" just because it's fun for all ages. You'll get some weird stares.
And with that post, MGBMorden wins the thread.
The Nintendo is not being called "kiddy" for a lack of shooting at hookers. It's being called "kiddy" because the majority of their titles look completely ridiculous.
Mario Karts is amusing, but give me either Grand Turismo or Project Gotham over it any day.
I agree that the energy companies are not as evil as they're made out to be...
Oh, I didn't call them "not evil" or even "less evil than you think."
I'm just saying they are in a position where their interests will be served whether you "go green" or not. Even if you conserve and fret over global warming, their profits will still continue to rise.
It would be terrible news for places like Venzuela, Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, because they can't exactly change their ground to start producing plutonium or diamonds or anything other than the dead dinosaurs they currently have to offer, but the companies drilling that oil and selling it to you? They'll still be fat cats. You don't often lose when you own the game.
The question nobody seems to be able to answer is, "how is this any better than just coming up with a funky PS2 controller?" All the Wii controller does is replace the two thumbsticks of the X-Box with a controller which you can either move or tilt.
People keep talking about all the "new ways" developers are sure to come up with for use of this thing, because it's not "aftermarket", but none of the games demonstrated so far do anything you could not do just as well with a conventional controller and/or a PC keyboard & mouse. The only difference is that you need to wave your arms around like somebody doing Tai Chi with a sever muscle disorder in order to manipulate your on-screen character.
I mean, if 480p graphics are "good enough", than X-Box owners can buy a PS2 for less than the cost of a Wii, and PS2 owners can buy an X-Box for less than the cost of a Wii. Mario Karts is fun and all, but as a current X-Box owner, my next console is far more likely to be a PS2 than a Wii.
As for the X-Box 360 and the PS-3... $600 for a game console? No thanks. Maybe sometime after I make my first million.
I would put it to you that it's the rising cost of gasoline which is selling the Prius more than fears of a God smiting us with floods and typhoons as vengeance for our evil energy consumption.
For example, I consider well over half of what is said about global warming by alarmists and politicians to be pure bunk, but at three bucks a gallon, I will seriously consider going for ultra-high efficiency with my next car purchase.
So really, it's the oil industry which is pushing people towards high-efficiency cars, not movies about glaciers melting.
If they were half the evil conspirators people think they are, they would spend all that money trying to end the Iraq war, overthrow the anti-US government of Venezuela, and lobby for even more lax environmental regulation in Canada.
Hybrid electric cars are the new hotness. The dealer's can't keep them on the lot, and the manufacturers can just barely keep up with demand. People wanting to compensate for a small penis can still do so by purchasing a firearm or perhaps a really big boat.
Nope, wouldn't work. Because it is all a Big Lie, the average "Green" is actually what is known as a Watermelon, Green on the outside for cover but Red on the inside. Note that NO environmental problem has a suggested solution involving using technology to solve it.
Surely, the best answer to such behavior is for those who don't want more draconian government intervention to propose better solutions, rather than simply shouting "commie" and running away.
I was not simply being rhetorical. How many new trees would it take to off-set the CO2 production of my Big Fat American Car? Keep in mind that my car only burns fuel about an hour a day, while plants are doing their thing 24/7.
With an average speed of 40 MPH and 20 miles to the gallon, that means I'm burning about 2 gallons of liquid gasoline a day. I'm not sure how many trees it would take to off-set burning 2 gallons of refined gas each day, but I bet it's few enough that I could plant them myself. If every car owner did the same, that takes care of that. As a bonus, the cost of paper and construction materials would plummet, lowering our cost of living. Win-win.
Plant trees to offset cars, go nuclear for electricity, and don't let the third-world (including China) buy oil without a similar "trees for oil" program of their own.
Problem solved, right?
Can I not spend 8 bucks to sit through Al Gore's PowerPoint presentation and still be a good person now?
You seem to have forgotton the fact that we are loosing "x" number acres of rain forest every friken day... That kinda screws the equilibrium.
Figure "x", when quoted in alarmist literature, almost always looks at almost one side of the equation. New forests and/or regrowth is not counted, only existing areas which are lost.
Besides, most of the Earth's land mass lies outside the tropical zones. Warmer Earth eventually = more rainforests.
Saying "corn ethanol is backed by an evil megacorp, so climate change is a myth" is a red herring.
You got me there, except for the fact that I'm not saying that.
I am "corn ethanol is backed by an evil megacorp." So you're half-right.
I never said climate change is a myth. I'm convinced that climate change is, and always has been, a constant fact of the Earth's biosphere, and it is caused by myriad factors, one of which might be us burning stuff. Whether our impact on the global climate is a negative impact (let alone one to be alarmed about) is a point I consider up for dispute. It could well be that we are staving off an ice age.
