[Tainari88]

Well, the Supreme Court has determined that corporations no longer have immunity from being sued for engaging in polluting activities. That is a good start.

But besides accountability you have to take away their power to see real change. Got to force petrol stations to not sell and sell only electricity or clean energy and change the entire structure from top to bottom.

Read on:

https://earthrights.org/in-wake-of-eart ... ntability/

[BigSteve]

Well, the Supreme Court has determined that corporations no longer have immunity from being sued for engaging in polluting activities. That is a good start.

But besides accountability you have to take away their power to see real change. Got to force petrol stations to not sell and sell only electricity or clean energy and change the entire structure from top to bottom.

Read on:

https://earthrights.org/in-wake-of-eart ... ntability/

Yeah, I used to smoke a lotta' weed, too.

We will never get rid of oil. It won't happen. All of these electric and hybrid cars are great, but they'll never be truly mainstream until you figure out a way to make them without oil...

[Stormsmith]

It will happen, but sadly, slowly. The average person will sell their gas mobile for the down-payment on the new car, probably creating the next generation of drivers driving gas mobiles. And some people will hang on for dear life if they love their car. Addionally many people can't afford a new car at the drop of a hat, to say nothing of having to find and finance a novel source of energy.

That said companies like Tata (India) are making battery operated cars way cheap. If China does too, it will reduce what would a be a massive problem in countries with huge populations and rising wealth.

[Presvias]

Yeah, I used to smoke a lotta' weed, too.

We will never get rid of oil. It won't happen. All of these electric and hybrid cars are great, but they'll never be truly mainstream until you figure out a way to make them without oil...

Not for a very long time, but in about 50 years, possibly..


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.c ... 0-iea.html

Just one example of the way it's going..

[late]

You will know sanity has arrived the day we get a Carbon Tax. It will be incremental, adding something like 25 cents/gal per year to the price of gas (and other carbon fuels)

"If you want to change behavior, change the price."

The thing people in this country are forgetting is that this is going to get serious, and because we've blown off doing anything about it, there will be hell to pay, and other countries won't cut us an inch of slack.

[Tainari88]

Most people in certain areas of the world do well with public transport. Transforming public transport to a source of fuel that is not polluting is key.

Also just encouraging bicycle riding and or some form of low emissions or no emissions ways of getting from point A to point B is key.

Cutting back on errands and having things mailed to your door instead is an improvement. Not using dryers and drying your clothes via air is good, not using many forms of wasteful energy.

I found they are starting to ban in all places straws in Mexico. It is polluting the beaches and they are changing it. They also are creating bags for groceries made of corn husk waste and it breaks down in the sun in less than two weeks. It dissolves and can be digested by birds without incident. A huge improvement over plastic bags. Little things but important.

[Rancid]

We will never get rid of oil. It won't happen. All of these electric and hybrid cars are great, but they'll never be truly mainstream until you figure out a way to make them without oil...

Oil use will never go away, but the goal is to make oil an insignificant part of global demand/dependence. Which is totally possible and will happen.

[Tainari88]

Yeah, I used to smoke a lotta' weed, too.

We will never get rid of oil. It won't happen. All of these electric and hybrid cars are great, but they'll never be truly mainstream until you figure out a way to make them without oil...

That is a bad statement BigSteve. Oil is a fossil fuel and it is limited. It is. It is not going to be around for all time. You can say that petroleum is from dead dinosaurs from the Jurassic period. In fact, this area of Mexico where I am living was where the meteor hit that killed off most of the dinosaurs and they went extinct. Their dead bodies deposited within the oceans and the earth that now fuel our present vehicles. The dinosaurs evolved and now their DNA is in the birds. This part of Mexico has a huge variation of bird species. The dinosaurs had to evolve out of dinosaur bodies and become sky bound creatures. BIRDS. But there were a limited amount of dinosaurs. You can count them (they are not infinite in number like the stars in the universe out there). They are not renewable sources of energy that if that source dies the entire planet goes Nova. It doesn't.

One of two things will happen. We find it increasingly expensive to get new sources of oil for our vehicles and energy needs. We have wars over it. We have problems with the climate and global warming. We have cars that have to be adapted with time to be running without petroleum. We had electric cars extremely early in vehicle production. I visited the automobile museum and they had electric ones early on in the life of cars. The oil industry decided it was a threat to their profits and decided to kill the idea.

No, BigSteve. Oil won't be around forever. It can't. It is a limited resource. This is well known in all OPEC nations. They know the oil won't be around to sell forever and generating profits. They have to plan on investing what they get from the resource NOW....and switch to something that generates income for them in the future that is not dependent on oil. Many of them do that now.

