2007 LA Auto Show: Freedom From Oil puts on their own show

I love lawsuits. phhf.
 
all these grassroots folk should put down whatever their smoking get togther and start a company making these fuel efficent cars.
 
Be PRODUCTIVE. instead of DESTRUCTIVE. Do something, instead of sitting back, while some money sucking lawyer makes everything more expensive.
 
These people are blow hards that are not part of the solution. If they wanted to. They could. higher a bunch of engineers. Open up a company and make these cars they dream of.
 
But no its easier to sue someone then to actually have an orginal idea.
 
As someone with an engineering background these folks drive me up the wall. Its like sales people and marketing:
 
They promise the world then turn around and tell you: hey can this be done? or Just do it.
 
Let me just pull out my unobtainium and build it for you.

Ah, if only I were back home in LA right now I'd love to go over and ask those guys what caused the glaciers to melt in all the thousands of years after the end of the ice age but before cars arrived on the scene. I wonder if I'd get blank stares, weeping as their entire dogma came crashing down around them in one fell swoop, angry denial, or exploding heads.

I was on a cruise to Alaska last spring and saw a number of glaciers. All of them came with a presentation how when they were first discovered they came right down to the sea. Now they have retreated far up the fiord.
 
What I found most interesting is the detailed graphes of the retreats. It's been happening at an average steady rate for the past 300 years. Sometimes they would retreat fast for a decade or so and sometimes they would grow but the overall trend was a steady retreat.
 
Right now they were in a fast retreat and this is small bit of data that the eco-scientist have chosen to study. (it's called data mining, taking the small bits you want and ignoring all the rest).
 
The earth may be in a slow warming trend but it isn't the fault of SUV's.

what global warming people are doing is projecting. Lets try it with the stock market. I'll give you 30 secs of data from which you can base the next 5 years on. Would you play with those odds?

Atmospheric scientists have 800,000 years of very comprehensive data, and millions of years of somewhat vague data. And unlike the stock market, it's all based on things that make sense.

I may not agree with Freedom From Oil, but they are doing something constructive with their demonstration in conjuntion with CalCars. I would find it interesting to watch a Prius converted to a plug-in.

Carlisimo, the stock market IS based on things that make sense. Maybe it doesn't make sense to YOU, but it is all very tangible and logical stuff.
 
Interesting thing to note: In England, for the past 100 years they've had warmer summers than the 100 years before that (the eco-tools rejoice!) Then you look at the data, and you see that there were more warm summers in the first 50 years of the past century than the last 50 years, indicating a cooling trend. (the eco-tools deflate) ahhh the things those profiting off of the global warming panic don't tell you.
 
Also, agricultural evidence shows us that England's climate a few hundred years ago was warmer than it is now, based off of what they were able to grow then vs. now. Its is darn freezing here right now, and I could really go for some climate change.
 
You know, in the past people would dance and make sacrifices to the gods for favorable weather and climate conditions. Now we just give the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore. Its kinda depressing how little humans have learned.

I seem to have forgotten learning in junior high about the meteorological data recording devices that the ancient world had planted around Earth 500,000 years ago to measure the climate.
 
Maybe I was absent that day...

Global warming is caused by all those hippies lighting up whatever they're smoking. ;-)

I was also absent when they told me they were able to measure just about everything else that contributes to global climate more so then co2.
 
Things like water currents (which a study just came out that says that atlanic currents could be responsible for most of the recent recorded warming, and that the currents are changing back into a cooling pattern).
 
Big things like. Solar activity.
 
Yes they haev 800,000 years of 'good' data. How old is the planet again?
 
err better yet, whats the error range past 100 years? more then 2 degrees?
 
If you can't predicate the weather down to a fixed degree tomorow. How are you going to tell me what the temprature will be like 100 years from now?
 
And these models they are using what do the fix? how many varaibles are ignored... Things like water vapor, solar activity, water currents. Rain. etc.

I think this is an unfriendly environment for me...
 
To be frank though, both sides tend to exaggerate, whether it's by blaming global warming on one company or factor, or alternatively, discarding the issue as hippie-talk.
 
A few points -
There was a minor "ice-age" during the early part of the last millennium, so temperatures have been warming for several centuries in what seems to be a natural cycle.
 
The composition of the atmosphere plays an enormous role in global climate, and it is no longer possible to argue that humans have not played a role in a rather rapid change in concentration of particular gasses in the recent history.
 
There are methods of deriving climate data besides direct recordings. Ice cores and ocean cores have been used extensively in the past decade to get very detailed information.
 
Global warming does not mean warming of everywhere on the globe. If the gulfstream weakens, Europe and England may actually cool. Predicting regional change is still in its infancy, however.
 
There is a strong correlation between temperature and CO2 in the geologic record.
 
The earth has been much warmer and much cooler in the past than it is now, due to natural cycles. We have evolved, however, for something roughly similar to the present regime, and built out modern civilisation as something rigidly dependent on the present climate. Change will not be nice.

"built out modern civilisation as something rigidly dependent on the present climate. Change will not be nice."
 
Nonsense. People have incredible ability to handle change. My country can have a variation of as much as 130 deg F in daytime temps over the course of a year and life goes on. In the old days people were more dependant on their own little corner of the world for everything.
 
Now materials, produce and knowledge travels around the world effortlessly. If climate were to change and you couldn't grow a product in one place, someone would just grow it somewhere else.
 
An advantage lost is an opportunity gained.
 
One reason I dismiss most enviromentists is they only show the negative. Positives and negatives always balance out in the end.
 
What are the benefits of Global warming?

