Sound logic on gas prices

[Brucelee]

BTW- for all of you who are ready to torch your Boxster and turn over a new leaf (think of how the greens will love you!), here is a list to select your next car from!

Enjoy!

:dance:

Top 10 Passenger Cars for Fuel Economy

No organization tests every vehicle's fuel economy in real-world driving. The challenge of obtaining every vehicle early in the model year, then driving them all over a specific route under identical conditions, is insurmountable. Therefore, we have to rely on Environmental Protection Agency estimates. While you can't expect your vehicle to get the exact mpg figures supplied by the EPA, mileage estimates do let you compare vehicles.


Cars.com Top 10: Most Fuel-Efficient Passenger Cars for 2005
According to Environmental Protection Agency estimates, the following passenger cars are likely to deliver the best gas mileage. They're listed in order of anticipated fuel economy (city), starting with the most miserly.


Vehicle Name MPG (City/Hwy)* List Price
Honda Insight 61/66 TBA
Toyota Prius 60/51 $20,875
Honda Civic Hybrid 48/47 $19,800
Volkswagen Golf 38/46 $15,830 - $19,580
Volkswagen Jetta 38/46 $17,680 - $24,070
Volkswagen New Beetle 38/46 $16,570 - $25,450
Honda Civic 36/44 $13,160 - $19,800
Toyota Echo 35/42 $10,355 - $10,885
Toyota Corolla 32/41 $13,680 - $17,455
Scion xA 32/37 $12,480

[Perfectlap]

China has very low emissions standards vs. the West.
And foreign automakers are only too happy to oblige.
Imagine a country three times the US in population with cars three times more toxic to the environment? Zero effect on the planet? I don't think so.
Even conservatives from industrial backgrounds like Paul O'Neill pressured the current adminstration to do SOMETHING about global warming.
But like all other fiscal responsibilities we prefer to do nothing and continue on our merry way. We have become very short sighted. Hopefully this gas situation will change some things.
btw, I've been living up here in the Northeast my entire life and I and people much older than me can tell you we don't have winters consistently like we used to. In only 25 years things have changed from what they always used to be.

[Brucelee]

"China has very low emissions standards vs. the West.
And foreign automakers are only too happy to oblige."

Do you suggest that car makers not sell to the Chinese? Why not? If you were an investor in any car company, would you want them to not sell to China?

Do you suggest that the USA set emissions standard for the rest of the world?


"Imagine a country three times the US in population with cars three times more toxic to the environment? Zero effect on the planet? I don't think so."

What is the effect on the planet? Where is your science and what would you do about if you WERE correct?


"Even conservatives from industrial backgrounds like Paul O'Neill pressured the current adminstration to do SOMETHING about global warming. "

Paul O'Neill is an economist, not a chemist or biologist. What would you have the USA do about global warming when there is no agreement among the scientific community that there is such a thing?


"But like all other fiscal responsibilities we prefer to do nothing and continue on our merry way. We have become very short sighted. "

When was it that WE were not short sighted? Would you go back to the 60s when we had NO EMISSIONS standards at all? Were we long sighted then?

"Hopefully this gas situation will change some things."

Yes, it will. The market will adapt. Folks behavior will change as it is always changing. Do you think buying habits will remain the same if gas reaches $4.00 per gallon. I don't. Folks respond to prices and incentives. Likewise, at $70 a barrell, oil companies will start drilling more marginal fields, ASSUMING the government will allow them too!



"btw, I've been living up here in the Northeast my entire life and I and people much older than me can tell you we don't have winters consistently like we used to. In only 25 years things have changed from what they always used to be.[/QUOTE]"

This is total crap science. Two years ago, NE had it worst winter ON RECORD. Record cold and snow. If the planet were warming up, how did this happen? I lived in NE for 25 yrs too and the winters were all farily variable. Climate science does not rely on one's own memory.

Last winter, San Diego had awful weather. It means nothing from a climate perspective, which is measured in 100 years chunks.

[Palmer]

I really don't want to get involved in this discussion, but I am curious about something Brucelee said. "The recent data suggest the polar ice caps are getting thicker". Do you have a citation for this? I'm just curious.

