On bjvircks' "Too Few Brakes" to Prevent Global Warming

[boarderboy]

You may be right :eek:

Industry by industry, energy demand in China is increasing so fast that the broader efficiency targets are becoming harder to hit.

¶Although China has passed the United States in the average efficiency of its coal-fired power plants, demand for electricity is so voracious that China last year built new coal-fired plants with a total capacity greater than all existing power plants in New York State.

¶While China has imposed lighting efficiency standards on new buildings and is drafting similar standards for household appliances, construction of apartment and office buildings proceeds at a frenzied pace. And rural sales of refrigerators, washing machines and other large household appliances more than doubled in the past year in response to government subsidies aimed at helping 700 million peasants afford modern amenities.

¶As the economy becomes more reliant on domestic demand instead of exports, growth is shifting toward energy-hungry steel and cement production and away from light industries like toys and apparel.

¶Chinese cars get 40 percent better gas mileage on average than American cars because they tend to be much smaller and have weaker engines. And China is drafting regulations that would require cars within each size category to improve their mileage by 18 percent over the next five years. But China’s auto market soared 48 percent in 2009, surpassing the American market for the first time, and car sales are rising almost as rapidly again this year.

The above from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/business/global/05warm.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=China%20consumers&st=cse

BB

[MikeC]

¶Chinese cars get 40 percent better gas mileage on average than American cars because they tend to be much smaller and have weaker engines.

No duh, most Chinese are half the size of normal people here and dont have any reason to own a large vehicle. I'd like to see a little toyota pull a trailer loaded with #5000 of brush or dirt. Not going to happen.

[MUD]

No duh, most Chinese are half the size of normal people here and dont have any reason to own a large vehicle. I'd like to see a little toyota pull a trailer loaded with #5000 of brush or dirt. Not going to happen.

They still have trucks. They just don't insist on using them as their daily drivers.....

We as Americans try to use this "excuse" all the time. The reality is, we like our cars/trucks big and powerful. No excuses.

[bjvircks]

my comment about 'not enough brake' was not specific to global warming but rather about a large collection of accelerating issues that are typically viewed and documented separately but that affect us as an agregate.

Like it or not, change is going to come. However, I fear that change will only come after our runaway train has a horrible crash, leaving most dead.

[slider32]

No duh, most Chinese are half the size of normal people here and dont have any reason to own a large vehicle. I'd like to see a little toyota pull a trailer loaded with #5000 of brush or dirt. Not going to happen.

Please tell me this is sarcasm and not the ignorant bigotry that it seems like.

[bobdea]

No duh, most Chinese are half the size of normal people here and dont have any reason to own a large vehicle. I'd like to see a little toyota pull a trailer loaded with #5000 of brush or dirt. Not going to happen.

wow, I suspect you're city boy...........

most americans don't need more than a two door commuter car. most americans go overkill on trucks too not to mention they run petrol when diesel almost alway out performs when hauling loads.

mini trucks are becoming more and more popular in the US as are other asian and european solutions. a 50 horse engine can haul just about anything, just not very fast.........

BTW I weigh almost 300 lb and used to happily drive a geo metero, awesome car for getting work and back, also I have fit around 700 lbs grain in one. I also know that if you take out the back seat of a honda accord you can stuff 22 or so 50 lb bags of feed in it........

[BobD]

I don't think practicality has much bearing for either camp in the vehicle size debate. It is so much more about culture. A relative living in a small rural town just bought a small Hummer. She could not understand why, while friends and neighbors were congratulating her on the the purchase, her more urban relatives were aghast. On paper, the Hummer is no more environmentally unfriendly than many minivans, but it does make a statement of values that a minivan does not. Most P/U trucks seem to be cowboy sports cars, a statement of manliness and culture, rather than practicality ;)

[bjvircks]

I grew up on the broad, wide open, windswept plains of South Dakota. Back then we favored big heavy full size 4 door cars for personal travel because they were less likely to be blown off the road by cross-winds. For everything else it was a big pickup. Sure, only one person was in the car... but in winter in the middle of no-where the 4 door was not out of line. Not saying its either right or wrong, good or bad... its just how we got by.

