there is just no winning solution for the eco-greenies out there for fue/cars...

[bull]

I belive folks buy these prius and other hybreds for a combo of the good gas milage and to get the free pass in the car-pool lane, if these folks were really gonna do their share for the sake of the planet they wouldn't drive to work and back alone but would participate in car-pools, but they are 90% of the time single occupent vehicles.

No, they don't do it for the gas mileage and the free pass in the carpool lane, they do it for the "holier-than-thou" factor you mentioned above. They do it so they can look down their noses at everyone who's not like them and hence, feel good about themselves. They feel like they're watching Jerry Springer from inside their cars every time they go to work or to the store... "Look at all these white trash rednecks driving around in their Earth-killing SUVs," they think. "And look at me. I'm doing my part, I'm saving the Earth, I'm conserving fuel and making the world safer for baby polar bears, penguins and little furry kittens. I am awesome! I am wonderful! I am Mother Earth's messiah!"

The extreme green movement works because it brings religious-style guilt to a group of Americans who have disproportioately abandoned conventional religions.

That's awesome. This is one of the most accurate and genius statements I've ever seen on this site. Bravo, Mike.

[Chad L. Magee]

You said above it could be filtered out of the water with the right equipment . As far as the landfill , why not just build another shopping mall on top of it like usual ?

Yes, they can be filtered out of water, but that cost alot of money to do on a large scale for a city.  Want to foot the bill with extra taxes?  A local town 50 miles from where I live has ground water contaminted with a very high level of nitrates (excessive fertilization farming with irrigated wells).  Another town has high levels of chromium due to a certain business dumping their unwanted heavy metal solutions directly down the drain.  Would you like to pay extra money to purify your water every time you use it (drinking, bathing and yes, even washing your car) from pollution problems if you know that the problem could have been easily prevented with a little common sense?  An average water softner can only do so much.......

As for the mall idea, yeah that might work, but what about years down the line when the building gets sold and someone else wants to develop the land.  Maybe the guy who sold the land told the new buyers about the unwanted materials under the building, maybe not.  Would you want your new house built upon that land without knowlege of the contamination?  (In the 1980s, entire US town had to be moved due to a toxic waste dump being buried underneath in the 1950-60s and then houses were built on top of it later on.)  Something similar happened locally to a old gas station when a guy built a storage building on top of the old fuel tanks without removing them, then he sold the property.  If the EPA gets wind that the land is contaminated by anything, the owner becomes responcible to fix the problem.  Would you want to be that guy?.....

Trust me, I am not an advid environmentalist, but I do have to deal with them occationally at work.  I just try to leave as soft a footprint upon the earth that I tread on (something that you learn being a chemist, especially if you have to handle extremely toxic/radioactive materials on a daily basis).  All of our laboratory unwanted materials must be processed according to EPA/NRC regulations, or the workplace gets shut down period and you get a nice fine.  Once you have to follow those sort of rules for a period of time at work, it follows into your own life to not pollute the space you live in as much as you can.  If I give you a good laugh at my long (and to some boring) responces on this topic, so be it as long as I am informing as I am entertaining..........

[hemihead]

I actually enjoy the information .

[hutch]

when you fill up your car with e85 you are taking away one year supply of grain from an adult some place in the world.  We are burning our fuel supply with this stupid idea.  Nothing wrong with looking at other ways to power a car but be real about it.  And dont force me to go along with it.

[bull]

when you fill up your car with e85 you are taking away one year supply of grain from an adult some place in the world. 

Well, that or the govt. is paying the farmer subsidies to either not produce it or let the stuff rot in a silo somewhere. If they would just let the stuff sit in those silos a little longer we'd have all sorts of ethanol to burn.

[bordin34]

Ford used to dump old lead based paint in the mountains around here from there old plant in Mahwah,NJ. It has caused birth defects to people living in the mountains and people who hunt and eat squirrels can only have 2 a week because of their high lead levels.

[Chad L. Magee]

Lead affects developing children (both born and unborn) more than adults, in that the metal interfers with the development of certain portions of the brain.  This effect was not known until the 1970s when scientists noticed a correlation between low IQ and lead paint in urban housing units.  Kids were eating the old paint chips because they tastes sweet like candy (much like antifreeze), so most paint manifactures have been trying to remove that additive when possible.  Lead can also have some health effects for adults, but it is the younger generation that is most at risk.  Leaded gasoline was a large environmental problem, and in an adverse way, still is.  Yes, the manifactures switched the gasoline at the pump over to unleaded blends more than twenty years ago.  But, if you go along major highways that were used during that time and take topsoil measurements, you will typically find a high concentration of lead present.  How did the lead get there?  Well, as the gasoline was burnt, the small lead particles were eventually pushed out in the exaust plume of the vehicle.  Over time, the lead particle settled down to the ground (heavier than air) and worked it way into the topsoil.  The problem with that is rainwater can move these particles into water supplies causing pollution.  That is the real reason why lead had to be removed from gasoline in the major supply.  Yes, you can still buy the lead additives for your car.  The difference between having a few cars do this vs. the entire country is pretty large.........

