Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2754 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 1:34 am Post subject: U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas
U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas
Quote:
Americans drive more in vehicles with lower fuel standards, says an environmental group.
American cars and pickup trucks are responsible for nearly half of the greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles globally, even though the nation's vehicles make up just 30% of the nearly 700 million cars in use, according to a new report by Environmental Defense.
Cars in the U.S. are driven more miles, face lower fuel economy standards and use fuel with more carbon than many of those driven in other countries, the authors found. According to the report by the environmental group, due out today, U.S. cars and light trucks were driven 2.6 trillion miles in 2004, equal to driving back and forth to Pluto more than 470 times.
The study concludes that vehicles manufactured by the nation's Big Three automakers — General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler — produce the most emissions, with Toyota ranked fourth.
Nearly one-third of the emissions came from vehicles made by GM.
latimes _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Jun 13, 2005 Posts: 1206 Location: Western US
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:31 am Post subject: Re: U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas
No kidding, wouldn't be due to these rediculous Hummers we have all over the place.
U.S. carmakers insist that we Americans want bigger cars (couldn't have anything to do with the much higher profitability of larger cars now, could it?). We have in recent years, but in my view they underestimate our willingness to shift to smaller more fuel efficient cars given the right incentives. Such as how about if we pay a few extra dollars/gallon for gas.
Joined: Dec 16, 2004 Posts: 706 Location: Santa Monica, CA
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 9:08 am Post subject: Re: U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas
LadyRuby wrote:
No kidding, wouldn't be due to these rediculous Hummers we have all over the place.
Of course it does. But the biggest contributor of the American motor fuel use is it's driving habits. On an annual per-capita basis, Americans drive 150% the distance of Western Europeans, who have a comparable per-capita GDP. Americans end up using 200% of the motor fuel as well, which can show you how much MPG has to do with it.
In the end though, it is our land-use policy that is perpetuating both over-sized vehicles and bloated milage. The government imposes parking requirements that accommodate large vehicles and provide ample "free" parking that accommodate gasoline pigs. It then imposes zoning requirements that produce car dependency and prevent any workable mass transit. It put's very little tax on motor fuel and then it dedicates 100% of the revenue to subsidize an already heavily government subsidized road & highway network. Americans respond by putting all their money in the suburban sprawl program, or as Kunstler calls "the previous investment trap."
The low-MPG thing and the high-VMT thing is all part of the same paradigm.
Joined: Jun 13, 2005 Posts: 1206 Location: Western US
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 6:47 am Post subject: Re: U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas
dub_scratch wrote:
LadyRuby wrote:
No kidding, wouldn't be due to these rediculous Hummers we have all over the place.
Of course it does. But the biggest contributor of the American motor fuel use is it's driving habits. On an annual per-capita basis, Americans drive 150% the distance of Western Europeans, who have a comparable per-capita GDP. Americans end up using 200% of the motor fuel as well, which can show you how much MPG has to do with it.
In the end though, it is our land-use policy that is perpetuating both over-sized vehicles and bloated milage. The government imposes parking requirements that accommodate large vehicles and provide ample "free" parking that accommodate gasoline pigs. It then imposes zoning requirements that produce car dependency and prevent any workable mass transit. It put's very little tax on motor fuel and then it dedicates 100% of the revenue to subsidize an already heavily government subsidized road & highway network. Americans respond by putting all their money in the suburban sprawl program, or as Kunstler calls "the previous investment trap."
The low-MPG thing and the high-VMT thing is all part of the same paradigm.
You're right about that. Land use and chronic underinvestment in public transportation. As with alternative energy, these things take lots of time (and money for transit) to change.
Joined: Jul 25, 2004 Posts: 681 Location: Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia
Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject: Re: U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas
This is one of the things that has always caused me most discomfort about Human-Induced-Climate-Change theory: OK, given that we know that about 46% of all fossil fuels are used in transportation...um, if these transport vehicles are like the ones I see every day, then they emit stuff. Right? Well, it seems that up to now, I was the only one thinking this. Everyone else wanted to get all upset about coal fired power stations (12% emissions).
But I keep asking: what about fossil-fuelled transport modes? I presume they emit CO2. I may be incorrect on this, but I have always been lead to beleive that this was the case.
OK, given that 46% of this fossil-fuel use is for such...why doesn't anyone say "Hey...transport uses the most fossil fuels, therefore it must (surely...?) emit the most CO2..."...?
UM, mebbe....transport...is the thing we should be concentrating on if we are supposed to be worried about CO2 levels?
Mebbe...just perhaps? _________________ .