[Arclite]

I also know that if you take out the back seat of a honda accord you can stuff 22 or so 50 lb bags of feed in it........

I do this every week in my mom's CRV.

We have 30 chickens, and we get about twenty 50 pound bags of lay mash every month.

[Petrol]

worry not for it shall cool again

[Jack M]

most americans don't need more than a two door commuter car.

most americans don't have kids? interesting.

[bobdea]

most americans don't have kids? interesting.

??????

most american families have multiple cars, kids actually do fit in the back seat of a two door, even fat ones. I'm not talking two seaters.

do I need to post a pic of a car seat in the back of a ford aspire?

pain in the ass BUT the fuel savings is damn nice. I drive a four door now but nicole is still rocking the aspire.

[leeho730]

worry not for it shall cool again

Yes it will.... after 50,000 years. Unbeknown to many people, we are in fact living in an ice age, which means that global temperature will keep rising for the next 50,000 years until another ice age hits. And we are accelerating the rise in temperature, which isn't helping.

Global warming is inevitable. Sooner or later there will be no snow except in very high altitude. All we do is to slow the acceleration caused by human, nothing more.

I'm just glad that I was born in the current ice age, and will probably die before ski fields start closing ;)

And yes I agree it's the cultural thing. We Aussies are the second biggest offender of carbon dioxide emission per capita, after US. One of the reasons is because even a mum who hardly goes off-road drives big 4WDs in a city. Duh!

[Jack M]

??????

most american families have multiple cars, kids actually do fit in the back seat of a two door, even fat ones. I'm not talking two seaters.

do I need to post a pic of a car seat in the back of a ford aspire?

pain in the ass BUT the fuel savings is damn nice. I drive a four door now but nicole is still rocking the aspire.

Sure, it can be done. But a lot of people including me simply will not put their kids in a 2 door for safety concerns. If my car is on its roof or side or sinking or one side of it is smashed closed, I want maximum quick egress options.

But more to the point, once your kids are old enough to have friends and a sense of a little independence, you will be carting them and their friends all over creation to all kinds of activities. Sports, school, play dates, day camp, day care, birthday parties, movies, outings, weekend trips, and on and on. If you have two kids, having seats for 4 kids means not having to take two cars, and it means you can carpool with other families, saving each other unnecessary trips. That cannot be understated. Don't forget the front seat is not an option until they reach a minimum weight; in Maine, 100 pounds.

Our kids are 5 and 8 and the 5 year old isn't quite to the point of wanting to have a friend along very often, but when she is the Outback will be too small. When I was a kid we used to pile in the "way back" of the Malibu station wagon, but those days are long gone.

So, I'm confident the statement "most Americans don't need more than a 2 door commuter car" is false.

Now, personally I'd be willing to have a family truckster in the garage and commute on a motorcycle or scooter, but it's not usually feasible because usually I have to do drop-off or pick-up on my way to/from work. My moto hasn't been out of the garage yet this year. :(

[bobdea]

. My moto hasn't been out of the garage yet this year. :(

yeah, I feel you......... I've been out twice....... compared to the last couple years where it was twice a week minimum.

[Arje_Vandemeer]

I think for this discussion the prime ingredient is how many km/litre, yes?

So I think there are many small economical cars that have four doors and many seats that are just as efficient with fuel as small two door cars.

Some new hybrids have 4 doors plus hatchback and seats for seven and STILL get very good fuel rating.

I think a big important factor is HOW people drive. Go to Italy...they drive 120km/hr IN the middle of Rome...right through the intersections. They don't know where the brake is, only the gas pedal!!

Drive slow = good fuel efficiency. Drive crazy = bad fuel efficiency.

Slow down. Ha ha.

[boarderboy]

Drive slow = good fuel efficiency. Drive crazy = bad fuel efficiency.