[Brucelee]

I will try to find that cite.

Thanks

[Brucelee]

See the reference to Antarctica,


Global Warming Doubt Dispelled? Not Really
Friday, August 19, 2005
By Steven Milloy

Is the debate now over for skeptics of global warming hysteria? Readers of USA Today may certainly have that impression.

“Satellite and weather-balloon research released today removes a last bastion of scientific doubt about global warming, researchers say,” reported USA Today on Aug.12.

Certainly the USA Today report was partially correct – the researchers did, in fact, “say” [read “claim”] that “the last bastion of scientific doubt” had been removed. But claims and reality often don’t match up.

Three papers published in the journal Science last week purport to debunk an important argument advanced by skeptics of the notion of catastrophic, manmade global warming. The skeptics’ argument is that while temperatures measured on the Earth’s surface seem to indicate that global temperatures have increased at a rate of about 0.20 degrees Centigrade per decade (deg. C/decade) since the 1970s, temperatures measured in the atmosphere by satellite and weather balloons have shown only a relatively insignificant amount of warming for the same time period (about 0.09 deg. C/decade).

The implication of the skeptics’ argument is that whatever warming seems to be happening on the Earth’s surface, similar warming isn’t happening in the atmosphere. This might mean that any observed surface warming is more likely due to the urban heat island effect -- where the heat-retaining properties of concrete and asphalt in urban areas artificially increase local temperatures -- rather than increasing atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

One of the new Science studies reported that the satellites had drifted in orbit, causing errors in temperature measurement. Corrections to the satellite data, according to the researchers, would increase the atmospheric warming estimate to 0.19 deg. C/decade -- more in line with the 0.20 deg. C/decade warming of the Earth’s surface. Another study reported that heating from tropical sunlight had skewed the balloon temperature measurements.

Ben Santer of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the studies’ authors, told USA Today that, “Once corrected, the satellite and balloon temperatures align with other surface and upper atmosphere measures, as well as climate change models.”

So is it really game-set-match in favor of the global warming alarmists? Not so fast, say the skeptics.

When University of Alabama-Huntsville researcher Roy Spencer, a prominent climatologist, factored the newly reported corrections into his calculations, his estimate of atmospheric warming was only 0.12 deg. C/decade -- higher than the prior estimate of 0.09 deg. C/decade, but well below the Science study estimate of 0.19 deg C/decade and the surface temperature estimate of 0.20 deg. C/decade.

As to the claimed errors in the weather balloon measurements, Spencer says that no other effort to adjust the balloon data has produced warming estimates as high as those reported in the new study and that it will take time for the research community to form opinions about whether the new adjustments advocated are justified.

Climate expert Dr. Fred Singer of the Science and Environmental Policy Project says the temperature adjustments are “not a big deal.”

“Greenhouse theory says (and the models calculate) that the atmospheric trend should be 30 percent greater than the surface trend -- and it isn’t,” says Singer. “Furthermore, the models predict that polar [temperature] trends should greatly exceed the tropical values -- and they clearly don’t ... In fact, the Antarctic has been cooling,” adds Singer.
Singer also had some related thoughts concerning the gloom-and-doom forecasts concerning future temperatures.

Last January, a study in the journal Nature estimated that a doubling of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide would increase global temperatures anywhere from 1.9 degrees Centigrade to 11.5 degrees Centigrade by mid-century. But Singer says the researchers “varied only six out of many more parameters necessary to model clouds… Their result confirms… that clouds are still too difficult to model and that climate models underlying the Kyoto Protocol have never been validated.”
So it’s far from “case-closed” on global warming skepticism. Moreover, aside from the controversy over the satellite and weather balloon data, many key climate questions remain unanswered including: whether humans are causing significant warming; whether warming is undesirable; and whether anything be done to avert any undesirable warming.Because of its prohibitive costs, alarm over global warming has been rejected numerous times by President Bush and the U.S. Senate. European nations are already discovering that their economies can’t live with the Kyoto Protocol that was just implemented in February.

