<< NYT - AUSTRALIAN EDITION ~ MAIN ~ DISSENT CRUSHED >>
COLUMN SOLVES OIL OVERCONSUMPTION
This week’s Continuing Crisis column for The Bulletin mentions Canada’s Globe and Mail, climate doomsday speakers, people dressed as polar bears, protest drummers, Greenpeace director Steven Guilbeault, George W. Bush, space mutants, Montreal bongo climatologists, hybrid vehicles, and Al Gore.
Well, you know, Al Gore IS a clean-burning energy source.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2005 12 06 at 10:27 AM • permalinkFrom Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance”:
[I]t ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year period.
It ought to be possible that the space mutant invasion will be stopped in its tracks by secret US satellites, too.
Posted by Some0Seppo on 2005 12 06 at 10:41 AM • permalinkHybrids ... let’s see if I grasp the concept. I can reduce the amount of poopy-gases from my internally combusting car by plugging it into the wall socket. Since electrical power occurs spontaneously in wall sockets, for free, my poop-gas emissions are NOT passed along to some coal-burning power plant in some other town, and Mama Gaia is pleased with me. YAY!
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 06 at 10:57 AM • permalinkFrom Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance”:
[I]t ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a twenty-five year period.
Gore’s completely right, it definitely is possible to establish such a program. It’ll fail miserably while wasting billions of dollars, but it’s possible...
And Mama Gaia really doesn’t mind having all that lead strip-mined from her quivering flesh for your hybrid’s batteries…
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 12 06 at 11:10 AM • permalinkHybrids ... let’s see if I grasp the concept. I can reduce the amount of poopy-gases from my internally combusting car by plugging it into the wall socket.
Hybrids don’t plug into walls. The IC engine recharges the battery. However, your point holds with pure electric cars, which were the darling of the Free Lunch crowd before the hybrid.
Hybrids don’t plug into walls.
Another “D’OH!” moment, here at stately Stoop Manor.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 06 at 01:08 PM • permalinkJic: It is indeed possible.
All it would require is a centralized Gaian government that had the power to force lesser peoples to conform wholesale to their sublime green edicts.
Well that and a sack full of moon sapphires...
Mr. Gore wants to eliminate the internal-combustion engine, eh?
Then let’s go external combustion on him!
Jet-powered cars for all!
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2005 12 06 at 03:32 PM • permalinkAll it would require is a centralized Gaian government that had the power to force lesser peoples to conform wholesale to their sublime green edicts.
Well that and a sack full of moon sapphires…
Nah. All it would require is:
1) A highly-paid committee who spend all their time flying around the world studying ways to reduce unnecessary fuel consumption.
2) Huge grants to
the nephew of the committee chairmanscientists who are duplicating work already being done in the private sector.3) Billions of dollars to
fund booze, drugs and whores.4) The production of a 4,000 page report that basically says that the whole thing was a waste of time, but wouldn’t have been if the Americans hadn’t got in the way.
Hybrids don’t plug into walls.
Another “D’OH!” moment, here at stately Stoop Manor.You weren’t wrong, just early. And anyway, your basic point still holds: The fuel still gets burned, just at another time.
There’s little difference between standards and automatics now in regards to fuel consumption. On some cars, the automatic actually gets better mileage.
The manual is on the way out. Clutchless paddle-shifting, baby. You manual fetishists will have to find another lever to stroke.
BTW, I would think the average speed-demon would use more gas with a manual. Don’t you want to rev it high?
Seems pretty obvious to me that there are models that predict that warming could stop the Gulf stream, by stopping the cold water deep south current side of the loop. Which would cause Western Europe to cool even though global temperatures would rise.
And of course hotter oceans produce more tropical storms hence make the wet season wetter.
And climate changes of that scale can easily plunge regions into frought making it dryer.
Sure you can dispute the models and point out their flaws. But just declaring that people are idiots because they know a little about one of the simple climate models that gives unexpected outcomes for those naive enough to think that something like climate is as simple as “if the average global temperature rises, then it must be hotter everywhere all the time”.
Seriously, these people are idiots worshiping at the altar of mother nature so why is there a need to make fun of probably the only statement they’ve ever uttered that actually does has some science behind it. Of course feel free to disagree with the science - it’s difficult to do an experiment on ocean currents in the lab, but that isn’t what was done.
“An added benefit: those unable to drive a manual car would be removed from our roads, thus reducing traffic levels.”
A meritworthy idea, Tim. I’ve always suspected that those who lack the coordination to use a manual gearshift may not be very good at other, more important, driving tasks, e.g. judging the speed of oncoming traffic,negotiating corners. Could there be a correlation between “automatic-only” licences and accident rates?
