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Originally Posted by Xist
How many of you say that we need to stop using gas now and only drive electric vehicles?
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It isn't feasible now. The only people that would say we need to do as you say either are economically ignorant, or don't care if they live in mud huts and eat insects for nutrition.
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Originally Posted by aerohead
Perhaps we could actually have public education since we already pay for it. And we wouldn't be debating climate change or anything else on an obscure forum on an equally obscure website.
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The problem isn't one of education. Even if all of the US were convinced that GW was a dire problem and committed to drastic reductions in CO2 production, the rest of the world would continue on consuming at a rapid pace considering that fossil fuels would be even cheaper if the US wasn't consuming them (more supply). Our economy would be left in the dust.
The second problem with the call to education is that even if people know their actions contribute negatively to the environment, they don't really care since they account for hardly any of the overall impact. It's like sharing the bill at a restaurant; if the check is being split evenly, then we'll have the steak dinner since it won't increase the bill that much compared to everyone 's combined cost. Now consider the check is being split several billion ways...
Our public education fails in way more than just teaching energy consumption and externalities; the vast majority of people lack an elementary understanding of economics, yet hold strong opinions of what should be done about things that massively affect the economy on topics such as subsidized healthcare and other entitlements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aerohead
What was reported,was that a Finnish company was providing solar-derived electrical power,at 2.44-cents/kW-h.India's filthiest,cheapest coal-fired power plants could not provide power any cheaper than 3.1-cents/kW-h.
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If somehow solar were economically advantageous, some country would implement it and soar ahead economically.
The only reason solar is economically advantageous for some homeowners in the US is because a large part of the cost is distributed across the taxpayers.