Check this article out. Give me a break already people!
These GREEN people need educated.

http://green.yahoo.com/blog/climate4...ur-engine.html

 

How about writing something to explain your position? You can complain but if you don't a plan to solve this issue, then what good is the post? Just curious.

 

guess I'll be the first to call them out...

green is just a color

 

thats dumb. i like getting into a cool truck in the summer and a warm one in the winter!! if i shut it off all the time ill be forced to drive with the windows down in the summer to get all the hot air out, which has been proven on mythbusters to cause worse fuel milage thus hurting mother nature more!!

brett

 

It's simply the time honored tradition of "aim for the easiest target". The average Joe will read an article like that and nod the entire time. Do some people idle excessively, of course. Is it KILLING people like the article suggests...um...no. The insinuation is paramount blaming the invention of the wheel for traffic accidents. While the "green" contingent is on a campaign to single out every little tiny instance to glom onto and bring to popular knowledge, we got big oil making historic profits at the same time oil hits historic highs. Is there another industry on this planet that does better when their "product" reaches epic levels of wallet bashing? The short answer is no.

I would challenge the "green" contingent that if they want a real story and make a real difference then instead of doing "idle" studies they should look into big oil contributions to the political machine and the relevant incidence of lack of regulation and accountability displayed shamelessly in front of us everyday. If we are gonna pay record high prices then the seller should also be recording record low profits. This is price gouging on a national scale and all the companies can do with the additional profits is put it in there pockets. I wouldn't mind paying $3.50 for a gallon of diesel if the oil companies were forced to invest and research in alternative fuel sources. Oil companies are doing this to some degree, but that effort is so anemic that it's little more than a sideshow so they can make feel-good-Green-TV-adds. This country and her politicians are run by oil companies and anyone who thinks different is just plain ignoring the facts. We are addicted to oil and the pusher is driving the prices up...simply....because he can.

So my thoughts on the article are simple, pick a harder target.

 

you could ride your bike to work, like al gore suggests, while him and the rest of the united nation bozos fly their personal jets to bali for the global warming conference. bali could not hold all the jets!! they had to drop off their passengers , then fly and park the empty jets on another island!! i'll continue to live my life the way i want- just like the rest of the hypocrites.

 

if theyre so worried about the environment they should find solutions and not just point out the problems. Diesel engines can run off vegetable oil and not pollute nearly as much but i dont see them looking for ways to effectively process the oil or look for resources to get the oil. Brazil is selling ethanol for $1 a gallon which is a zero carbon renewable energy source which means the carbon emissions from burning are offset by the carbon extracted from the atmosphere by the growing sugar plant in sunlight. But they arnt saying anything to the government to get Brazil's ethanol over here. These writers are beating a dead horse and they think they have rediscovered something when they do a study on some ******* school busses. Everyone knows burning fossil fuels is bad for the environment. Tell us something new.

 

I think it's a matter of "baby steps". We can't ween ourselves off oil in a day and stop producing harmful CFC's. However, we could convert to renewable energy, cut our leash to the middle east freekin oil. We would be producing less emissions and we could control our own destiny instead of being slaves to the oil rich sands of the god forsaken desert. THEN, we could work on cutting emissions further, and helping ourselves and the environment.

However, these "baby steps" apparently are so unbelievably difficult that I fear we will run headlong into a severe energy crisis before we do something about it. We have and have had the technology to do something about it for years now, but that wouldn't be very profitable for the oil companies now would it?

So why don't the oil companies just invest in these renewable technologies and make tons of money that way? Well the answer is simple. It takes billions of dollars to prospect/drill/procure oil. It takes HUGE resources to obtain oil from 20,000 feet under the ground. Any dope can grow corn or Sugar Cain. See the problem? Once we go renewable, big oil looses it's monopoly. Therefore, it won't happen until it's probably too late. I hope I'm wrong, but greed is driving this bus and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

 

our economy and the rest of the industrialized world's economies is petroleum based. it will be a long, long, long time before that changes. we have hundreds of years of untapped oil in our own country that were are not allowed to touch!! while, third world countries, like brazil, mexico,etc continue to explore and drill for oil!!!

 

While what you say is mostly true, there are other factors. Oil is only a viable resource as long as it's profitable to procure. Oil is becoming more and more costly to get out of the ground and into the fuel tanks. Anymore the prospective oil reserve in the ground has to be bigger and bigger to make it profitable. If the amount of oil is too low in one spot it will cost too much to get it out for what it costs to prospect and drill for it. They do some exotic things now like injecting gasses into the oil rich rock to get some of the left over oil out that clings to the porous rock. They drill deeper and deeper. However when you get around 30,000 feet or so the oil gases off due to high temperatures at such a deep level. So it's true that we won't "run out" of oil for a long time, it will take more energy and resources to get at it then it produces. If it takes 1.1 gallons of petroleum to extract 1 gal from the ground, it's no longer viable. In fact it becomes non viable long before that. That ratio is getting closer and closer all the time. Besides it will take a long long time to fully and effectively convert from a petroleum based society to alternatives such as wind/plant/solar etc. If we don't change over until we are forced to...it will already be too late for many people. The energy crisis has started, we are just in the very early stages of it. How far will it go before we do something? Not to mention the effect on the environment.