Having said that, given the relative size of dried tobacco leaves to the entire plant, I'm willing to bet that tobacco use is actually atomopheric carbon negative. Or at least, could be easily balanced by smoking under an apple tree.....
You raise an interesting point.
Trees and other plants are carbon-scrubbers. They consume CO2, keep the carbon, and release O2. Even if you burn them, a great deal of the carbon stays in solid form (ash) and works its way into the ground.
I drive my boat of a car (a Ford Crown Victoria), on average, about one hour a day. How many trees would I need to plant to completely off-set my car's CO2 release and make the global warming crowd STFU once and for all? Because even if it takes hundreds of trees, I'm game. Heck, let's just require the oil companies to irrigate and grow orchards in the Nevada desert in equal proportion to the oil they sell, and call it a day. Worst case it would add... what? Another buck a gallon? Cancel out federal gas taxes and I'll be glad to eat the difference.
Then again, there's the other side of the "greenhouse" effect which the environmentalists don't talk about. When in increase temperatures and CO2 levels, you encourage more plant growth. This is why greenhouses exist after all. All this extra plant growth is likely to keep things in equilibrium.
Granted, the "new" equilibrium might be at a higher global-average temp and CO2 level than it was before we started burning oil and coal, but as soon as we settle in to whatever level that is, all the Chicken Littles out there can calm down about the "instability" of the biosphere. In fact, it could well be that we are already approaching such an equilibrium, and the abrupt scaling back of fossil fuel use could create a greater disruption than a continuation of the way we are doing things now.
Now, if you look closely, you will see that those polluting our ears with the concept that humans are causing the global warming are government funded research studies.
That is a total and shameless lie!!!!
Some of them are also funded by ADM and other corporate interests who want to force you to buy their "cleaner" alternative fuels.
All think-tanks take money from somebody. That's how they manage to continue existing.
Lost in the shouting are two... ahem... inconvenient truths.
1. "Oil" companies are really "energy fuel" companies. They will sell you whatever fuel you want to buy. The debate on global warming is irrelevant to them. In fact, if you switch to more expensive fuels, like hydrogen induction for your car and nuclear for your electricity, their profit margins might actually go up.
2. One of the most powerful, corrupt, and politically active corporations in all of America is the Archer Daniels Midland corportation. What to they do? Well, among other things, they produce about 90% of the world's supply of industrial corn. "Renewable" fuel is actually vastly worse for the environment than oil. First of all, it takes a shitload of corn (pardon the pun) to make, and growing corn is extremely hard on the land. Secondly, while CO2 emissions are lower with ethanol, other gases, many of which are far more dangerous to humans, are emitted at much higher levels. Thirdly, the energy consumed just to fertilize, harvest, ship, process and distill this miracle fuel is enormous. For the most part, ethanol doesn't ever get sold except in markets where the government has mandated its use. Lucky for ADM, they fucking *own* the government.
Before fretting about how much Exxon may have given to some tiny PAC dressed up in white lab coats, look into how much money ADM has given to Vice President Al Gore over the years.
Slashdot Mirror
And you would be terrified to even stand near a gasoline fueling station, if you've ever personally witnessed the entire fueling platform engulfed in twelve foot flames.
And you would be terrified of tiny little dogs, if you witnessed your brother getting his face torn off by one when you were a young child. What's your point again?
Gas fires are nasty (although incredibly rare), but at 1.2 megawatts, we are not talking about the "funny" electrocution like what happened to that kid in Jurassic Park when he was climbing the electric fence. We are talking about the kind where you become a relatively low-impedence fuse for a very, very brief moment.
Gasoline, in liquid form, is not explosive, nor does it burn all that fast. That's why gasoline fires take so damn long to extinguish.
It only becomes a powerful explosive in vapor form. Cars force tiny trickles of it at a time into vapor with carberators or fuel injections systems. Otherwise, the stuff is just as safe to be around as pretty much any flamable liquid, including vodka, paint thinner, lamp oil, etc.
The kind of wattage we are talking about to charge these cars, however, is the sort of thing utility companies typically put barbed-wire fences around to keep people the fuck away from it.
Maybe you could rig up a system where I park my car on a conveyer belt, and go inside the station for a nice cup of coffee while it is pulled into a fully-automated charging station and then rolled out to be boarded when it's done.
Eastern Kentucky sits on the Saudi Arabia of coal.
Only in terms of production, not in terms of capacity.
There is far more coal, which would be far cheaper (and safer) to get at, out West. The only reason coal mining goes on in your state at all is because of pork-barrel politics "protecting" your local industry.
