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Global warming?
Comments
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The Wall
is not the appropriate place to discuss religion. I've talked to you about this a few times already, Kevin.Retired and loving it.0 -
another view
http://www.iscanadaready.com/
thanx google ads!
Leo G
To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"0 -
excellent articles Leo
The second one makes great sense, and points out that most of the doomsday sayers are basing their "predictions" on computer generated models. Like the weather man on the local news...and we know how accurate they are...
I believe in environmental protection and saving resources, but these articles are great...nature will do its cycle, and adapt to us.0 -
what's funny
is that whatever is natural is good for the planet and what isn't is not, but if everything is FROM THIS PLANET IT IS ALL NATURAL, RIGHT??? thanks to George Carlin
Mercury is natural but is bad as are others
Fossil Fuel is natural but is bad where as Bio Diesel or Veggie Oil is great, it burns the same, is cleaner and if spilled no clean up is required
If scientists around the world are saying that HFC's cause 25,000 times more global warming than anything else and others that work for big oil, the current administration, or API say all is well who do you believe???????
where are each's interests?????
Independant scientists have no agenda
API and Big oil are out to protect profit
as far as the planet goes, I think it would be best to er on the side of caution and be wrong than side with big business and be wrong0 -
Yep, I love that "it's natural" argument about mercury, co, etc.
2 ton boulders are natural too, but I wouldn't want to have them raining from the sky.
Ah, but it's natural!
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\"Independent\"...
... scientists get their research funded by somebody. They have to because it's expensive. Every group has an agenda, even the do-gooders. If you know who funded the research for a given study or a poll, you can pretty much predict the results before they're released.
Who pays the piper calls the tune.0 -
Interesting reading. The story painted by iscanadaready is rather oversimiplified and contains at least one factual error. A factual error, though minor, always creates in me a sense of unease about the broader understanding of what's being discussed. When talking about the northward transport of warm water, it is subsequently stated that "This rush of deep cold fresh water..." It's not fresh, nor does it "rush" -- think centimeters per second, I believe. It's salty. Therefore more dense and sinks. Transport in the oceans at this scale is driven by density rather than temperature. Cold salty water (formerly the warm water transported north by the Gulf Stream, which gives up its heat and some moisture to the atmosphere and some fresh water to sea-ice) cools, becomes more dense, and sinks.
The oversimplification is the 10k yr and 100k yr cyclicity. The 100k yr cycle is driven by variations in the earth's orbit (eccentricity; not to be confused with axial tilt [period 41k yr] or precession [axial wobbling, period 23k yr]), not the melting feedback described. The ~10k trend is a mostly last deglacial phenomenon. Compare that to the description of the last deglaciation in the Alley excerpt, where there are quick changes, staggers, etc.
Anyway, this topic could (and does) consume entire college courses, people's graduate school careers, professional careers, etc. It's big, deep and right now has a fair bit of uncertainty. I'm inclined to be concerned. Way back there Mark Eatherton used a good analogy that I'll amplify here:
The climate system can be thought of as being composed of both dials and switches. Dials have a slow effect as you turn them, with generally predictable results (e.g., a dimmer on a lightbulb makes it get brighter as you turn it up). Switches behave in binary fashion, on or off. But sometimes when you see a switch, you might not even know what it does (does this switch turn off the basement lightbulb or the power to my boiler?). If you throw the switch, you get an immediate and extreme response (light goes from on to off; boiler goes from running to not), Depending on what the switch actually does, you may or may not be pleased with the results. And once thrown, it may not be a simple matter to put it back the way it was.
The problems with understanding and potentially managing/adapting to climate change are that we don't know: 1) how many dials and switches there are, and 2) which dials and switches do what, and how they might be related. Makes understanding what's happening now and what might happen in the future rather difficult. Climate changes anyway, independent of human activities, but there is no doubt that we are pushing the climate system pretty intensely. And it's difficult to control what you don't know. Interesting times we live in.