"To Get Rich you have to:
The report points out that China is already the world's fourth largest economy, and the number of cars and utility vehicles could increase by 15 times more than present levels to more than 190 million vehicles over the next 30 years.
In India, traffic growth is likely to increase by similar levels over the same time period, the report says.
Carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles could rise 3.4 times for China and 5.8 times for India.
Once again, this begs the question: Why is the rest of the world bothering to make any attempt at all to clean up its act?
The only "hope" here is that oil production will peak and go off a cliff, depriving these people of fuel for all those vehicles. So, as always, we're all screwed either way. _________________ "Thank you for attending the oil age. We're going to scrape what we can out of these tar pits in Alberta and then shut down the machines and turn out the lights. Goodnight." - seldom_seen
Last edited by Zardoz on Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:36 am; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:35 am Post subject: Re: Asia's greenhouse gas output will skyrocket
Zardoz wrote:
Why is the rest of the world bothering to make any attempt at all to clean up its act?
Because this guys are talking about future projections, that may or may not happen, and actually probably won't happen if you take peak oil into account?
Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 1012 Location: In the suburban sea of strangers
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:48 am Post subject: Re: Asia's greenhouse gas output will skyrocket
We should be much more afraid of hydrocarbon abundance than of hydrocarbon depletion. _________________ The battle to preserve our lifestyle has already been lost. The battle to preserve our lives is just beginning.
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1850 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Thu Dec 14, 2006 7:40 pm Post subject: Re: Asia's greenhouse gas output will skyrocket
TommyJefferson wrote:
Peak oil cancels out climate change.
We don't have to worry about climate change.
Done.
Sure, as long as you believe there's no coal in the ground -- or that people (in China or elsewhere) will be in any economic mood to build a bunch of expensive scrubbing and sequestering facilities post-peak. I don't think either of those is the case. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 8:52 am Post subject: Re: Asia's greenhouse gas output will skyrocket
India and China represent about one third of the planet's population.
Both of these nations have experienced extreme poverty, famines, and conversely, extreme wealth in their long histories.
Both of these nations have also been used and abused by other empires in their time.
Both of these nations have strong national objectives to rise to levels of properity matching the western world.
Both of these nations are also aided and abetted by western neocon investment to grow relatively large middle classes who will "consume like Americans."
To the neocons, this represents a brand new market roughly the equivalent of the middle classes of North America and Europe combined.
This is a hard fact to argue with. When profits rule, it is the ultimate wet dream for a mercantilist.
Of course, the planet is not rich enough to support this. It is also not healthy enough.
If you compare this to a country like Sweden, which has enjoyed prosperity for the past 6 decades, and has now arrived at a position of government-sponsored responsibility, Asia is that far back in its evolution.
National pride in both cases will demand playing out the hand.
China's air and water will get much worse before it improves.
This will impact the population in all kinds of ways - and I believe, politically as well.
If just 10% of the Indian and Chinese populations rose to middle class status, this would represent roughly a quarter of a billion people.
(about 230 million)
This would leave over 2 billion people on the outside looking in.
Will they wave flags and yell, yay for us?
Will they be royally pissed off at being excluded?
In America, an impoverished person can still have many of life's comforts. Millions of working poor people do.
In Asia, the gap between the poor and even a fundamentally basic middle class is huge.
Not only is this a political time bomb - it will be an environmental one as well.
What happened to New Orleans could happen on an exponentially rising scale in Asia.
Of interest here is for example - India still has an extensive network of rail lines that utilize coal-burning locomotives (a holdover legacy of British occupation and delvelopment.)
If they are poised to emulate the west - it is quite fine by them to proceed through an economic model reminiscent of pre-1920's North America. They will start where they can and proceed accordingly.
Instead of a Model T, they have the "boogie wagon" (a curious micro-market phenomenon)
The point is - if they can "consume like Americans" they have no reason to not do this. Although we don't seem to export much anymore, what we do export is our culture - of consumerism.
This is gobbled up addictively and with great gusto.
The best answer to all this is probably for the entire planet to stop such conumption. Will it happen? Only if there is a political will to do so - which is stronger than the neocon plan for growth at all costs.
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:17 pm Post subject: Re: Asia's greenhouse gas output will skyrocket
Quote:
Peak oil cancels out climate change.
The way I answer this one is, "Can you name a number
that's bigger than 10 and at the same time less than 5?"
The situation is similar with peak oil and climate change.
Unless we cut by 60-70% of more, we're f'd via climate change. Unless we continue regular growth every year of GDP, the econumy is f'd. Peak oil will give us neither of these (it will give a plateau of 0% growth, give or take) so we'll be f'd both ways.
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