Saw this on Motor trend’s web site> found it interesting but it pretty much confirmed what i had already thought.
Crock or not, global warming is a problem for the automobile. Eco-warriors love to blame cars and trucks for destroying the planet. Politicians love the auto industry as a soft target for laws that boost their own environmental credentials. Some sections of the media would have us believe the skies will be bluer, the grass greener, and polar bears will be back lounging on their ice floes the moment we stop building Hummers.
There’s no question the automobile is part of the global warming debate - greenhouse gases are an inevitable by-product of the burning of fossil fuels, and almost every car and truck on the road is powered by fossil fuel, be it gasoline or diesel. But is it really the bad guy here?
I’ve just spent a few hours looking over a document titled Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990-2006. Not exactly bedtime reading (unless you want to get to sleep quickly) and in places only marginally more intelligible than Stephen Hawkings’ A Brief History of Time. But it does have a couple of charts even I could understand.
One showed the total amount of CO2 produced in the U.S. in 2006. It also showed the various sources of that CO2. Transportation accounted for about 30 percent of total CO2 produced, but if you read the text nearby, you'll discover that 60 percent of that 30 percent is directly attributable to privately owned cars and light duty trucks.
In other words, the cars and trucks you and I drive every day account for just 18 percent of all the CO2 dumped into the atmosphere here in the U.S.
That's still a reasonable chunk of CO2. But it's a long way behind the main offender - electricity generation. Fossil fuel power stations - coal, gas - account for just under 40 percent of total CO2 emissions in the U.S.
So here's where I get a little confused. The government has mandated the auto industry cuts CO2 emissions 30 percent by 2020. That's a 30 percent reduction of 18 percent of the problem. What are we doing about the rest?
I don’t know. I take just the opposite from that. I would have expected the impact of private vehicles to be way less than 18%. That says that the government mandate will reduce our total emissions by 6%. That seems huge to me, and very much worthwhile.
Granted, as long as they’re not just turning a blind eye to power generation.
Where do you see an effort towards the largest “polluters” happening?
We won’t agree to kyoto, and I don’t see any american plan to replace / compete with it.
6% is good…
Imagine if the money & marketing was aimed at the largest sectors.
6% of 100 = 6.
6% of 5000 = 300.
Sure it would cost more, (and bring more 3rd parties into the R&D process, creating more jobs / business / competition / premiums, but who cares about that right?), so lets say for the same price you can only reduce it by 1%…
Make believe numbers:
$10 million = 6% of 100, which is 6 tons
$10 million = 1% of 5000, which is 50 tons.
everyone will be singing a different tune if government shifted their attention to fossil fuel burning power plants when that cost is passed to the customer and you see the increases in your electric bill. i would rather deal with owning a fuel efficient vehicle.
I have no idea. but you also have to consider it would cripple the coal industry which provides many people in this country with jobs…including myself.
US President George W Bush continues to boycott the protocol. But the United States, the biggest polluter, agreed at a UN conference in December in Bali to take part in negotiations on drafting Kyoto’s successor by the end of 2009.
– The G20 emits almost 20 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, or about 78 percent of global emissions. G8 nations contribute 45 percent of this, other members contribute 33 percent.
– The U.S. (23 percent) and China (16 percent) are the G20’s greatest individual emitters.
yes but once they are built, then what? there is enough coal in the ground to outlast well beyond my lifetime. i know im being selfish here, but let the bleeding hearts focus on automobiles. its not going to kill the car industry, and i can care less if the masses dont get to drive gas guzzling trucks.
Don’t worry, we are switching to those mercury containing light bulbs.
It’s all good, we will save tons of energy.
Oh, by the way, the EPA just announced that if you break one of those mercury containing lights on your carpet, you should cut the carpet out and dispose of it properly.
We’re not going to fix these problems, we are going to act like we care.
The only reason I am slightly motivated to make a car that gets 100mpg(could easily be accomplished) and up, is because gas is getting relatively expensive, but you know what, FUCK IT, I can afford it and I’d rather try and pollute so much that this planet is forced to kill us all off.
We are people, WE SUCK, I’m trying to destroy the ozone because I want to die knowing this planet will continue on without human beings. Hopefully some normal type of life will adapt and live on, as long as it’s not people.