What to do? There are some "no regrets" type policies that one might undertake. Like planting trees as windbreaks in the US midwest. If a result of climate change is that the US midwest becomes dry and dusty, this would help. If it doesn't, so what?0 -
Mercury...
... is almost the same as gold - it's right beside it on the periodic table. Nobody is suggesting that anyone should ingest or inhale it, but it does occur naturally in rock formations, and erosion can relocate it. Just because mercury shows up someplace doesn't necessarily mean it was human activity that put it there.0 -
agreed
but whena scientist says something is bad for the planet because....
and the reply is " they just hate big business"
I say BS
no one hates big business, people dislike businesses that cut corners and harm the environment to make more money
if oil from deep fryers and hemp and soy and ethanol burn clean and have no impact if spilled why do we need fossil fuels??????
another example is soft drinks
soft drinks that contain citric acid & sodium benzoate or potassium benzoat will make benzene in the bottle
all the manufacturers have to do is not mix those but that will cut into profit so they are crying foul while you are being warned not to drink those products
someday.....someday we will live on this planet using science and logic to do what is right and not just what is profitable
for it has been proven time and time again that doing it right and doing it once ocsts less and makes more money in the long run
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case in point
oil companies that are going with bio fuels are finding thier customer base growing when advertized correctly and the others
the ones with their heads in the sand
will be left in the dust
notice lately every issue of our trade magazines has an article on bio fuels???????????0 -
Global dimming
I watched the PBS program NOVA last night which was titled "Global Dimming." It addressed a significantly increased day-night temperature difference that was measured during the grounding of commercial aviation for three days following September 11, 2001. That was attributed to an absense of jet contrails.
Scientists interviewed went on to postulate that decreased insolation due to particulate pollution has been offsetting global warming from greenhouse gasses. If that's true, and the world reduces particulates (for human health reasons) while not reducing greenhouse gasses, they expressed concern that the most pessimistic estimates of warming during this century might actually be optimistic.
Given genes and lifestyle, I've probably got 35 years left to go. It will be interesting to see what the climate is like in my dotage.
PS Just went to the PBS site; here's the url for last night's NOVA:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/0 -
I Don't...
... think scientists as a group are necessarily for or against anything. Somebody shows up with a bag of money, and says "Can you run these tests/studies for us?". It's not unheard of for one business or industry to fund research targeting the "evil" qualities of a competitors product.
We need fossil fuels because there isn't even close to being enough fry oil, hemp, soy and ethanol to really do anything, and never will be. It's a classic case of warm & fuzzy meets cold economic & technical reality.
As for the last two paragraphs of your post, philisophically they're flawless. However, in the face of human nature - as it was, is now and will always be - they don't stand a chance. Proof can be summed-up simply: "Wal-Mart".0 -
hey...maybe
the ones with their heads in the sand will eventually decompose and make more fossil fuel??0 -
Could you
show me how this occurs or is there a site you have found?
>>>>soft drinks that contain citric acid & sodium benzoate or potassium benzoat will make benzene in the bottle<<<<
Edit. Never mind. Found some info. Very Interesting...0 -
true many \"STUDIES\"
are funded to come to a specific conclusion, it is a big money maker for universities and is a way to manipulate the stock market
a recent study shows
coffee is bad for you--drink de-caffeinated coffee
1-2 years later
a recent study shows
de-caffeinated coffee is worse for you--drink caffeinated coffee
currently the US has no involvement in bio fuels, it is independant, people are doing it
no oil from deep fryers is being used except what the common person is , you mean to say that of the millions of restaurants there isn't enough oil being thrown out to make a dent?, I'd guess there's about 5-10 million gallons being thrown out a month, could be a billion a year
and we throw it away
we are not an efficient society
if you take a graph of the production and use of refrigerants with chlorine over time and lay it on a graph of ozone depletion they match--so it is us
now HFC's have been targeted by every country except US for their GWP
you will find more here
http://www.theozonehole.com/climate.htm
won't it be a shame if 100 years from now someone says " hey, why is it so hot and the sea so high ?"