Despite alarmist media reports, global warming-mania is melting. It’s no wonder the alarmists are in such a hurry to close the book on the science.

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRwatch.com, is adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and is the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).

[Brucelee]

More!


Science Has Spoken:
Global Warming Is a Myth
by Arthur B. Robinson and Zachary W. Robinson
Copyright 1997 Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
Reprinted with permission of Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
The Wall Street Journal (December 4, 1997)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Political leaders are gathered in Kyoto, Japan, working away on an international treaty to stop "global warming" by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The debate over how much to cut emissions has at times been heated--but the entire enterprise is futile or worse. For there is not a shred of persuasive evidence that humans have been responsible for increasing global temperatures. What's more, carbon dioxide emissions have actually been a boon for the environment.

The myth of "global warming" starts with an accurate observation: The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising. It is now about 360 parts per million, vs. 290 at the beginning of the 20th century, Reasonable estimates indicate that it may eventually rise as high as 600 parts per million. This rise probably results from human burning of coal, oil and natural gas, although this is not certain. Earth's oceans and land hold some 50 times as much carbon dioxide as is in the atmosphere, and movement between these reservoirs of carbon dioxide is poorly understood. The observed rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide does correspond with the time of human release and equals about half of the amount released.

Carbon dioxide, water, and a few other substances are "greenhouse gases." For reasons predictable from their physics and chemistry, they tend to admit more solar energy into the atmosphere than they allow to escape. Actually, things are not so simple as this, since these substances interact among themselves and with other aspects of the atmosphere in complex ways that are not well understood. Still, it was reasonable to hypothesize that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels might cause atmospheric temperatures to rise. Some people predicted "global warming," which has come to mean extreme greenhouse warming of the atmosphere leading to catastrophic environmental consequences.

Careful Tests

The global-warming hypothesis, however, is no longer tenable. Scientists have been able to test it carefully, and it does not hold up. During the past 50 years, as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen, scientists have made precise measurements of atmospheric temperature. These measurements have definitively shown that major atmospheric greenhouse warming of the atmosphere is not occurring and is unlikely ever to occur.

The temperature of the atmosphere fluctuates over a wide range, the result of solar activity and other influences. During the past 3,000 years, there have been five extended periods when it was distinctly warmer than today. One of the two coldest periods, known as the Little Ice Age, occurred 300 years ago. Atmospheric temperatures have been rising from that low for the past 300 years, but remain below the 3,000-year average.



Why are temperatures rising? The first chart nearby shows temperatures during the past 250 years, relative to the mean temperature for 1951-70. The same chart shows the length of the solar magnetic cycle during the same period. Close correlation between these two parameters--the shorter the solar cycle (and hence the more active the sun), the higher the temperature--demonstrates, as do other studies, that the gradual warming since the Little Ice Age and the large fluctuations during that warming have been caused by changes in solar activity.
The highest temperatures during this period occurred in about 1940. During the past 20 years, atmospheric temperatures have actually tended to go down, as shown in the second chart, based on very reliable satellite data, which have been confirmed by measurements from weather balloons.
Consider what this means for the global-warming hypothesis. This hypothesis predicts that global temperatures will rise significantly, indeed catastrophically, if atmospheric carbon dioxide rises. Most of the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has occurred during the past 50 years, and the increase has continued during the past 20 years. Yet there has been no significant increase in atmospheric temperature during those 50 years, and during the 20 years with the highest carbon dioxide levels, temperatures have decreased.

In science, the ultimate test is the process of experiment. If a hypothesis fails the experimental test, it must be discarded. Therefore, the scientific method requires that the global warming hypothesis be rejected.

Why, then, is there continuing scientific interest in "global warming"? There is a field of inquiry in which scientists are using computers to try to predict the weather--even global weather over very long periods. But global weather is so complicated that current data and computer methods are insufficient to make such predictions. Although it is reasonable to hope that these methods will eventually become useful, for now computer climate models are very unreliable. The second chart shows predicted temperatures for the past 20 years, based on the computer models. It's not surprising that they should have turned out wrong--after all the weatherman still has difficulty predicting local weather even for a few days. Long-term global predictions are beyond current capabilities.