If I come off being a smartass in my posts, I am really not trying to be.  (My Ph.D. project targeted measuring cadmium, lead and mercury levels in the environment from compounds that I designed.)  This is stuff I have learned over the years while working on my research project and am just happy to be able to share the information with others.............

[hemihead]

Ok if greenies are so worried about pollution , how will they stop all the Volcanoes from erupting ? 

[Mike DC]

 
(Heh heh.  Glad you liked my theory about greenies, Bull!)

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


It's been pointed out that the ancient Romans used lead pipes for parts of their water supply.  They were getting increasingly lead-poisoned over time without realizing it.



In Missouri we've got the "Lead Belt" area where the numbers are pretty high in patches.  I think there's a combination of both natural and commerical (irresponsible) reasons for it.  There's been a real cleanup effort in more recent times, but I think it's one of those too-little/too-late cleanups after a lot of the damage is already done. 

My mother taught at a junior high school down in that area for one year back in the 1960s.  She didn't even know about the lead issue at the time, and she still came away saying there must have been something wrong with half the kids she taught.

     

[Chad L. Magee]

You can't stop the volcanos from erupting, but there have been some debate among the greenies about how to curb the gas releases from them (a pointless venture).  Sure, you could build a giant filtering unit (similar to a smokestack scrubber) for each one, but at what cost (who fits the bill?) and it still will not prevent an eruption from occurring (it might fall in, plug the volcano and lead to a much worse violent explosion).  Who would want to be one of the workers building the unit on site, dealing constantly with high heat and sulfur fumes?  I would not want to.  Volcanos greatly affect weather patterns, as one eruption back in 1815 (Mt.Tambora) lead to a non-summer event worldwide the next year, just by the release of the ash and gases. Another one in 1883 destroyed 2/3 of an island in the south pacific.  Granted, not all volcanos explode that violently, but they all release large amounts of gases and particles over time.  Overall, they have a larger impact on the environment than the automobile ever did in my opinion.......

As for the high lead content in Missouri, I sat in on a research presentation last year at MU whereby the team studies the effects of heavy metal contamination upon young crawfish (in cages) placed into different streams.  The results of this study have been published in scientific journals since then.  Basically, the main jest of the talk was that they found that a majority died along sections where high lead levels were present.  Their systems can not adapt very well to certain pollutants and that leads to their deaths.  So, you can use them to help indicate whether or not the stream is highly polluted or not before needing to run experimental lab tests costing extra $......

[hutch]

when you fill up your car with e85 you are taking away one year supply of grain from an adult some place in the world. 

Well, that or the govt. is paying the farmer subsidies to either not produce it or let the stuff rot in a silo somewhere. If they would just let the stuff sit in those silos a little longer we'd have all sorts of ethanol to burn.

Even if you get rid of all the UN and US Federal government involvment in farming, e85 is never going to offer the enegry trade off for the loss of food supply to the world.  Grain prices are going to go up as the demand increases and the supply goes down because of the amount of grain it takes to produce one gallon of e85.  its a political joke to think E85 is going to some how solve our energy problems.


e85 is never going to power the cars, trucks or planes of the world.  It is just going to make some people feel good about not using oil and cause the worlds food supply to go up in smoke.

[Mike DC]

Crude oil.  Gonna be on top of the vehicular transportation game for a long, long time. 

No matter how much environmental damage it's doing or how expensive it might get. 

 

[hemihead]

What about " Global Warming " ? It's 3 Degrees here today . With wind chill it's - 11  . In the 70's all the Tree Huggers cried about  " Global Cooling " and a new Ice Age . This all coming from scientists who get paid by grants from various sources . I guess they tell whoever writes the check what they want to hear then say " but more research is needed . It's all about keeping themselves employed .

[Chad L. Magee]

The global warming debate is one that will go on and on as long as someone has $ to fund study projects.  I, as a scientist, tend to be sceptible about a subject until proven results are presented.  The data that is out there on it so far is inconclusive in my eyes, as you can not judge all changes that have occurred in the past hundred years as totally man made (or on the flip side, totally nature made).  If someone can totally prove to me with 100% pure data with absolutely no errors that all global warming effects are caused by man, I will change my stance (but I am not holding my breath that it will happen soon).  While you can run simulations of simple reactions on a computer, that is not the same as what is happening out in the real world.  If you were to make a correct simulation taking in account everything that goes on (as some scientists believe they can), you would need a much longer lifetime to get it done right and it would only capture one time period that would have passed by the time you finished.  Mother nature works in cycles with deviations and we have not been on earth long enough to have a totally 100% accurate record of these for adjusting measured data.  Sure, you can take measurements of redwood trees and ice cores, but that is only going back thousands of years.  Some cycles might take much longer and we don't have any record of them.  Environmental scientists can make their best guesses or estimates on these cycles, but they are not facts, so everything based off of them must be taken with a grain of salt........ 