Besides, autos are for old people!
Vroom vroom!
Compulsory manual transmissions…this is Bob Brown, Back to the Future territory. Well, to save further oil and reduce pollution, here’s another suggestion: bring back propeller-driven planes. Imagine, a three-day flight from Sydney to London. Life would be more leisurely and peaceful (apart from the grinding of gears, until everyone learns how to find Reverse).
And the lovely thing is, Mr. Magoo, that high-bypass ratio fanjets almost are propeller engines, albeit propellers in snazzy sheathes. IIRC about 90% of the thrust produced by a commercial jet’s engines is from pressure on the turbine, not reaction from the jet…
Posted by John Nowak on 2005 12 06 at 11:20 PM • permalinkTim, I saw your picture on the banner for your Bulletin column and I thought “I know that look…”
Was it you or Saddam Hussein who first attempted to bring back the casually dignified pure white shirt no tie and suit jacket look? One of you deserves kudos. I can’t see if you also have the simple white pocket handkerchief that Saddam is sporting, but I’d adopt it if I was you.
Saddam probably is not allowed to wear a tie out of fear of him using it to attempt self harm. Is it the the same for Bulletin staffers or is it just an “on trial for crimes against humanity”/“working for Fairfax” thing?
Posted by James Hamilton on 2005 12 06 at 11:50 PM • permalink“Saddam probably is not allowed to wear a tie out of fear of him using it to attempt self harm.”
The way he’s been acting I think rather they won’t let him wear a tie out of fear he’ll use it to harm one of his lawyers. I say give him a tie—maybe he can get rid of Ramsey Clark for us.
Don’t say an old genocidal dictator can’t be good for something.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 12 07 at 12:04 AM • permalink#28, Well John, going green is a feel-good, state-of-mind thing, like hugging trees. You haven’t achieved anything, and you may in fact have caused immense damage (eg Kyoto), but hey, you can go home to the lentils and tofu and basket-weaving, feeling really positive about yourself. No good deed ever goes unpunished, as they say.
“I propose that automatic transmissions be banned, and that all cars so equipped be removed from the planet’s roads. The reason? Automatic cars use around 5% more fuel than their manual equivalents.
My mandatory-manual law would, at a stroke, effect a far greater positive environmental change than any plastic bag campaigns or hybrid-buying frenzies now underway”
Whiie I realise that you are ridiculing, for reasons best known to yourself, efforts to reduce CO2 this a not a serious suggestion. Hybrids are more that 5% better. The Prius especially in the city can be 20% better due to the motor being off when in stop-start traffic. A plug in hybrid can get 100mpg or better equivalent mileage. There is plenty of nickel and/or lithium for batteries. Even a coal plant at 36% efficiency is better that a car at less than 15% so when you charge a PHEV from the grid you are still emitting less CO2.
” “Warming can mean colder” is the sort of comment that, if uttered by George W. Bush, would set the internet ablaze with white-hot ridicule. Coming from a Greenpeace rep, however, it’s understood to make sense somehow.”
This just shows that you do not understand the problem. Global warming could produce many different effects of climate change. No-one knows what these will be. One of the possible ones is a weakening of the Atlantic current that warms Northern Europe. If this does weaken, as it appears to be doing, this region could cool. That does not mean that other regions are not going to get warmer. Also the average temperature could still rise as other areas warm.
Manual transmissions rule, baby!
If you can’t stir it, don’t drive it…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 07 at 01:03 AM • permalinkHow tough can a manual transmission be? Bikers shift them with their feet, fer crying out loud…
...granted, looks funnier’n shit in a Camaro…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 12 07 at 01:05 AM • permalinkSounds good to me . . . I currently drive a Ford Territory, which only comes with an automatic. But give me a couple more years, my wife takes over the Territory, and we trade her Vectra (manual, V6 engine) for what i really want - a Falcon XR-6 Turbo with 6-speed manual.
Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2005 12 07 at 07:29 AM • permalink24 Larrikin
take naomi campbell
DEAL! DIBS! Where do I go to pick her up? And is it okay if I show up driving an automatic?
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 12 07 at 03:39 PM • permalinkPW- Fair enough - seems Tim says a lot of throw-away lines
.
Yes, well, Ender, Tim’s comments are deliberately throw away—this is known as “humor” outside of the Collective™.
Yours are not deliberately throw away…demonstrating that (so to speak) opening one’s mouth merely to change feet is a poor way to argue logicly.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 12 07 at 07:49 PM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
Automatic transmission: another zionistic-chimperial conspiracy to invade Iran!