I was thinking more of epidemics, sea level change, water supply problems (I think 1/3 of the world's fresh water usage is glacially sourced), and desertification.
 
Oh, but positives? I'm from Alaska, I suppose we'll get more money from all you tourists. And maybe we can ship things around the Arctic Ocean. Shame that some of our villages are eroding away, though.

nunatak
 
I have to repeat this, until people get it.
 
C02 is a lagging indicator of temprature rise.
 
that is, When temprature rises, cO2 rises. not the other way around.
 
about c02 accounts of about 3/10th of a percent of global tempratures.
 
water vapor is somewhere between 97-98 % of global atmosphere tempratures.

The hippie comment was a joke, as noted by the winky emoticon.
 
Fuel efficiency is an important factor in my car choices and we even have an organic garden, a compost pile, and I'm working on rain barrels for watering.

Nunatak is correct about the medieval ice age, or mini ice age. During the Dark Ages, there was indeed a global cooling effect. It wasn't much of a climate change, but the impact on food production was severe. It caused massive food shortages and famines. And this was despite the fact that advances in food production had taken place during that time.
 
And Wagon, while human beings can indeed survive minor changes in temperature, most plants and animals are not so adaptable. Many plants (particularly pulses, grains, fruit, and even vegetables to a lesser extent) are highly suseptible to climate change. If it gets too cold, plants and animals die out. If it gets too warm, insects live longer and begin to swarm, eating everything in their path. Yes, you can plant wheat in more northern climates, but as you stated, weather is a difficult thing to predict. It becomes even more so when you movee further north. Florida oranges, for instance, suffer from the very occasional cold snap. Imagine how "occasional" those would be if we planted them in, say, Maine. Oranges are an extreme example, but the same principles apply to all life.
 
I also agree that environmentalists can be excessively fickle. This sudden craze to blame SUVs for everything is nonsense, but it doesn't help either.
Think of it like gaining weight. If you gained 40 lbs this year and you just happened to have stuffed your face on Turkey Day, blaming your weight gain on that one dinner is complete nonsense. It didn't help, though.

Opfreak, it's not "grassroots folk" that are suing, it's the state government of California. And Arnie's all over it, too -- I wouldn't exactly call him a hippie.

opfreak:
 
Perhaps we should continue this discussion elsewhere, but I'll add -
 
Although you are right about the relatively small molar percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere compared to water vapour, your conclusion is flawed. A first point to make is that the residence time in the atmosphere for water is short, on the order of days to weeks. Any increase in water vapour is quickly flushed out of the system, disregarding conditions which might restore it. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, has a residence time of over 200 years.
Also, when the atmosphere becomes sufficiently hydrated, clouds tend to form, which have an extremely high albedo, which is the ratio of extraterrestrial radiation reflected back into space. Thus, while water vapour is a very effective greenhouse gas, when it condenses it become the opposite. The two effects may or may not cancel out (likely the latter), but it reduces water's competence in having a unipolar effect on Earth's energy balance. Carbon dioxide, in contrast, is quite transparent to visible and NIR radiation.
Accordingly, it has been estimated based on CO2's concentration and competence that it is responsible for ~80% of greenhouse warming. (Lashof and Ahuja 1990, Nature)
 
In response to your first argument, I would ask if what you mean to say is that the modern rise in CO2 concentration is non-anthropogenic? I would be very interested in reading any peer-reviewed references that point to CO2 as a purely (or even predominantly) lagging signal, as I am quite sure such research would be ground-breaking. But I'm not holding my breath
 
The Earth's climate feedback mechanisms are complex, although our understanding of them continues to improve. Still, given what we know, writing off global warming (or hoping for a quick fix by scape-goating) is foolhardy.

Thanks to Rainforest Action Networks proof (see link below) that the auto industry is purely unconcerned about the environment and lazy I hope to see some hardcore laws and regulations against continual production of gas guzzeling wasteful autos and SUV's. I'm not sure how the heads of these huge auto companys sleep at night, knowing they are driving planet earth into doom. No respect for what God gave US TO RESPECT and cherish. Of course, maybe they are old enough that it might not affect THEIR life. Glad such a small number of sadly powerful people can kill off the entire planet. There is NO EXCUSE for not converting to plug-in eco-friendly autos NOW. And yes glaciers have melted in the past for all of you "scientists" posting comments but NOT in 100 years time. Talk about denial. This world is selfish and money hungry and needs to change immediately to salvage what we can. It's disgusting what we've done to the world.
http://understory.ran.org/2007/11/14/ran-at-the-la-auto-show/

Car makers build what the the custumers want, not what the car maker wants. Deal with it.
 
And plug-ins don't save the world, they move the pollution from the auto to the power plant where coal or nuclear will create even more pollution.
 
Edmunds should do some tests of all these "grass roots' electrics and plug-ins. Trust me, none of them will live up to even half their claims. Car makers have to make a car that works well for years and actually does what it claims, something none of these will do.
 
And I'm not a Scientist, I'm an engineer. The difference is I deal with the real world, not vague theories for supporting whatever cause I'm into this week.
 
Want an example of how glaciers can retreat fast with no help from people?....
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Bay
 
"The explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait, at the south end of Glacier Bay, choked with ice in 1794. Glacier Bay itself was almost entirely iced over. In 1879 naturalist John Muir found that the ice had retreated almost all the way up the bay. By 1916 Grand Pacific Glacier was at the head of Tarr Inlet, about 100 km (65 miles) from Glacier Bay's mouth. This is the fastest documented glacial retreat ever."