So we needn't worry about human use of hydrocarbons warming the Earth. We also needn't worry about environmental calamities, even if the current, natural warming trend continues: After all the Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without ill effects.

But we should worry about the effects of the hydrocarbon rationing being proposed at Kyoto. Hydrocarbon use has major environmental benefits. A great deal of research has shown that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permit plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also increases.
Standing timber in the United States has already increased by 30% since 1950. There are now 60 tons of timber for every American. Tree-ring studies further confirm this spectacular increase in tree growth rates. It has also been found that mature Amazonian rain forests are increasing in biomass at about two tons per acre per year. A composite of 279 research studies predicts that overall plant growth rates will ultimately double as carbon dioxide increases.

Lush Environment

What mankind is doing is moving hydrocarbons from below ground and turning them into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with twice as much plant and animal life as that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the industrial revolution.

Hydrocarbons are needed to feed and lift from poverty vast numbers of people across the globe. This can eventually allow all human beings to live long, prosperous, healthy, productive lives. No other single technological factor is more important to the increase in the quality, length and quantity of human life than the continued, expanded and unrationed use of the Earth's hydrocarbons, of which we have proven reserves to last more than 1,000 years. Global warming is a myth. The reality is that global poverty and death would be the result of Kyoto's rationing of hydrocarbons.

Arthur Robinson and Zachary Robinson are chemists at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

"

This is total crap science. Two years ago, NE had it worst winter ON RECORD. Record cold and snow. If the planet were warming up, how did this happen? I lived in NE for 25 yrs too and the winters were all farily variable. Climate science does not rely on one's own memory.

Last winter, San Diego had awful weather. It means nothing from a climate perspective, which is measured in 100 years chunks.

1.We do set emissions standards for the world. (As well as the EU).
The Chinese measure how far behind the west they are on emissions standards
by the example we set. While Europe is on Euro 5 standards, China is still trying to adapt to Euro 2.
2. OK I have no scientific evidence to suggest that a country 3x's the USA with cars 3x's more toxic is hurting the environment. conclusion: the abscence of evidence means there are no negative effects to the enviroment. Just because you can't produce irefutable evidence doesn't mean there isn't damage. Find me a single field of science where that community is unanimous? Cancer?
3. Paul O'Neill aside from being an economist is also the former and long serving CEO of a Alcoa, a company that had minimizing pollution and toxic waste as a corporate responsibility. Has he (a cabinet member of several U.S. Presidents) also been duped by Greens on the reality of Global warming errr "Global climate change"? If so then I don't feel so bad because I'm not as smart as he is.
4. Short sighted? We've done more to compromise the fiscal and eviromental future of this country in the last 20 years than the previous 200 years of this country existence COMBINED. Pick up 'Running on Empty' by Pete Petersen, a conservative afterall.
5. LONGTERM Higher Gas prices = INFLATION. hold onto your hat Mr. Bush.
You're about to know what Mr. Carter felt like back in 70's.
6. I said CONSISTENT weather. Erratic weather patterns where one winter is the worst on record while the previous winter is the mildest, has never been the norm up here.

BTW, Gas hit $3.50 a gallon for 93 this morning at my local gas station. On Tuesday it was $2.75

[Brucelee]

1.We do set emissions standards for the world. (As well as the EU).

The Chinese measure how far behind the west they are on emissions standards
by the example we set. While Europe is on Euro 5 standards, China is still trying to adapt to Euro 2.

Clearly we do not SET standards for the Chinese, they have CHOSEN to follow other standards. That is there choice, which it seems to me should aleviate concerns about their buying all those "dirty cars."

"2. OK I have no scientific evidence to suggest that a country 3x's the USA with cars 3x's more toxic is hurting the environment. conclusion: the abscence of evidence means there are no negative effects to the enviroment. Just because you can produce irefutable evidence doesn't mean there isn't damage. Find me a single field of science where that community is unanimous? Cancer? "


Go back to the point you made earlier. If the Chinese are choosing to move their emissions standards up voluntarily, then this so called TOXIC impact on its air quality will be mitigated.