But instead of strip-mining useless desert that nobody ever sees except for during trans-continental flights, we are digging ever deeper death-traps in the Southeast. Your government at work.
Say, creating an avatar that doesn't look like crap is a skill that can easily take weeks to develop. The monetary cost is low (you need to pay for texture uploads, but you could just use free ones), but the time cost is high, so paying $3 for an avatar turns out to make a lot sense.
Except, isn't one of the pleasures of the game supposed to be creating an Avatar for yourself? It was certainly the most-fun element of City of Heroes. The idea of paying somebody $3 to create a hero for me in that game would seem like utter insanity. How is Second Life different?
$9 of electricity is about 100 KWh at national average rates. Passing that in 9 minutes gives you an average rate of 1.2 megawatts. What the hell knid of household has the circuit to handle that?
I would be terrified to even stand near such a fueling station, let alone use one or install it in my home.
Imagine the mortal dread of having your 1.2 megawatt car running low on power during a rainstorm.
For all it's potential energy, at least liquid gasoline is relatively stable and safe. Gasoline car crashes generally only cause explosions in the movies. Unless it's an old Ford Pinto, or a truck being tested on NBC's "Dateline."
How about a system in which cars connect to electric lines along the highways, like they use for electric busses and trollies, and use ultra-capacitors to get from the highway to your home?
Behold the future.
Which makes me wonder... If nearly everybody is playing "Second Life" to generate money, who's putting all this money into the system?
I mean, say I'm an aspiring archetect, and I've decided to design and sell virtual homes on Second Life. The first thing I'd do is figure out how to look like a half-way respectible member of the virtual community while investing a minimum of my own money into it. If everybody in there takes that very sensible approach, nobody can possibly make much money.
The business model only works if you have a lot of people playing Second Life who only want to be consumers... and what could possibly be the draw of the game for them? If they want to build a social network, they can make a MySpace page. If they want to play dress-up with an online avatar, they can download Zwinky. If they want to socialize in a cute MMO, there's Ragnarok.
So I'd be a little surprised to find that this sort of career choice is working out very well for more than a small handful of individuals. (And the usual Chinese sweat-shop gold farms, obviously.)
Except that he generally doesn't do that. In fact, his new single "Don't Download This Song" is a parody of that very sort of attitude on the part of his fellow wealthy rock stars.
By the way, other languages, particularly Asian ones, do not have the "double negative" issue that English has.
If you are talking to a Japanese person with limited knowledge of English, and want to have fun confusing him, say something like:
"Wow, Akiko, that new car of yours is not too bad! I bet it wasn't exactly inexpensive, though. I wouldn't dislike having one of these myself."
For example, in Japanese, you can say "not good" (yoku arimasen) because "arimasen" basically means "is not."
The word "amari" is another negative word. It means "not very much".
However, you can only use it with a statement that is already negative, so "amari yoku arimasen" means "not so good" even though the literal word-for-word translation would seem like "not very much not good." (This gives you an idea of why 1980s VCR instructions or current Google translations make such a pig's breakfast of grammar when going from Japanese to Enlgish.)
So the idea that negatives usually cancel each other out in an English sentence is a really hard concept for some Japanese expatriates wrap their heads around.
Once they are advanced enough that they think they have their heads wrapped around how English works, you can throw "flammible" and "inflammable" at them in the same paragraph.
Then you can come at them with the ebonics. Heh heh. Ours is a cruel language.
He's releasing a "dual disk" CD that has a DVD of videos on the back side of it. Somebody probably swiped one from a pre-release stock room and ripped it.
Weird Al on MySpace
A roof antenna gets me all that, minus the Ted Turner channels, and I can also record any station without jumping through DRM hoops *and* do so in HD.
$20 for CNN and CSPAN? What a waste! News is on the Internet.
(And what would you want to record of CNN anyway? Other than a couple "shouting at each other" shows, they just run the same half-hour news broadcast about 40 times a day.)
People say that bowling actually feels like bowling
Somehow I doubt that hype, unless the Wiimote weighs 16 pounds.
The Zelda fishing demo is pretty unique too
Well, "Deer Hunter" was a #1 game at one point, so maybe there are people out there who want to jig for virtual pan fish with a wireless controller. I think I'll pass though, thanks.
Say there are 8 shows I really like @ $2 a show for 20 episodes = $320. That is $26.66/mo
If those are cable shows, that's a bargain. Nobody gets cable TV for $26/month. If you only like a handful of shows, disconnect the cable service and download them.
If those are not cable shows, then there's no need for TiVo service either. An EyeTV box will let you tune them in over the air for free and record them to your Mac in glorious HDTV.
