Quote:
Originally Posted by 406Special
CO2, I heard on a Radio 4 (BBC) news article last week, is mainly
produced (in nature) by insects and farm animals. Apparently
insects, mainly termites, generate more CO2 than automobiles. The
news article tried to be serious, however comments about how to stop
insects from farting lowered the tone greatly. Also feed stocks
(diet) can reduce CO2 produced from livestock, not from the gas
emitted from the tail end, but from the breath that is emitted from
the front end (especially by ruminants).
No matter what one says, the facts that I have read imply that cars &
trucks generate less than 3% of the world's CO2. Last year Porsche
GB put out a pretty strong argument in a large daily paper against
the congestion charge being levied by the then left wing "Red" Ken
Livingston, mayor of London, claiming that CO2 from cars was
miniscule compared to the natural production by nature's best.
Bloody insects, cows, sheep and pigs generate more, so I am being told.
Issue for me and I guess some of you too, is that there are a lot of
conflicting facts and opinions. e.g. as the Artcic ice recedes, the
Antarctic increases. Some say on radio and press that as a result of
shifting ice concentrations, the earth will become lop-sided as a
result and cause even more climate change due to some latitudes going
further north and some further south. Go figure!
Clyde
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There is a group called the Natural Step where a Swedish doctor sought to find environmental principles all could agree upon. He came up with four:
In the sustainable society, Nature is not subject to systematically increasing:
1. concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust,
2. concentrations of substances produced by society,
3. degradation by physical means and, in that society...
4. people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.
In other words, that Man rebalance his relationship to Nature while not creating inequities that produce human suffering.
The CO2 debate was initially funded by Margaret Thatcher who wanted to wipe out the coal mining industry (read unions), but not increase dependencies on Arabs. Global warming as science pointed to nuclear reactors, an energy source beloved by those who decry welfare of the poor, but love subsidies for the rich. The Greens leaped on the bandwagon because substances extracted from the earth's crust, burned for energy with the detritus laid on Nature (i.e. gas, oil and coal) came under the greenhouse gas science... thus creating some strange bedfellows. The Natural Step's perspective is simple. OK to use uranium, provided you don't ask Nature to deal with the remaining poisons. Ditto coal, oil and gas. Or as my mother always said to us children, "clean up after yourself."
The issue of natural emissions is a side show, irrelevant to reality, but relevant to Kyoto. It is the product of bad policy where environmental responsibility is deemed impossible, but putting a price tag on pollution is believed to be feasible.
As an owner of six cars (two conventional, four classics) and two motorbikes, I acknowledge that burning petrochemicals and dumping their remains into the air is not a good thing. While I love driving, and have a passion for the art of fine motor vehicles, I appreciate that we live in a rare period in human history... sort of like the late teenage years... where conscious irresponsibility is the norm. Civilisation will look back (and yes, I do believe the future will be better) at our burning one of the most precious of resources (oil) as the utmost lunacy, but I will be driving to the beach shortly to go for a walk in our glorious summer, with sunsets made more beautiful due to the Australian bush fires (2,000 km away).
The solution is not to make cars more efficient, but to change the way we live, so to accomplish the mundane chores of daily life, we do not need to drive a car. We have a new company in Sydney that proposes to do this. See
www.parallelvillage.com and click the Sydney link. It is a solution that offers a far higher quality of life, a lower cost of living and it keeps the cars in the motorpool, there whenever needed, but not needed day to day because everything is within a ten-minute walk. Such a solution was not possible prior to telepresence, but while our media looks at the gloom of the world, in fact technology is changing the world for the better.
In the meanwhile, I look forward to someone finding an engine and transmission that will seamlessly bolt into my 411 with minor modifications, a good fit, decent performance and silent. I had the petrol tank rebuilt (it leaked like a sieve), so diesel or petrol will be the preferred fuels, unless someone can come up with an electric motor solution with affordable and durable batteries.
However, if someone is coming to New Zealand and can toss a good 727 transmission into the container, let me know. After five rebuilds, I have concluded it has incompatible parts inside it, and the easiest solution is to toss it.
Claude