[Mike DC]

 

Well, we know for sure that the temps are climbing up enough to cause some real trouble in coming decades. 
And we know the rise seems to nicely match the growth of the industrial revolution.   


We can't say much past that. 
We dunno the causes, what to do about it, whether or not it's part of a much bigger planet fluctuation that would have happened on its own, etc.

[Brock Samson]

I saw a tv show awhile back that stated that there was a long period in the Dark Ages when the winters were unusually cold and long and the summers virtually non existant, they could tell by charting the growth patterns in tree rings. i forget the details or where i saw it but i don't doubt there have been unusually long hot summers as well... pre-industrial revolution...

[Mike DC]

We're just between ice ages right now by all scientific reckoning. 

But whether the "global warming" we're seeing right now is being caused by mankind or not, it's gonna screw us up pretty badly.  If the oceans rise like they seem to indicate now, that's gonna upset the world as we know it.  Squabbles over crude oil & religion & dictators are gonna look like small potatoes compared to the effects of displacing several billion people worldwide at the same time.

 

[hutch]

We're just between ice ages right now by all scientific reckoning. 

But whether the "global warming" we're seeing right now is being caused by mankind or not, it's gonna screw us up pretty badly.  If the oceans rise like they seem to indicate now, that's gonna upset the world as we know it.  Squabbles over crude oil & religion & dictators are gonna look like small potatoes compared to the effects of displacing several billion people worldwide at the same time.

 

They are telling us that the seas will rise in the next 100 years just as they have the last 100 years.   Land is washed away as part of a natural order of tides and rivers flowing.  Nothing can be done about it.

by a house a block from waterfront and your great,great grand kids will love you for it.

[Chad L. Magee]

If the coasts flood, then the population will have to move further inland, unless they want to do the Sealab 2000 thing or build a floating island.  Being a lifelong midwestener, I have never understood the quest many have on living right next to the sea.  I have been to the Alantic (stayed a week at Ocean City, Md two blocks from the beach), but was not that impressed with everything.  To me, I would prefer to be in a sea of wheat and sunflowers (Kansas).  I am a bit biased as I can't eat most seafood (allergies) and in OC, that was just about 95% of the eating places in the area I was staying.  I did find a cool 50s drivein that I practically visited for every meal.  Granted, I know most people would be board to death out in Kansas, but I prefer it.........

[Mike DC]

The seas really are on a path to rise at this point. 

I don't necessarily believe Al Gore or the extreme greenies on the issue, but I do believe Robert Ballard on the issue.   I saw him get asked about it last year at a talk he gave at a university.  Ballard very casually answered that it's gonna happen for sure. 

What really tripped me out was the way he answered it though ---  when responding, Ballard offered no real opinons or commentary past that.  No politics talk, no hydrocarbons & clean energy ideas, no scary rhetoric, no nothing.  He seemed totally uninterested in talking about why, how, who is to blame, or how to fight it.  He basically reacted as if he'd been asked whether the sun was gonna come up tomorrow morning.  The next things out of his mouth were starting to talk about the gradual effects that the sea level rise would have over the decades. 

 

[pettyfan43]

That's all well and good, except for the fact that the ice caps thaw and refreeze every year with the season change. This year, as the GLOBAL WARMING is threatening to do us all in, the Ice cap at the north pole was already at early march levels of freezing (by area and mass) in early JANUARY!!! In other words, it's a HELLUVA lot colder there this year.


To Al Gore 

Buncha HOOEY is what it is!

[hemihead]

I'm still waiting to see this Global Warming . It's an Ice Hell here today .

[last426]

[snip]  If someone can totally prove to me with 100% pure data with absolutely no errors that all global warming effects are caused by man, I will change my stance (but I am not holding my breath that it will happen soon).  [snip]

Until that statement you had me.  Are you sure that is what you wanted to say?  Kim

[Mike DC]

 
People can take any one (or several) statistics and prove anything they want to.  Temps say this, glaciers say that, etc.

But the net overall picture that has been forming over many years is pointing to the idea that the earth's climate is shifting.

 

[bull]

People can take any one (or several) statistics and prove anything they want to.  Temps say this, glaciers say that, etc.

But the net overall picture that has been forming over many years is pointing to the idea that the earth's climate is shifting.

 

... and has been since the beginning of time. The question becomes then how do some people on this planet become so arrogant as to attempt to drastically modify the lives of their fellow man based on information gathered whithin a perspective of time that is completely minute?