Mind you, I would not have reccommended using iTMS for any TV shows a month ago. The crap resolution was a deal-killer unless you planned on only watching them on your iPod screen. The new 640x480 progressive-scan resolution ain't bad though. Apart from a few wide-screen shows, it's not a bad way to go. In many cases, the iTMS season packages are cheaper than the DVD box sets of the same show.
Jobs was quite emphatic during the Stevenote where this was presented that "iTV" was a code-word name they definitely will not use for the final product. IIRC, his exact words were, "we will come up with a better name for it." I'm sure it will be something people can live with.
:P
Stupid code name, cool final product name. Sort of the opposite of what Nintendo just did this year.
Thanks to the sensor bar, the Wii has what's missing from the PS3: absolute positioning in space.
Yeah, like I said, you can move it or tilt it. BFD.
And the nunchuk also sports a set of accelerometers & gyroscopes
An add-on controller which not all gamers will have, meaning developers can't make cames which completely depend on it, any more than they can for "alternative" PlayStation controllers.
Again, how is this so much better than a third-party hardware maker sellinng similar controllers for the old PS2?
People have to stop associating a "mature" title with blood, gore, or anything of the sort. That's not what 90% of the people who want a mature game care about.
...
Do I want any of this replaced by sex or violence? No. I want it replaced with a serious atmosphere. Try telling people that "Green Eggs and Ham" is just as good a book as "Pride and Prejudice" just because it's fun for all ages. You'll get some weird stares.
And with that post, MGBMorden wins the thread.
The Nintendo is not being called "kiddy" for a lack of shooting at hookers. It's being called "kiddy" because the majority of their titles look completely ridiculous.
Mario Karts is amusing, but give me either Grand Turismo or Project Gotham over it any day.
I agree that the energy companies are not as evil as they're made out to be...
Oh, I didn't call them "not evil" or even "less evil than you think."
I'm just saying they are in a position where their interests will be served whether you "go green" or not. Even if you conserve and fret over global warming, their profits will still continue to rise.
It would be terrible news for places like Venzuela, Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, because they can't exactly change their ground to start producing plutonium or diamonds or anything other than the dead dinosaurs they currently have to offer, but the companies drilling that oil and selling it to you? They'll still be fat cats. You don't often lose when you own the game.
The question nobody seems to be able to answer is, "how is this any better than just coming up with a funky PS2 controller?" All the Wii controller does is replace the two thumbsticks of the X-Box with a controller which you can either move or tilt.
People keep talking about all the "new ways" developers are sure to come up with for use of this thing, because it's not "aftermarket", but none of the games demonstrated so far do anything you could not do just as well with a conventional controller and/or a PC keyboard & mouse. The only difference is that you need to wave your arms around like somebody doing Tai Chi with a sever muscle disorder in order to manipulate your on-screen character.
I mean, if 480p graphics are "good enough", than X-Box owners can buy a PS2 for less than the cost of a Wii, and PS2 owners can buy an X-Box for less than the cost of a Wii. Mario Karts is fun and all, but as a current X-Box owner, my next console is far more likely to be a PS2 than a Wii.
As for the X-Box 360 and the PS-3... $600 for a game console? No thanks. Maybe sometime after I make my first million.
I would put it to you that it's the rising cost of gasoline which is selling the Prius more than fears of a God smiting us with floods and typhoons as vengeance for our evil energy consumption.
For example, I consider well over half of what is said about global warming by alarmists and politicians to be pure bunk, but at three bucks a gallon, I will seriously consider going for ultra-high efficiency with my next car purchase.
So really, it's the oil industry which is pushing people towards high-efficiency cars, not movies about glaciers melting.
If they were half the evil conspirators people think they are, they would spend all that money trying to end the Iraq war, overthrow the anti-US government of Venezuela, and lobby for even more lax environmental regulation in Canada.
Hybrid electric cars are the new hotness. The dealer's can't keep them on the lot, and the manufacturers can just barely keep up with demand. People wanting to compensate for a small penis can still do so by purchasing a firearm or perhaps a really big boat.
Nope, wouldn't work. Because it is all a Big Lie, the average "Green" is actually what is known as a Watermelon, Green on the outside for cover but Red on the inside. Note that NO environmental problem has a suggested solution involving using technology to solve it.
Surely, the best answer to such behavior is for those who don't want more draconian government intervention to propose better solutions, rather than simply shouting "commie" and running away.
I was not simply being rhetorical. How many new trees would it take to off-set the CO2 production of my Big Fat American Car? Keep in mind that my car only burns fuel about an hour a day, while plants are doing their thing 24/7.