So, no, the oil won't be around forever.

[Truth To Power]

Well, the Supreme Court has determined that corporations no longer have immunity from being sued for engaging in polluting activities. That is a good start.

Holding corporations accountable for their polluting activities is a good idea. But CO2 is not a pollutant in any plausible atmospheric concentration, and suing them for emitting it (or producing fossil fuels so others can emit it) is unjust, absurd, and insane.

[Rancid]

CO2 is not a pollutant

What is the definition of a pollutant?

[BigSteve]

So, no, the oil won't be around forever.

Well, it'll sure as Hell still be here for our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren to use...

[Rancid]

Well, it'll sure as Hell still be here for our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren to use...

Only if we manage to stop using oil for transpiration.

Oil is too important for other products and processes for it to be wasted on cars and trucks.

[Tainari88]

Only if we manage to stop using oil for transpiration.

Oil is too important for other products and processes for it to be wasted on cars and trucks.

You know that is a good question for a science fiction novel. What could take the place of oil for energy in the future? I happen to think some kind of magnetic fields are perfect to exploit for energy. Or cold fusion like some bad Hollywood movies have tried to do.

I like driving in this city Rancid. It hardly has any traffic jams at all and the land is flat as a pancake. I wondered why there are hardly any traffic jams here compared to the other city I lived in and it has similar population density stats. The difference is very few people can afford private vehicles. Very few people own cars. So? There is hardly any circulation of private cars. It makes driving a pleasure. It does. Also you wind up giving people rides all day. Other parents, neighbors, friends, and strangers. They discourage single driver transportation. Your car should be transporting a fair amount of people.

There are a lot of waste differences between Mexico and the USA. The one I most notice is recycling. Here? I have a woman that collects all bottles made of plastic or glass. She comes once a week and gets excited I have collected them all for her (she makes some money off of them). Cardboard and newspaper, magazines, or ads or junk mail. It all gets recycled and a guy on a tricycle comes and picks it up once a week. aluminium, paper, plastic, metals of any sort, broken locks, broken things...hardly anything is thrown away Rancid. Old tires are recycled and they use them to build school walls, houses, they even recycle them for shoes and other materials. Bags (big coffee bags?) they use it to hold compost in for the fields, they use old soda pop glass bottles for preventing theft by using them to protect walls from being climbed over homes. Merida is very clean. They collect garbage here regularly at least twice a week sometimes three times a week. The garbage workers are unionized and everyone has to pay a small fee for garbage collection. At the garbage dump 97% of everything is recycled. They recycle batteries and cell phone, old televisions, radios. etc. All of it is repaired and not thrown away. They have shoe repair shops and also they have jeans repair shops too. They patch up jeans, pants, dresses, everything. They even repair old pots and pans.

The USA is very wasteful in comparision by far...it is interesting.

[Rancid]

You know that is a good question for a science fiction novel. What could take the place of oil for energy in the future? I happen to think some kind of magnetic fields are perfect to exploit for energy. Or cold fusion like some bad Hollywood movies have tried to do.

The future will be solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, for sure. Maybe... Maybe nuclear. Maybe.. maybe some sort of cold fusion.

Extracting energy from earth's magnetic field wouldn't work. To generate power from a magnetic field, the magnetic field cannot be static (it has to be dynamic, that is, changing in size, shape, intensity). Earth's magnetic field is mostly static. It doesn't change enough to allow us to extract energy from it. When you look at wireless chargers like for your phone, what is happening is there is an electromagnet (a magnet created by the flow of electricity through a coil). The electricity is basically AC (like your outlet) and not DC (like say, batteries). This changing current creates a changing magnetic field, which your phone/toothbrush whatever, can extract energy from the changing field. If you used batteries (assuming no conversion to AC) to power the coil, there would be a magnetic field created, but you would not be able to charge your device.

I like driving in this city Rancid. It hardly has any traffic jams at all and the land is flat as a pancake. I wondered why there are hardly any traffic jams here compared to the other city I lived in and it has similar population density stats. The difference is very few people can afford private vehicles. Very few people own cars. So? There is hardly any circulation of private cars. It makes driving a pleasure. It does. Also you wind up giving people rides all day. Other parents, neighbors, friends, and strangers. They discourage single driver transportation. Your car should be transporting a fair amount of people.

Is that city walkable?