Still, you do not offer up what you would do to deal with these Chinese calamity that you predict? Will you not allow Chinese citizens to purchase cars? Will you not allow car manufacturers to sell cars in China?

What do you propose?

"3. Paul O'Neill aside from being an economist is also the former and long serving CEO of a Alcoa, a company that had minimizing pollution and toxic waste as a corporate responsibility. Has he (a cabinet member of several U.S. Presidents) also been duped by Greens on the reality of Global warming errr "Global climate change"? If so then I don't feel so bad because I'm not as smart as he is."

So, you think Paul O'Neill is smart and he believes in Global warming, so ergo, it must be true? Interesting logic. I guess his opinion is worth more than the temperature readings in the atmosphere and the measurements of the polar ice caps.

Think of all the work we will save for those climate guys now. Paul has spoken!

"4. Short sighted? We've done more to compromise the fiscal and eviromental future of this country in the last 20 years than the previous 200 years of this country existence COMBINED. Pick up 'Running on Empty' by Pete Petersen, a conservative."

Who is this WE that you speak of and what criteria do you use. By all objective measures (many of which I have posted here) significant progress has been made in reducing ALL FORMS of pollutants here in the USA.

I guess you will need to fill me in on this.

"5. Higher Gas prices = INFLATION. hold onto your hat Mr. Bush.
You're about to know what Mr. Carter felt like back in 70's."

As President of the US, what would YOU DO to "control" the price of oil and gasoline? How would YOU increase supply of oil and gas IN THE SHORT RUN?

How much SHOULD gas cost in the US and why?

Oh, and comparing the US economy of 2005 and the 1970s is a complete joke. I won't bore you with the DATA but the inflation rates and interest rates approached 15%. Unemployment up etc etc.

Not a fun time and we have come a long long way.

To wit, today we found out the economy added 146K jobs last month and the unemployment rates dropped to 4.9%

Ah, data, get some!



__________________

[slogans7]

Hi Bruce - Actually I was attempting to be a little ironic in referencing Carter. I cited his speach because he had the balls - or temerity, if you will - to ask Americans to sacrifice.

[Brucelee]

I understand. I really like Jimmy as a man but boy did we suffer when he was our leader.

I think sacrifice is fine in the right context. I do it myself from time to time just to keep in practice!!!!!!

Originally Posted by slogans7

Hi Bruce - Actually I was attempting to be a little ironic in referencing Carter. I cited his speach because he had the balls - or temerity, if you will - to ask Americans to sacrifice.

[Pilot2519j]

The country has been without an Energy Plan since the Arab embargo's fo the 70's that is the fact. Reasons largely determined by the environmental attitudes of conserving everything pristine and not in my backyard so on and so forth. Here we are over 30 yrs later in the same boat in which we are being price gouge now if there is storm in the ocean! Is there any politician going to go and want more refinaries built or breeder reactors, I don't think so they have no cojones!
As far as the unions and competition there is not an even fight. Japanese car builders have a huge dollar advantage over american costs of production. Therefore either quotas which I dont like but if you levy a big tariff make them more expensive as they do in Japan that should level the field. This open market pollicy we have here is going to destroy every work sector of this country. I called to ask for an additional card from JC Penney I ended up in India! You mean to tell me that there no Americans capable of answering phones now? Yet, Palm, HP and a bunch of other companies have outsource the work abroad. Goods like shirts, pants,sneakers and dresses are all made in third world countries with no child labor laws exists, no OSHA, no EPA more important no wishy washy politicians. Tariff them to death as far as I am concerned look what at happened to Van Heusen, Hathaway, all brands of American shirt makers there all gone. In a few years all of us will be paper shufflers. The per capita income of this country is going down the tubes for because of this. I find globalization a fancy word of taking the US to the third world status. We sit on the biggest deposit of coal in the world lets use it come up with the technology to liquify the coal as cost effective as possible! If this is just mentioned as a plan you will see plummeting energy costs. We have let them strangle us we are the ones that are stupid. I dont see any arab saying no to more petrodollars.