"well they had the info and proof but they did nothing, didn't even try"0 -
Bump back over.............Reply to Tony
Re: your Wal Mart comment.
Dr Suzuki and Dr Viessmann spoke at length about the US, and other parts of the world, in regards to economics. Suzuki's opinion was that the bean counters of the world take to narrow a view when making economic decisions. They look at the first cost only, once in a while they'll take long term costs into consideration. Same goes for the run of the mill American consumer, hence the rise to power of Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, HD, Lowe's et.al.
The good Dr's. contention is that every consumer in the US and the world for that matter needs to start thinking of all the things their buying decisions affect. In other words, when they pick up a widget at the Big Box, or look at a heating system for example, they should evaluate the product on a basis that includes a bunch of things in addition to cost only.
These criteria would include things like this:
How long will it last, not how long will I use it.
Is it made in an environmentally friendly country by a company that cares about its E impact.
Is it made in a country that doesn't oppress its people.
How does this product affect the environment and is there a better choice.
Is this product the most efficient and environmentally friendly of its type. ( think global warming, pollution, and E impact, during production, use, and when it is discarded)
Is the product recycleable.
Those are just a few that I can remember.
When you look at that list, I doubt if 1% of American consumers even think of those things when they are buying anything, any item, be it $1.00 or $100,000. When was the last time you heard a person building a new home ask about its E "footprint". All I hear is "I can't afford that" or "the other guy will do it cheaper". Sometimes I can win them over into thinking long term but most are concerned only with traditional, typical economics.
I'm afraid thinking won't change until resources are stretched to the point of no return. Then it's too late.0 -
Steve, you make great points. But I think one of the major difficulties is that access to that kind of information is nearly impossible to get (and it will stay that way for awhile, thank you WTO), so even if you want to make educated decisions, it takes *serious effort* to be educated.
I think technology is the only answer that will make an inroad there. When we get to a point where your sunglasses will scan the bar codes you are looking at AND INFORM YOU about stuff like that, we may start to see some major changes. Because it will be easy.
Speaking as a person who tries very hard not to support things I don't agree with, I can say, there is currently only so much you can do without dedicating a very significant portion of your life towards "watchdogging". Especially with the web of megacorporate ownership out there.
The only time you can be really sure is when you are buying locally produced goods from people you know, these days.0 -
yeah
I try to buy locally, I have found that prices at my local hardware are close or better than HD or looowwwws,
farmers markets are popping up and we gte eggs from our friends who raise their own and feed only good food, have a big garden, yada yada
by the way, on lunch I went and filled my truck and cans with B20 biodiesel, being a dork I spilled some on my shoes
20% and no smell, compared to 100% diesel, annnnd very clean shiny shoes
I think the term Global Warming may be misleading, it's more like Climate Change or re Arrange0 -
Anyone notice PBS last night 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. CST?
Now it's not just "global warming", it's also "global dimming". Global dimming is keeping global warming in check so as we try reduce particle pollution we only increase the speed of global warming. Gaah!!! I suppose we all should be using coal boilers in our homes and cooking with dung.
Of course no solutions--not even any reasonable assurity of the magnitude of any problem--let alone assurance that any of this is truly happening. Need more money. Need more studies. You don't need to explain the intricacies and we don't even need to understand them ourselves. Trust us--we're scientists--we have your best interest in mind.
Anyone ever notice how the "academic community" seems awfully similar to government. Both ruled by a political elite with two major concerns: retain their personal power and prestige and secure as much money as possible for their pet projects with insufficent consideration of true merit.
Both reject and fear outsiders because history tells them that the true revolutionaries don't come from within--they come from without...0 -
I have nothing.....
....worthwhile to add to this discussion, other than it's one of the most interesting threads I've ever read here.
