I might take exception with the 10 SECONDS of idling,especially in cold weather, but idling does waste a lot of gas an pollutes the air, besides not being good for your car. Some months back we had an extensive post on this. The concluision was that too much idling was bad, but starting and stopping your car at every traffic light could cause trafic problems by those with finicky cars and slow responses.
It is ironic that Canada, a country with a small population, immense oil reserves, 600 years of coal, some of the richest uranium reserves and major gas deposits worries about fuel consumption and has gas guzzler taxes. Norway, another resource-rich country is equally committed to green house gas reduction.
"2. Have CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” been proven to raise a planet’s temperature? Yes – Earth would be a frozen icy wasteland if it were not for CO2. Venus is an inferno due to a thick, mostly CO2 atmosphere. The effect has been proven and measured in the laboratory.
Have temperatures risen (or fallen) as rapidly in the past (without human input) as they appear to be now? No – except after catastrophes such as asteroid impacts. “Normal” temperature swings appear to be much slower than what we’re seeing now."
Is is possible that the temperature of Venus has something to do with proximity to the Sun? Just a thought.
Have you heard of the Little Ice Age? When did the asteroid fall?
“New LCD TV’s and monitors use far less electricity then the older Catho-Ray tubes.”
Only in a similar size. The large LCD TVs use twice the power of CRTs and large plasma displays use 3 times as much power as CRTs. Your points are spot-on, but I thought I would make the distinction for those considering large TVs. I think the figures were for direct view TVs. I’m not sure how the relationship changes with DP or LCD projection units.
There is actually some energy used when you use sleep mode rather than hibernation. That goes for the monitor, too. It can add up to considerable wattage when you consider that everyone with a computer might use sleep mode.
We can get a head start by keeping our tires properly inflated and the cars properly tuned. The best way to conserve 10% to 20% of the gasoline and diesel fuel used is to slow down. If everyone drove the speed limit we could do just that. I know it’s unpopular, but it is the quickest way to conserve energy and reduce CO2 generation. I go the speed limit for other reasons, but these are additional reasons to keep it up.
Well, of course ten seconds does not apply to starting one’s car at -20 ?C…that’s why block heaters are there. Those details are also on the link that I quoted. The brochure does not recommend stopping at “every” {quote ! } stop light…it only addresses idling in general. I’m the nut that stops at traffic lights whose patterns I already know…
The oil reserves question is not unambiguous. I lived in Edmonton, Alberta, whose ecology is bearing the brunt of the tar sands development. The majority of the Canadian oil that is still underground is in the form of tar sands, and virtually all of the tar sands are in Alberta. I understand that (a) it takes one barrel of oil in energy to produce two barrels of oil from tar sand and (b) the only reason that the Canadian per capita carbon emissions are greater than those of the US is because of - oil production from tar sands. The previous Albertan governments furthermore gave Exxon et al. very favourable conditions to access the natural resources that they needed to process the oil sands. Of course a Canadian -which I am not- could explain this in much more vivid detail than I could.
However I did note that recent opinion poles “up there” gave the ordinary citizenry much more credit for understanding the connection between their activities on global warming. Much more credit than their Bush-esque Prime Minister deserved. For example, you might recall the global conference from last year on targeting emission levels, and the attitude taken by Cheney, Inc. The only other country supporting the US position was Canada. Then, the Alvarez organisation pulled together a petition to TELL the P. M. to support binding emission levels. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but the petition pulled in roughly four times as many co-signees as intended. The P. M. consequently withdrew his support for the US position. You might recall that the US was then forced to accept a compromise, and no longer block the proceedings.
Only in a similar size. The large LCD TVs use twice the power of CRTs and large plasma displays use 3 times as much power as CRTs.
Agreed…3 years ago you could buy a 50" HDTV CRT…It used a LOT more energy then a 50" LCD…put out a LOT of heat…and took 2 men and a boy to lift it. My wife can easily lift our 40" Plasma.
Good post! Energy and politics are always hard to separate. I believe, like you, that Canadians are more environmentally aware of what goes on in the world, and will support strong government action, when it comes, to cut energy consumption. I think they are also aware that reaching the low level of France, for instance, would be impossible since they live in a big, cold country that is a major mineral and energy producer for export.
Agree, idling your car is mostly a matter of common sense. I often see 300 HP SUVs pull up to the local recycling depot and the owner leaves the machine running while he/she sorts out the cans, bottle, newspares, etc.
I’m a college student, and I just took a Geology class last term that discussed global warming and the Earth’s cycles. We (humans) have been specks on this planet for only 10,000 years or so compared to the 4.6 billion years the Earth has existed. We are nothing but microbes on the back of a whale; inconsequential. Just as has always happened in the past, when the Earth gets tired of us she’ll shake us off her back. The most likely result of global warming, according to historical evidence, is the start of a new ice age. The Earth will always heal itself through its cycles. That’s how it works. The worst damage we could do is causing the next ice age a little sooner than would be normal. That won’t hurt the Earth; it will just make our lives on it miserable. We like to think we’re sooo important, but, in reality, we are nothing to this Earth or this Universe. Just specks.
“The most likely result of global warming, according to historical evidence, is the start of a new ice age.”
