The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[NeilBlanchard]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

So the pop culture of man man global warming has nothing to do with actual science?
That's good to know.

You are really trying to twist the facts, to fit your point of view.

Are the oil companies wrong about climate change - now that they have acknowledged that burning fossil fuels is causing it?

[All Darc]

If Goodenough & Braga battery get mass production in 3 or 4 years, maybe electric cars get even cheaper than internal combustion engine cars.
After all, it will just require a electric motor (maybe on wheels), a battery. No tranmission, no carburator, distributer, or much oils system.

I hope they change the basic car design of ICB cars, instead of just keep it and add electric motors and battery. There is a whole range of possibilities to change design of cars when we thing in the electric energy field.

Originally Posted by aerohead

CAR and DRIVER,in November,2016,mentioned Sam Abuelsamid,of Navigant Research, predicting that EVs would be at cost parity with ICE around 2025.
The reasoning was that,a BEV motor,electronics,and pack would have the same cost as an engine,transmission,and powertrain,by that time.
This is without any magic.

[redpoint5]

I keep seeing interpreting these comments as incitement to civil war, not necessarily that violence is what is being called for, but Big Brother would inevitably result in a level of violence that would make the Civil War appear tame. It could never happen here because nobody could win an election based on a policy of reduced economic output and lower standards of living. It would take a dictator seizing power.

The thing is, I find it more important to take care of the people who exist now, than to fret about people who don't yet exist yet in the future. It's not that future people don't matter, it's that current people have needs that are more easily identified and addressed now. The further into the future you try to help people, the less precise you will be at correctly identifying their needs and being able to address them.

Originally Posted by All Darc

If Goodenough & Braga battery get mass production in 3 or 4 years, maybe electric cars get even cheaper than internal combustion engine cars.
After all, it will just require a electric motor (maybe on wheels), a battery. No tranmission, no carburator, distributer, or much oils system.

I hope they change the basic car design of ICB cars, instead of just keep it and add electric motors and battery. There is a whole range of possibilities to change design of cars when we thing in the electric energy field.

If autonomous systems can make vehicles avoid crashes rather than simply survive them, then it opens up a lot of design possibility. I expect seat belt and airbag laws to disappear within my lifetime. When personal vehicles achieve the safety of busses, those devices don't make sense anymore. It would be like carrying a parachute on an airplane, just in case.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

If I gather correctly from the various implied comments, I think it means waging war on wealth; essentially. That's the most direct way to reduce resource consumption. Redistributing wealth would accomplish the same thing in the long run.

History bears out that basically all experiments with redistribution of wealth have only ended in failure,and the problems they were intended to mitigate,only grew worse.
Up until relatively recently,the environment could absorb the insults of profligate waste.Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
The evidence that anthropogenic climate change is not ongoing, would be even more unbelievable than that of the existence of climate change.
If climate scientists are correct,and we need to reduce carbon emissions as fast as we can,then business as usual has got to go.
If we're not to steal from our neighbor,then we can't steal their energy either.
The end of the energy free market may have to come to an end as during war.No other 'business' has more impact on the environment.
Rationing, or inverted rate pricing structures can be the reward or punishment for patriotic or traitorous energy use.
We're talking about the nest we live in.If Americans think they can s---in the nest,well maybe there's a reality check waiting for them.

[redpoint5]

I'm not opposed to tiered energy pricing, such that an initial energy consumption amount is billed at a low rate, with progressively more expensive energy as consumption goes up. Same with water use, etc.

Give economic incentive to conservation, but allow for excess consumption for those willing to pay more for the luxury.

That's a lot different than someone showing up with a gun and turning off the power.

[sendler]

No one anywhere is going to voluntarily choose rationing books at this point even though humans are clearly several decades into overshoot. So we will just have to see what type of world can rise after the collapse.

[oil pan 4]

Electric cars are still going to have a simple transaxle.
Basically an automatic transmission with no pumps, no clutche packs, no torque converter, no solenoid/valve body, no filter.
Pretty much a single gear, parking lock solenoid, differential.

These transaxles will still need a quart or 2 of oil that will need the be changed ever 50k to 110k miles.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

You are really trying to twist the facts, to fit your point of view.

Are the oil companies wrong about climate change - now that they have acknowledged that burning fossil fuels is causing it?

Oil companies admit the climate is changing but insist man has nothing to do with it.
Admitting they are the cause is financial suicide.
Then every 2 bit world country is going to try and sue them for perceived damages.

I say the plant started warming 14,000 years ago and hasn't stopped and that the climate has been changing for at least the last 2.5 billion years and has never stopped.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I haven't written off the basic income argument entirely yet, but it seems the outcome of such a thing would be a much slower economy with more consolidation of wealth.

There would still be roughly the same number of people on the streets; perhaps more, once they blow through their basic income on self-destructive coping habits. Poor people aren't poor because they are necessarily oppressed, but because they have no meaning for living. A basic income doesn't give people meaning; it gives them dependency.

That said, those who make an effort to use their resources wisely and find purpose for existence would be much more likely to make wise use of a minimum income. Responsible people would know how best to allocate funds towards food, shelter, clothing, and healthcare, rather than the government deciding how best to provide each of those things. We could get rid of lots of wasteful government programs (housing for one).

Regarding the cost of resources; the universe has no concept of wealth. It's entirely relative to our own values, so it makes sense that the price of commodities is related to how much human time, effort, and ingenuity was spent to produce it.

There's no objective way to value a scarce resource other than the free market collectively (and subjectively) deciding. Should we put a tax on helium so we aren't wasting it in kids balloons? What is the appropriate tax? How do we know that would be appropriate? Is it wasteful to use helium in medical devices that save lives? What if there is some super useful, yet discovered purpose for helium in the future? What if we misvalue the worth of helium now (likely) for future purposes? What if in the future we're able to create whatever elements we want because we've mastered atomic manipulation and have more effectively harnessed the sun's power, rendering all minerals nearly valueless?

I'm past halfway with Thomas Robert Malthus's book,7th-Edition, on population.He's already mentioned what a train wreck every attempt to ease the suffering of the poor turned out to be.
These 'poor laws' only created more poor people.
When you arbitrarily,through government fiat,increase income,the new money creates demand for the existing goods and services,creating demand-pull inflation,and before long,prices have risen to cancel out any benefit of the pay raise.And the inflated prices may not ever go back down.
The poor don't save,and if their day job fails,they've set aside nothing to get through hard times.
And some will spend it all at the 'alehouse' or with hookers,drugs,gambling,etc.. It's what some people do when they have a safety net.I've seen it firsthand.

[redpoint5]

That's exactly it; making the situation of being poor more comfortable and convenient only produces more poor people.

I'm not even sure everyone being poor would be good for the environment either. The very poor, those living on the streets, dispose of everything rather than take care of it. They aren't washing their clothes, instead they are getting new (or used) clothes and discarding what they were wearing.

aerohead- What do you think about tiered pricing for energy, water, gas use? A progressive rate structure such that those who are poor can afford to utilize some minimum amount, with progressively higher rates for those who use more?