I also wanted to bump the post count to 101 :-)
Starch0 -
Rob
I agree 100%. This kind of information is nigh unto impossible to get. In many cases it seems that there is a concerted effort to hide the details of a product's origin.
There oughta be a website that functions as a clearing house for what's green and what's not. The only problem is that like most websites, they are paid for with advertising $$.$$. Obviously, this would pretty much eliminate any semblance of truth.0 -
let's make it
102
as far as the bean counters go, I think businesses in this country and maybe others have been on a dangerous trend,
for 50 years or so instead of promoting from within of people that know what they are doing, ceo's etc take in brown nosers that know nothing and appoint them to management positions
this is disasterous for morale and productivity
case in point Brown, guy had a fake resume, was a horse judge before running FEMA???
how prevelant is this in the business world and what is it costing us????
however we did recently have a graduate that after working at a company for 2 years get promoted to service manager at 22, I think this is a record
seems that customers called and said he was doing what others weren't, and after close scrutiny he found he had some schleppers, canned them and his SM and wants this person to rebuild the service dept with quality techs
a ray of hope0 -
Not to defend academics, but show me a profession where ego, opinion, agenda, and money don't play a role. Sure, scientists are supposed to be a dispassionate and objective group. But they (we) are still human. They also need to function in a system that today is increasingly tight on funding, etc. Sometimes the search for dollars to support your area of inquiry involves you with some strange bedfellows. You hope that this does not lead to biased research, but sometimes it certainly does happen.
I wouldn't say that the fundamental infrastructure and process of science is broken, but it certainly does need some changes made. Long and different discussion. Certainly not Wall fare....
A major failing of science is often how information is communicated to the public. Your perception of the "trust us, it's complicated, but we have your best interests in mind" attitude is basically an unfortunate failure in communication. I have worked with a number of authors in trying to communicate fairly complex scientific concepts to the public. It's not easy. We're not trained to do it, and a lot of the learning is done on the fly. And quite often what we do communicate to the media gets twisted or misquoted because they have their own ideas, agendas, etc. Several years ago, when I had some significant time in the public eye, I basically stopped doing interviews with one national paper. They would spend 45 minutes talking with you, then in print you'd get one quote and often it was out of context or incorrect. Frustrating. Friend of mine had a post-Katrina editorial in a major national paper that earned him the wrath of a number of scientists as overly simplifying the issue (wetlands science and policy), not understanding the research needs, potential outcomes, etc. He sent me the original editorial he submitted. The one that finally saw print was really tweaked for a certain point of view, and it was no wonder they were pissed. Unfortunate all around.
Corey Dean, the Science Editor of the NY Times, has given a number of talks to scientists, trying to explain how to do better. Basically, she says, keep trying. Eventually the scientists will get better at communicating, and the media will get better at listening and interpreting. I think there's a real gap between the ability to disseminate scientific information in the "information age" and the ability to disseminate it _well_. Hopefully, we catch up. Just in the past couple years, we are starting to see professional courses on "communicating your science to the media" at our major professional society meetings. About time. It also used to be that academics who had a lot of media face time were viewed as pariahs by their peers. That's no longer the case. The good ones are now viewed as doing important work for science. Unfortunately, there are some bad ones, too.
Coffee break over....0 -
Counterfeit
I saw a show the other night about counterfeit CSA and/or UL inspection stickers on some very nasty lamps that were being sold to the general public via a number of very well known retailers. These lamps are active fire hazards. If the manufacturers have no problems with counterfeiting everything else, it'll take them about 6 seconds to figure out how to slap a bogus bar code on their shoddy, dangerous merchandise.
There is no way any member of the general public could tell that the lamps that were the subject of the story were substandard and that the inspection stickers were forged - assuming they even know to look for the stickers.0 -
Fry Oil
Get a handle on just what the oil demand is. Then figure out how much fry oil gets disposed of in the same time period. It'll be a drop in the barrel.