With an average speed of 40 MPH and 20 miles to the gallon, that means I'm burning about 2 gallons of liquid gasoline a day. I'm not sure how many trees it would take to off-set burning 2 gallons of refined gas each day, but I bet it's few enough that I could plant them myself. If every car owner did the same, that takes care of that. As a bonus, the cost of paper and construction materials would plummet, lowering our cost of living. Win-win.
Plant trees to offset cars, go nuclear for electricity, and don't let the third-world (including China) buy oil without a similar "trees for oil" program of their own.
Problem solved, right?
Can I not spend 8 bucks to sit through Al Gore's PowerPoint presentation and still be a good person now?
You seem to have forgotton the fact that we are loosing "x" number acres of rain forest every friken day... That kinda screws the equilibrium.
Figure "x", when quoted in alarmist literature, almost always looks at almost one side of the equation. New forests and/or regrowth is not counted, only existing areas which are lost.
Besides, most of the Earth's land mass lies outside the tropical zones. Warmer Earth eventually = more rainforests.
Saying "corn ethanol is backed by an evil megacorp, so climate change is a myth" is a red herring.
You got me there, except for the fact that I'm not saying that.
I am "corn ethanol is backed by an evil megacorp." So you're half-right.
I never said climate change is a myth. I'm convinced that climate change is, and always has been, a constant fact of the Earth's biosphere, and it is caused by myriad factors, one of which might be us burning stuff. Whether our impact on the global climate is a negative impact (let alone one to be alarmed about) is a point I consider up for dispute. It could well be that we are staving off an ice age.
Having said that, given the relative size of dried tobacco leaves to the entire plant, I'm willing to bet that tobacco use is actually atomopheric carbon negative. Or at least, could be easily balanced by smoking under an apple tree.....
You raise an interesting point.
Trees and other plants are carbon-scrubbers. They consume CO2, keep the carbon, and release O2. Even if you burn them, a great deal of the carbon stays in solid form (ash) and works its way into the ground.
I drive my boat of a car (a Ford Crown Victoria), on average, about one hour a day. How many trees would I need to plant to completely off-set my car's CO2 release and make the global warming crowd STFU once and for all? Because even if it takes hundreds of trees, I'm game. Heck, let's just require the oil companies to irrigate and grow orchards in the Nevada desert in equal proportion to the oil they sell, and call it a day. Worst case it would add... what? Another buck a gallon? Cancel out federal gas taxes and I'll be glad to eat the difference.
Then again, there's the other side of the "greenhouse" effect which the environmentalists don't talk about. When in increase temperatures and CO2 levels, you encourage more plant growth. This is why greenhouses exist after all. All this extra plant growth is likely to keep things in equilibrium.
Granted, the "new" equilibrium might be at a higher global-average temp and CO2 level than it was before we started burning oil and coal, but as soon as we settle in to whatever level that is, all the Chicken Littles out there can calm down about the "instability" of the biosphere. In fact, it could well be that we are already approaching such an equilibrium, and the abrupt scaling back of fossil fuel use could create a greater disruption than a continuation of the way we are doing things now.
Now, if you look closely, you will see that those polluting our ears with the concept that humans are causing the global warming are government funded research studies.
That is a total and shameless lie!!!!
Some of them are also funded by ADM and other corporate interests who want to force you to buy their "cleaner" alternative fuels.
All think-tanks take money from somebody. That's how they manage to continue existing.
Lost in the shouting are two... ahem... inconvenient truths.
1. "Oil" companies are really "energy fuel" companies. They will sell you whatever fuel you want to buy. The debate on global warming is irrelevant to them. In fact, if you switch to more expensive fuels, like hydrogen induction for your car and nuclear for your electricity, their profit margins might actually go up.
2. One of the most powerful, corrupt, and politically active corporations in all of America is the Archer Daniels Midland corportation. What to they do? Well, among other things, they produce about 90% of the world's supply of industrial corn. "Renewable" fuel is actually vastly worse for the environment than oil. First of all, it takes a shitload of corn (pardon the pun) to make, and growing corn is extremely hard on the land. Secondly, while CO2 emissions are lower with ethanol, other gases, many of which are far more dangerous to humans, are emitted at much higher levels. Thirdly, the energy consumed just to fertilize, harvest, ship, process and distill this miracle fuel is enormous. For the most part, ethanol doesn't ever get sold except in markets where the government has mandated its use. Lucky for ADM, they fucking *own* the government.
Before fretting about how much Exxon may have given to some tiny PAC dressed up in white lab coats, look into how much money ADM has given to Vice President Al Gore over the years.