Slow down. Ha ha.

at anything is almost delusional in its naivete.

You gotta be kidding...

BB

[skatha]

Everyone should catch the program "Crude" on the History Channel. I liked it because it addressed a question I've always had-the carbon!

Matter is neither created or destroyed. The carbon we're adding to the atmosphere is carbon that has always been on Earth.

It addressed the issue I saw raised in a scientific article published a few years ago pegging the water temps in the Arctic as 72 degrees F at one time.

It even addressed why dinosaur juice is oil and plants turn into coal.

Also, the August issue of Sky and Telescope has an article describing planetary evolution of Earth. I suggest checking it out, too...

[bjvircks]

the dominoes of our world were being set up for billions upon billions of years. We are toppling them in in mere centuries.

[kipstar]

while all that carbon is indeed here, previously it was locked up in solid or liquid form, we are belching it all out into the air.

There's almost no need for the excesses of the USA car industry other than the car manufacturers struggle to make smaller or even just simply fuel efficient cars profitably, so they lobbied first Clinton, then Bush and presumably now Obama that they need very lax regulation on efficiency, or else they will go bankrupt and everyone will drive Japanese/other brand cars which actually ARE efficient.

Your fuel is relatively very cheap; if it was taxed more like Europe then consumers would understand the price signal, and start tending to drive less/use mass transit/buy different vehicles; as is bleating in some documentaries that people watch feel guilty for like 5 min then do nothing (because there's no reason to do anything) is only going to change some people's behaviour. But the party that introduces that change.....oh ho....good luck.

Similar to the fastfood industry, soft drink industry, big pharma, tobacco, energy, finance etc etc - looking in from outside, I can't help but feel that in the states because of the political system it seems to allow your politicians to be 'pitched' by lobby group to think that the entire sky will collapse with the slightest regulations many of which work elsewhere in the world. YOu only really have a single political party which on both sides (GOP and Dems) is a wide collection of views with only really significant differences in the emotional religious gun control abortion type stuff; there is not really a particularly pro business side and a pro big government side; to be honest it is hard (from the outside) to comment much on the differences between Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2 because rhetoric aside, the political policies aren't much different; there is a huge amount of angst on the detail, but not much massive policy difference. Obama is the first that appears to be a different flavour, although whether he is manning up or flip flopping his way through a bunch of crises he mostly inherited from Clinton/Bush is difficult to say.

Regarding environment, the best thing is people world wide are talking about it. But talk isn't quite the same as action.

And for the USA this is despite a fairly conscious and rational well educated populace who are aware of the issues far more than the developing world (where low emissions are a result of lifestyle that hasn't yet adapted/advanced enough to require/afford prepackaged mustard-mayonaise, central air heating the home while we are at work, boiling hot water at 75 degrees for a shower which gets mixed with cold water, a 6 litre pick up to go to work and a 20,000sq ft house for a family of 4 + dog).

If people have to pay the real cost, then they get smart in a hurry. Governments who choose to protect voters from real costs today by either lack of regulation or lack of enforcement.....make everyone suffer tomorrow. (e.g. the finance sector, S&L crisis, BP's ability to go ahead and ignore safety checks, mad cow, salmonella, crap food in schools etc etc).

If i sell coke for 0.01c per litre, and I tax the hell out of water (from the tap and in a bottle) which one will consumers drink?

The average carbon footprint of a Chinese citizen despite manufacturing most of the stuff the rest of the world uses is probably still much lower than the average Aussie or American. And the government over there is at least in some areas trying now to fix the problems they have caused; as they develop more the degree and scale of change is going to be massive there and in India as a result of huge populations. Look at the cars they drive; for the most part what we call in Thai 'tin can cars' (translated) because they are so tiny. Often less than 1 litre displacement.

People will start changing behaviour when they have to pay for it and are given the real costs of oil vs. gas vs. etc etc.

[boarderboy]

and, alas, much sooner than projected.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100720/bs_afp/chinaeconomyenergy_20100720065800

Scary!!

BB