If somebody can collect the oil - driving all over picking up 5 gallons here, there and everywhere, tracking where it came from (some places will gladly hand you all kinds of misc nasty liquids in a can, while telling you it's something else) then get the lumps out of it, and resell it... I think it'll be a lot of work for very little return, but if somebody can make a go of it as a business, then I wish them nothing but the best of luck.0 -
I dunno Mike T
I seem to recall scientists saying that DDT was killing bird eggs and big business said no, no proof yadyaydada
it took until our prized Bald Eagle was almost extinct before we did anything
our fish are full of mercury
sharks do not get cancer, we don't know why, they can also give their eye parts, but we and the others cut off their fins for money and throw them back in to die a slow death spinning in circles
we are the problem, not the Earth
the highest incidence of cancer is in humans, cats and dogs, these 3 life forms share the most time together
something in our shared environment gives us cancer, it is in our food chain, something all 3 eat??
logic dictates that when a corporation says all is well they are more than likely full of it
it also says that when scientists say something is a miss they may be full of it but more than likely they are closer to the truth than big business UNLESS THEY WORK FOR THAT BUSINESS
DIG??0 -
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Thanks Rob. Was thinking about that show while mowing the lawn with my human-powered reel mower. I'd let the grass grow a bit too high and was really working off some winter fat. Huffing and puffing on the hill on an April day that was too warm. Almost got out the old power mower out of frustration that little steps like this don't even matter... Then I remembered that the exercise was half the reason I use the thing to begin with.
Of course ego and the quest for $$ are unavoidable but sometimes it does seem that we forget about the real reason that we choose some path.
Manual-J purports to be the product of decades of careful research by highly qualified scientists and engineers regarding heat loss from structures. It also purports to be accurate. Yet it seems to produce grossly overstated results. I'm told this is mainly because Manual-J assumes constant wind from every direction and perpetual night. Should these certain uncertainties account for around half of the loss?
I cannot help but believe that the most sophisticated global climate models and are filled with many such problems with entire sub-systems grossly under- or over-estimated with their direction chosen (consciously or sub-consciously) to suit predispositions or even predeterminations.
In my own heating experiments I often consider heat a dynamic and complex resultant vector (a force with magnitude and direction) of a multitude of other dynamic vectors. When I try to calculate a "snapshot" of the resultant, I certainly do make assumptions--even guesses--and those assumptions are likely clouded by my own preconceptions. Sometimes I'm uncertain of the direction of a contributing vector, let alone the magnitude.
BUT, I have the luxury of being able to rather accurately manipulate a number of vectors both in direction and magnitude. By observing the effects of these reasonably known and controllable forces, I can get a better idea of the direction and magnitude of others and previous assumptions can be denied or confirmed with closer representation of reality.
Climatologists do not have this luxury. They cannot minipulate global variables to see their effects on sub-systems. At best they can develop a model that reasonably predicts an immediate and local reaction to some measured and natural change in regional conditions. The more they search the more they find that a butterfly flying in India just might result in a tornado in Kansas. Sorry, but just the number--let alone the interplay--of variables involved in such is well beyond our comprehension. Global warming--or anything on a global scale is similar.
In addition to "snapshots" I can also use time to my advantage using periods of different and sufficient lengths to begin have a reasonable idea of the movie produced by those individual shots.
Again, climatologists do not have this luxury. Their estimates of long ago are highly subject to interpretation, error, over-simplification and even deception. Three days of higher than "normal" temperature variability when contrails were mainly absent after 9-11 isn't much to go on when "normal" is still an unknown.
Some natural global event that changes EVERYTHING will occur WAY before the "normal" is even reasonably known because such events ARE the norm. Direct observation of the effects of such events would lead to GREATLY INCREASED understanding of the dynamics of climate, but of course we have to survive the long- and short-term effects of the event...
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rooster! hahahaha
Brad,
You make me smile.
