Originally Posted by Doc
The people who are clamoring for us to 'save the planet' are operating on emotion, and using that as their leverage to gain power and control, which is really what it's all about. Their real goal? The usual... money. Trillions.
The reality is, humans do not affect the 'climate'. The earth's climate has been changing since the day it was born, and it will continue to change until the day it dies. What a lot of people mistake for climate, is actually environmental pollution, and that's a very valid and important issue which IS due to us, and is something we can and should get under control.
The earth's climate is controlled by the sun; period. We have no control over the sun. Spending trillions to 'study climate change' is ridiculous. Al Gore asked for 40 trillion... 40 trillion! Sadly, the alarmists who are all left-wing types, have been ringing the alarm bell for decades in the hopes that we'll give them what they want; money, power and control. While we're not supposed to discuss politics in this forum, it's an unfortunate reality that the alarmists are using politics to force their agendas on all of us, which is having a staggering and costly impact on the automotive industry.
There are some valid points, but they are related to environmental pollution, not climate change. I remember the smog levels in the 60's and they were terrible. We have over twice as many people on the earth now as we did then (3 billion in 1962, 7 billion in 2012) and the improvements in emissions control have made a vast improvement in air quality, which is good. Unfortunately, the people who were pushing for that got so sated with their joy of having power, that they couldn't stop. Here's a short history lesson:
Now I know someone is going to scream "OMG HE'S BRINGING PARTISAN POLITICS INTO THIS" but in order for us to discuss what's going on, we have to recognize and acknowledge that politics is how it's being forced into our lives. These same people are pushing us towards electric as though that's the answer to 'saving our planet' but these same people who've been so wrong so many times, are also wrong on this.
For those of you old enough to remember, do you remember why we were forced to switch to plastic bags at the grocery store and retail stores? It was because the left-wing environmentalists were ringing the chicken-little alarm bell about how we were destroying our forests to make paper bags, and the ONLY way to save them, was to switch to plastic. Remember that? Well now it turns out that Willey and Flipper are choking to death and dying on the plastic bags in the oceans, and plastic bags don't decompose in the landfills. RING THE ALARM BELL, THE ENVIRONMENT NEEDS SAVING! again... and what's the solution? GO BACK TO PAPER BAGS!
At what point do we start realizing what con artists these people are? I don't care how many degrees they have, or what indoctrination center... I mean school they went to, they don't know what they're talking about. They just insist they do and make up whatever 'facts' and 'settled science' they need, because that's how they gain power, control....and MONEY.
Here's the problem with electric vehicles. They run on batteries. Batteries require among other things, lithium and cobalt. Just like oil and fossil fuels, those chemicals are ALSO a finite resource. They ALSO have impacts on the environment. By switching from ICE to EV, all you're doing is switching your demand on limited resources from one type of resource to another. Oh but WAIT! There's MORE! We can use solar cells! Except, solar cells have to be made from chemicals in factories like batteries do, and cars do, and engines do, and so on.
Number 3 gave the number of 15 billion as a world population we're heading to, and unfortunately with that reality facing us, it doesn't much matter what technology we develop. We're already over-populated, and heading towards cataclysmic levels of population. If we can go from 3 billion in 1962 to 7 billion in 2012, and now we're already past the 8 billion mark, what will 8 billion be able to do? At some point we're going to reach the numbers where mass starvation, mass disease, mass consumption will be our biggest threats. It won't be the climate. The greatest threat to humanity is humanity itself. Rather than worrying about which resource we're going to consume to be politically correct, we need to stop listening to the chicken-little environmentalists, stop giving them money and letting them take it through political pressure. We need to study and address the issue of population, how to control and manage it or we'll just simply overwhelm ourselves. What's happening at the border with a caravan of thousands trying to rush the border, will be amplified until it reaches tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands.
Sorry for the long and dismal post, but the real problems are in fact real, and I don't see anybody discussing it. If we don't get our population growth and levels under control, everything else is irrelevant.
|