There are a lot of waste differences between Mexico and the USA. The one I most notice is recycling. Here? I have a woman that collects all bottles made of plastic or glass. She comes once a week and gets excited I have collected them all for her (she makes some money off of them). Cardboard and newspaper, magazines, or ads or junk mail. It all gets recycled and a guy on a tricycle comes and picks it up once a week. aluminium, paper, plastic, metals of any sort, broken locks, broken things...hardly anything is thrown away Rancid. Old tires are recycled and they use them to build school walls, houses, they even recycle them for shoes and other materials. Bags (big coffee bags?) they use it to hold compost in for the fields, they use old soda pop glass bottles for preventing theft by using them to protect walls from being climbed over homes. Merida is very clean. They collect garbage here regularly at least twice a week sometimes three times a week. The garbage workers are unionized and everyone has to pay a small fee for garbage collection. At the garbage dump 97% of everything is recycled. They recycle batteries and cell phone, old televisions, radios. etc. All of it is repaired and not thrown away. They have shoe repair shops and also they have jeans repair shops too. They patch up jeans, pants, dresses, everything. They even repair old pots and pans.

The USA is very wasteful in comparision by far...it is interesting.

This is because affluent nations can afford to be wasteful. This is a negative side effect of being a so called "advanced economy". It's easier to waste like crazy.

[Truth To Power]

What is the definition of a pollutant?

A substance that has undesirable net effects when released into the environment.

[Rancid]

A substance that has undesirable net effects when released into the environment.

Is there a difference between natural cyclical gas releases, and additional non-natural? Is one considered a pollutant and not the other?

[Truth To Power]

Is there a difference between natural cyclical gas releases, and additional non-natural? Is one considered a pollutant and not the other?

We generally think that only people pollute. Naturally occurring undesirable substances are called, "contaminants." For example, the river near my house has a naturally high level of mercury because it flows through regions with mercury-bearing minerals. That's contamination, not pollution.

[Tainari88]

The future will be solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, for sure. Maybe... Maybe nuclear. Maybe.. maybe some sort of cold fusion.

Extracting energy from earth's magnetic field wouldn't work. To generate power from a magnetic field, the magnetic field cannot be static (it has to be dynamic, that is, changing in size, shape, intensity). Earth's magnetic field is mostly static. It doesn't change enough to allow us to extract energy from it. When you look at wireless chargers like for your phone, what is happening is there is an electromagnet (a magnet created by the flow of electricity through a coil). The electricity is basically AC (like your outlet) and not DC (like say, batteries). This changing current creates a changing magnetic field, which your phone/toothbrush whatever, can extract energy from the changing field. If you used batteries (assuming no conversion to AC) to power the coil, there would be a magnetic field created, but you would not be able to charge your device.

Interesting premise Rancid. It would be wonderful if we can power cars solely on solar power and nothing else. But who knows when that will happen eh?

Is that city walkable?

Highly walkable Rancid. You can walk almost anywhere and there are bicycle routes everywhere too. A lot of scooters and vespas and cheap motorcycles too. Gas is expensive and the motorcycles don't waste as much in gasoline.

This is because affluent nations can afford to be wasteful. This is a negative side effect of being a so called "advanced economy". It's easier to waste like crazy.

They can afford it but they should not be wasteful period. People still do traditional things like sew by hand clothes and most department stores like Liverpool have departments that you get everything custom fitted and sent to the seamstress or the tailor to adjust. It is a rare thing in the states. No one does custom made clothing anymore without it being prohibitively expensive. Here? They make everything for you by hand and custom fitted cheaply. It is a very great thing for decorating your house or designing your own clothing.

[late]

We will never get rid of oil. It won't happen. All of these electric and hybrid cars are great, but they'll never be truly mainstream until you figure out a way to make them without oil...

Wildly incorrect.

This is a transition, the percentage of energy we get from oil will drop as time goes by.

Sometime, over the next 10 years, electric cars will dominate sales. At the same time, sales of gas powered cars will fall faster than the sale of electrics will rise.

That's because the existing cars will flood the used market, lowering their price.

But that won't last. They will eventually wear out. The reduction in carbon emissions will be gynormous. We will have to design and deploy a Smart Grid to replace most current electrical generation, but that will happen, it will just take a while.

[Truth To Power]

The future will be solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, for sure. Maybe... Maybe nuclear.

Wind, hydro and geo are dependent on location. Solar is getting steadily cheaper and will continue to do so. Oil is getting more expensive and will continue to do so. At some point in the next decade or two those lines will cross, and oil will then be effectively obsolete as an energy source, except for aviation and at high latitudes.