I had the opportunity to dive with a team of marine biologists that were trying to find proof that marine sponges were going to take over coral. So, for the week they took pictures of just that.
As for me? I was taking pictures of coral taking over sponges :-)
I guess we can all try to prove anything we want, it's all in how we interpolate the data!!
Unfortunately none of us can despute the amount of oil reserves that are not left on tis earth. We are already past the time for conservation. Now is the time for alternate GREEN sources of energy.
wheels0 -
A good example
of environmentally linked cancers is found in the folks that lived on and around Love Canal, a legacy of Hooker Chemical Co. Also those that worked in nuclear weapons research and production, a process that generated an estimated >90% of the nuclear waste we have today. Nuclear production of energy generates a pittance of waste by comparison.
>>>>we are the problem, not the Earth
the highest incidence of cancer is in humans, cats and dogs, these 3 life forms share the most time together
something in our shared environment gives us cancer, it is in our food chain, something all 3 eat??<<<<<0 -
My wife, the college Chem prof,
always make noises when she is reading the newspapers etc. One of her classes is Environmental Chemistry and she is always amazed at the level of communications.0 -
Very good Points, Steve
In light of a career change that is about to happen, I am going back to the fore of this very issue. Congress recognized the problem of up-front pricing vs. operational costs in 1979 and created the minimum energy efficiency standard program. Due to the success of the standards-making process in the residential arena, that program has been expanded to cover the commercial arena as well.
The (very complex) analysis that goes into standards-making is based on life-cycle costing and a reasonable payback for the consumer, while not distorting the industry, bankrupting manufacturers, etc. A lot of "Do*" agencies weigh in on this one!
There was a really neat article online recently about the Man who said no to Wal-Mart. Snapper CEO went to Walmart and told them no more go, even though WM represented 20% of his sales. Not compatible with his image, wrong price point, etc. Besides, WM doesn't exactly have a record of standing by its suppliers, it simply selects the cheapest ones. People actually go to WM, buy a $99 mower, if it breaks, they buy a new one.
Let's face it, as much as we all dislike the cost of energy at this point, it's still among the lowest on the planet. Perhaps a rise in energy prices will spurr a change in behaviors and choices, but I am not holding my breath. We'd have to see some fairly dramatic increases in commodity prices before that would happen, IMO.0 -
it's worse
I remember as a kid being told of the wonders of Nuke Power and how electric bills will be $2 so Ct built some.
There's more waste
did you know that a rod is useless after it drops to 90%?? they can't use it to generate heat for steam anymore, so it sits with 90% of it's potential unused, but 300 years of deadly radiation
now they tell us that pools of water, which is the safest place for them to be, aren't economical for the company or the stock holders and we don't have a place for them so we put them in casks outside, open to attack waitng to melt down
we are smart, we look for things, things that make us go
sometimes I think God is looking down...shaking his head.....muttering.... " Monkeys, what was I thinking???, why did I choose monkeys?????????"0 -
Unless...
... you live & work somewhere where the electrical load matches the capacity of falling water to generate enough electricity (and most people don't) you are left with one way to provide any amount of power at something approaching a reasonable cost - a steam turbine. There are really only two ways to cost effectively generate the steam that drives the turbines. One is coal and the other is nuclear. That's it. The politicians here in sunny Ontario have FINALLY come to grips with that reality. Lots of TV ads running about "nu-CLEAR" power - in the shots are nice blue skies and fluffy white clouds. What's finally dawned on the powers that be, it that industrial operations need reasonably priced & reliable electrical power. If manufacturing plants don't have it, they'll relocate to someplace that does have it. If it's a resource based industry that CAN'T relocate - like pulp & paper - they simply close their doors. Either way - jobs (and I mean LOTS of well-paid jobs) are gone. And they won't be back. There's a lot more at stake than just doing without some appliances at home - this is about large scale job losses.