Not directly, though an ice age would ensue at some later date. The first thing would be unknown changes in climate. Then would come flooding of anything under 100-feet above sea level. As mankind dies off due to the climate changes, natural cycles will be able to take over. Eventually the Earth will cool an go into an ice age in its own good time. Geologically, that might be a short time, but it will seem like an eternity for us, especially the ones who live through the mess.
Hitler’s propaganda minister, Goebbels, said that a lie repeated often and
loudly enough will be taken as truth. Some people believe, therefore, that
anything said loudly and often is a baldfaced malicious lie. The recent athletic
steroid scandals tend to reinforce that idea. However, rejecting any idea out of
hand is just as bad as accepting an idea without double checking.
Also, some environmentalists denigrate their credibility by padding their
arguments with junk science. Just yesterday, on my local public access cable
channel, a woman was saying that polar ocean water absorption of sunlight has
increased with the reduced polar icecap. That is not true because beyond seventy
two degrees latitude, the sun never gets high enough for its rays to penetrate
the surface of standing water. Sunlight always reflects from water beyond
seventy two degrees latitude.
The important thing is in that according to theory, global warming COULD happen
and COULD result in catastrophe, so, we must do all we can to prevent disaster.
The proportion of human activity to all sources of CO2 may be very small, but we
must avoid being the proverbial “straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
To our credit, we humans, unlike animals, respond to crises with innovation
rather than self-induced suffering.
Yes, those would be photons, also known as particles. Now who’s stupid?
You. Yes, at very tiny scales anything can be a wave or a particle. This is what quantum mechanics is about. While photons can certainly behave as particles under certain circumstances, it is grasping at semantic straws to declare that photons are nothing but particles in order to salvage your original nonsense. Kindly go away.
Do you know what the primary “greenhouse gas” is? It’s water vapor; clouds. You want to know how much CO2 there is in relation to all of this? Think of a tape measure 300 feet long. The TOTAL CO2 is 1 inch of that 300 feet.
Careful there… not all greenhouse gases are created equal. There is a difference between how much of a gas is floating around and how powerful it is. For example, water vapor is a GHG, but a weak one (which is fortunate, as there’s so much of it). There’s much less CO2 around, but pound for pound it has much more of a heat-trapping effect than water vapor. Methane is an even more powerful GHG, but fortunately there’s even less of it.
I should not really care whether you drown or not, since you believe global warming is no big deal.
Whoa there! That’s not what I said! I do believe that GW is for real, and that we ought to do something. I’m just trying to present a non-hysterical, balanced, review of the facts. My conclusion is that although there is no absolute proof of human involvement with GW, the circumstantial evidence is strong enough than humans are warming up the planet in a hurry, and it would be prudent to stop dumping GHG into the air.
Yes, Venus is a bit closer to the Sun (approxmately 75% of the Earth’s distance, if I recall correctly). Assuming .75AU, Venus should receive (1/.75)^2 = 1.78 times as much sunlight per square meter. Some is reflected away by Venus’s bright white clouds, but enough gets through to raise the temperature (in Kelvins) much hotter than if it had an Earth-like atmosphere. This is considered Exhibit A of the CO2 Greenhouse Effect.
The Little Ice Age was apparently due to a drop in solar activity (noted by the great reduction in sunspots). No asteroids involved. Asteroid impacts appear to have caused tremendous cooling (due to smoke and dust), and then tremendous heating (due to sulfur compounds as the dust settled out).
Yes, I obviously know far more than you. Go get your GED and then a graduate degree or two and maybe we can have an intelligent conversation.
HUH??? You’re adding the cost of energy to build and ship a LCD TV or monitor…but NOT deducting the energy to build a regular Catho-Ray Tube TV. The cost of building and shipping a Catho-Ray TV is FAR MORE COSTLY then a LCD TV. The REAL reason stores like Best-Buy and Wall-Mart are phasing out the Catho-Tv’s is because of cost of shipping and storage. A 32" LCD TV weighs about 1/3 of my 27" Sony Trinitron.
You’re making a comparison of owning a LCD TV and NOT owning a TV altogether. BTW…there are Catho-Ray TV’s that have a digital signal AND are HDTV…in fact the quality of these TV’s is better then plasma or LCD…It just takes up a LOT more room and uses a LOT more energy to run.
No, what I’m saying is if you already have a tv and it works perfectly fine, you aren’t going to save the planet by rushing out to buy a new eco friendly tv. That’s one of our problems, we have a throw away society. That old Tv, you have to do something with it? Sell it to someone else who’ll use it anyway? Throw it away which has to be hauled to a landfill and buried? Put it on the front porch and use it to set your beer on while rocking in your rocking chair watching the cars go by? What you are talking about would save fractions of an amount of electricity, but the energy used saving those fractions is pretty obviously more than you’d save.
The most likely result of global warming, according to historical evidence, is the start of a new ice age.
You took ONE Geology class while my daughter is finishing up her BS in Chemical Engineering at MIT. According to the historical evidence she’s been studying as a Job with 3 WORLD RENOWNED Scientists they completely disagree with you. There is very solid evidence that Humans have a LOT to do with Global Warming. You can trace it right to the start of the industrial revolution. There have been fluctuations on CO2 levels throughout the worlds history…but there is a significant increase since we started polluting our air. The increase is far greater then any other point in time.
} stop light…it only addresses idling in general. I’m the nut that stops at traffic lights whose patterns I already know… 