 

Interesting how the focus always seems to be on Big Bad Oil profits - about 8 cents per gallon last time I checked (that'd be ~ two and a half percent profit for those of you in Rio Linda) - instead of our government's take, which is typically in the 40-50 cent/gallon range.

Perhaps our beloved politicians would feel our pain at the pump and ease our fuel tax burden - or God forbid - stop spending quite so much of our hard earned $$$ on social welfare?

It doesn't take an economics rocket scientist to realize that if the energy companies stop making money, they will shortly thereafter stop providing their product... energy!
Wonder what the folks in OK who STILL don't have their electricity back on are thinking about going GREEN?

 

I just don't like the GREEN people who knock diesel vehicles. They have the same excuses, diesels are loud, diesel stink, diesels cause allergies blah, blah, blah.
But instead they push Ethanol which even if the whole world tried we couldnt provide anywhere the quanity of fuel that would be needed.
They are also now trying to push hydrogen, which in my eyes is a bad idea because it has already been used in the past and it has literaly blown up in their faces, the hindenburg and the hydrogen bomb are two big ones that come to mind.
Also, (copied from a site)
The wide flammability range, 4% to 74% in air, and the small amount of energy required for ignition necessitate special handling to prevent the inadvertent mixing of hydrogen with air. Care should be taken to eliminate sources of ignition, such as sparks from electrical equipment, static electricity sparks, open flames or any extremely hot objects. Hydrogen and air mixtures within the flammable range can explode and may burn with a pale blue, almost invisible flame.

Instead they should be concentrating on different ways to make biodiesel, such as coal into diesel, used oil, new oil, waste and so on.
The biggest thing in that article that gets me is when they say:
"Besides contributing to global warming, diesel engine emissions can cause a host of health problems: asthma attacks, impaired lung function, heart problems, and even death"
COME ON PEOPLE, what do you think gasoline engines have been doing for 100 years now! And anyways I always read that a diesel produces less emissions than a gasoline vehicle, and that the actual diesel "soot" isnt an airborne gas instead it falls to the ground and just gets washed away.
I dont know. Maybe instead of trying to make the latest and greatest in fuels, people should concentrate in taking the waste products we have and making fuels from that.
I am always getting into this arguement with my sister-in-law who is a supposed "greenie". She sits and talks about hybrids and hydrogen, and I just look at her and ask her how much of her piece of junk 1992 Jeep cherokee (which doesnt even have to take emissions anymore because it to old) runs on batteries or hydrogen, and then she gets mad and tells me that she cant afford a hybrid. I just tell her at least I am trying by using biodiesel, and trying to become less dependant of foreign oil.
To top it off, there are people who actually go to the extent to collect used oil and makee their own biodiesel and then get pooped on because they arent paying a road tax for it. I don't understand that if you arent making a profit on it and not hurting anyone why they can do this. For example, in Illinois where I live, you were able to make 400 gallons of bio a year without any tax. Our wonderful govenor decided that wasnt good enough so now he has passed a bill that if a person makes ANY bio you will now have to pay a road tax, or be audited and possibly arrested.
Done with rant.

 

no joke, while I was in school, a hippie girl approached me, took one look at my truck and said "I bet that thing gets terrible gas milage"

I said "it don't run on gas"

even if it did it would be better than your VW bus

 

no new refineries built in this country for 30 years-"mostly" due to regulations, created by certain politicians and organizations. the permit process takes something like 10-15 years to get approval-due nobody wanting it in their back yards, it will hurt the environment, it will kill the green spotted grasshopper,etc,etc
plenty of oil sitting in this country that could be drilled-but can't be
montana has tried the last couple of years to start the process to start making "synthetic" diesel by crushing coal (something like that) but that was stopped by tree huggers,etc
nobody wants clean burning coal plants
organizations out their that won't let nuclear plants to be built
there are companies coming into my area where i live wanting to put up wind farms-people are complaining about birds will die by flying into the blades. they say the hum from the blades will be too loud!
my point???? no matter what type of energy you come up with, you will be meant with a large opposition-mainly with their own agenda-until the people of this country grow a set and vote in the right people in government to do what needs to be done- the right way, the smart way and what is best for this country and the people-we'll continue to watch the third world countries (india,china) continue to grow their economies, while ours suffers!!

 

you can't see me or hear me but i am standing and applauding this post!