If there's no coal or nuke power, a huge percentage of the population will indeed be able to contribute to a vast energy conservation effort - no jobs, no cars, no houses. No foolin'.0 -
problem is
like I said
rods are ineffective once they use 10% of their radioactivity
this is cost effective???
and in case you didn't know, the rods and all radioactive waste are now the property and responsibilty of joe taxpayer
what a responsible govt would and should do is give it's people & businesses 100% tax write offs on solar power, wind, bio fuels, co generation etc etc
and take back the BS giveaways given to the rich
this would at least take our eggs out of one basket
we need a comprehensive and strategic plan for weening ourselves off of foreign oil and we need to stick with that plan forever, not one year or 4 years.... FOREVER
If I could write off the whole $20,000 it would cost to install solar power at my house I would do it and so would you
that would create more jobs without the threat of radiation poisoning and cancer
I've worked at a nuke plant, I know from whence I speak, those people do not care about you and I or ours
all they care about is the STOCK HOLDERS
and speaking as a resident of Connecticut DE REGULATION DID NOT WORK
OUR RATES JUST WENT UP 27%
IT IS A JOKE THE SAME OWN THE SAME PLANT WITH DIFFERENT CO NAMES TO MAKE IT SEEM LIKE THEY ARE NOT A MONOPOLY
IF A POLITICIAN IN YOUR STATE TELLS YOU DE REGULATION WILL MEAN COMPETITION AND LOWER RATES YOU TELL HIM TO GO TO HELL
ONCE DEREGULATED IT IS NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE TO RE REGULATE AN INDUSTRY
Due to the fact that power and fuel and energy prices affect the price of everything in this country and can destroy our economy I feel they must always be regulated
I'm off my soap box0 -
The lawnmower thing
Having come into this trade out of the family hardware business, I saw the very thing happening you are refering to Constantin. HD/Lowes/et al started driving the manufacturers price points and even their business philosophy. Twenty years ago most manufacturers of items found in hardware stores ranging from coffee pots to lawnmowers, at least made some effort to design a decent life expectancy into their products. Then they started selling huge quantities of "stuff" to the big boxes. These stores soon became a very large percentage of the manufacturers sales. In many cases they represented 30-40 and 50% of a compnaies sales volume. The manufacturer had added production capacity, new plants, more personnel and more machinery to meet the demand from the big box customer and had become a slave to their demands.
Many found themselves in the situation of not being able to live with them and not being able to live without them.
But now they had invested in the afore mentioned improvements and were locked in. That's when a lot of manufacturer's started to drop quality and product life in order to maintain their profitablility. The big boxes then demanded automatic warranty replacement of failed products without the hassle of sending it back to the manufacturer for examination and/or repair. These programs were/are commonly called "list and destroy" by the hardware trade. The store simply lists the item as defective on their weekly order or other such document and gets credit for the replacement. The item doesn't have to be returned or repaired, just thrown away. Hmmmmmm, I wonder why our landfills are overflowing? It's great for the customer, saves costs for the big box but puts an enormous burden on the manufacturer to cut costs even further. HHHHmmmmmmm, I wonder why toasters and coffee pots are now made in China instead of here?
I remember attending trade shows in the 80's and hearing company after company tell the same story about getting on the big box tread mill and becoming their slave. A sales person that had been with State water heaters told me point blank that they along with every other manufacturer of residential water heaters had literally been forced into cheapening the composition of the glass lining in order to meet price points demanded by HD and Lowe's. In addition they had also demanded longer tank warrranty periods. In return the stores had "promised" XX percentage increase in sales. "It's cheaper to make a new one than try to build a good one" was the exact quote. This was from a vice president of sales and it stuck with me because it told me where the retail industry was headed.
The point of all this diatribe is that these kinds of decisions are predicated on the fact that the energy required to produce two or three cheap water heaters for example, is less expensive than the cost to make one that will last for 20-30 years. The same thought pattern prevails when I hear a homeowner say, "I'm only going to live in this house for 3-4 years, just put in the cheap one". Neither one of these should be a valid argument for a cheap product.
I have a feeling that the pendulum is about to start swinging the other way. We are well past the days of unlimited, cheap energy. Many people just don't realize it yet. We are well past the days when an inefficient product or a short lived product should even be available on the market. The long term costs in terms of resources and environment are too great to bear. The politicians, CEO's and most importantly, the American consumer, just haven't got the intestinal fortitude to face the music but the band is already playing. The fat lady is about to sing.0 -
Actually...
... nuclear power IS the one way to both reduce the amount of oil consumed, and reduce emissions from generating plants. Bit of a nasty waste disposal issue.
Coal is the other way. Smokestacks, though.
Both have their downsides. Anyone who imagines that windmills, solar panels & biofuels is going to make much of a dent in the electrical power scene hasn't really done much research into these technologies, and the power requirements of a modern industrial society.
Much of the recent increases in power cost is directly due to utilities burning oil & natural gas to operate the boilers. If you can't burn coal, or build & run nukes, the only other practical choice besides burning oil or gas is "lights out". To imagine that any jurisdiction in North America - or pretty much anywhere - can meet it's power needs with windmills, solar and biofuels is simply not rooted in reality, based on the current levels of the technology. Forget the house for a minute - look at the power requirements for an average sized factory, full of electric motors stopping & starting.
Want to save fuel in your vehicle? You can get about a 40% increase in fuel economy if you run a diesel instead of a gasoline engine. Do you run a diesel, Gene? If gov't cut the tax on diesel fuel and/or offered some help to offset the increased upfront cost of the engine itself, THAT would do a LOT to reduce oil requirements, right there.0 -
That list...
is sort of what I have tried to follow for years in many of my purchases.
Yes, you cannot find out all of the above, BUT you can make a difference in many, many ways.
I buy minimally from "Made in China" and try to not only shop locally but also buy from certain companies due to their policies.
For example, check out the way Saturn built their plant in Tenn. or how Honda builds most of their cars...here's two examples from the auto industry. My Civic was built in Ohio with parial recycled parts, gets 35 mpg on average, and has 172,000 miles on it...never broke down and has had minimal maintenance.
It takes a while to get in the routine and I'm certainly far from good at it...but slow constant improvement is the key to many things in life - including this one.
Want to have landfill space taken up? Recycle all of your cardboard...you'd be amazed at how much of your refuse is this stuff.
Look into compact fluorescent bulbs...one of man's best inventions of the last 10-15 years...what else can you buy that outlasts it's (candesant) replacement by 400% and uses 1/4 of the energy? They aren't very expensive anymore either...especially at HD! ;-)
I choose renewable energy to supply my house. The funding for a solar system was mostly wiped out so my dream of a 5K PV system on the roof is vanishing...PLEASE make it a total write-off!
We as a nation need to remember a word our leaders hardly ever use - conservation. Then we need to continue the pusuit of non-polluting methods...and until they can deal with the nucleur waste I don't like it. Anybody designing a rocket full of the stuff to shoot to the sun once a month or so? That's the only otpion I like - and I hope the sun doesn't get pissed about it!
Mother Earth will be here in a million years...will mankind?
Take Care, PJO0 -
Indeed, we are past the days of cheap energy.
There are about 5 billion people in China and India, just coming online with powered homes, autos, etc...
The only question I have is, do we want to compete with them for limited fossil fuels, or do we want to become the world leader in alternative energy?
In 2005 dollars, the US Govt spent $135 billion on the Apollo program, to put a man on the moon. What was that, about 10 years? So $13.5 billion/year.
The Federal spending on alternate energy research is $771 million/year.
The defense department budget is $420 billion/year.
Not to get political, here... but how about we stop trying to safeguard our oil supply (which requires an ever increasing military) and instead wean ourselves off oil.
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