GM to shutdown Factories

[DaveC113]

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.

People have been shouting about the end of the world since the world began.

I agree with most of your points, although some of it is semantics. We do pollute too much and some of that contributes to the climate changing. This is undeniable.

At this point we're going to reach 10-11 billion if our population doesn't continue to grow, but it is. And the unfortunate part of that is the growth is being promoted in poor countries because people need family support to survive. In all countries we have religion saying people need to have more kids to fill the world with people of that religion. New Chinese policy is now to encourage it's 1.5B population to have more kids so China can accomplish it's desire to be the world's top superpower and dominate all of it's neighbors.

Population control is not an easy subject. We're here bitching about choice of cars, I don't see getting anywhere at all with the issue of having kids. Tax incentives for NOT having kids? Penalties for having more than 2 per couple? Yeah, not going to go over well...

And because natural selection has been taken out of the equation the scenario in the movie Idiocracy is going to seem more and more like real life. I'm thirsty, excuse me I need to get some Brawndo...

[Doc]

China and India's advantage is economy of scale; they have a workforce that is greater than our entire population. And most of them are starving, so they'll do anything just to not starve to death. We don't have that situation here either.

Apple makes their phones in China because they need to make 90 million of them at a time. We don't have the workforce here to be able to do that, pure and simple. If an auto manufacturer needed to make 90 million cars in a year, would they be able to do that here? That's 90 million of everything; parts, packaging, materials. Now imagine a factory with a workforce capable of doing that, and the space for all those things. There are solid reasons why some things are easier to make in China or India.

Automobiles are a different animal. I don't see the huge advantage for making it over there, where we just couldn't compete over here. We just need better politicians who understand business, manufacturing, and are intelligent enough, and educated about the issue enough to make laws and regulations that can balance the need of business and the environment. It's doable. We just need politicians who aren't afraid of screaming environmentalists, and can show them why sensible legislation isn't going to give them everything they want. Some things are valid, but science and industry aren't evil, America isn't evil, business isn't evil, the white men who invented, created and inspired all this aren't evil. Our lives are vastly better because of all that they've created. Life expectancy has increased dramatically just within the past 100 years. Medical science has vastly improved. Computers have transformed our society in so many areas, including communication. It's not evil, so stop demonizing it.

The automobile was a great invention because it empowered (one of their favorite expressions) the individual to be able to move about freely, comfortably and over great distances in a fraction of the time it used to take. The seducing word "autonomous" which is really code-speak for taking control out of YOUR hands, and putting in THEIR hands, will reverse the very freedom the automobile gave us.

There's nothing wrong with American manufacturing, that can't be fixed by someone with the brains and vision to fix it.

[Doc]

Originally Posted by DaveC113

People have been shouting about the end of the world since the world began.

I agree with most of your points, although some of it is semantics. We do pollute too much and some of that contributes to the climate changing. This is undeniable.

Here's what controls the climate; the sun and its magnetic field. The earth is a conductor. When a conductor moves through a magnetic field, it generates electricity in the conductor, and that generates heat, which is why our planet's core is molten. Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and even slight changes in the magnetic field of the sun will effect the climate of the earth. The climate is the result of the temperature of the core and the effect that has on ocean currents. Earthquakes and volcanic activity (which are the result of what's going on in the core) affect the ocean's currents, and volcanic activity punches tremendous amounts of gases up into the atmosphere. We have dozens of active volcanoes right now doing just that. Volcanic activity has been going on since the beginning, long before we even existed. There were ice ages, warm periods, ice ages, warm periods, etc. before we were here, and after we were here. We do not effect the climate like the environmentalists want you to believe. We DO effect the environment through pollution, which is why it's easy to be deceived by their claims, but the environment is not the same as the climate. They are two separate entities; climate can affect the environment, but environment doesn't affect the climate. The sun is the sole agent of climate change.

[Chazzz]

There are no right or wrong answers. When passions run high there is always a way to spin it to back up a passion. Sad fact is for whatever reason, the worlds auto manufacturers have put the future the ICE on the back burner in favor of an EV and Atonomous future. One thing is for certain... Nothing lasts forever only fades away, day by day......

[DaveC113]

Originally Posted by Doc

Here's what controls the climate; the sun and its magnetic field. The earth is a conductor. When a conductor moves through a magnetic field, it generates electricity in the conductor, and that generates heat, which is why our planet's core is molten. Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and even slight changes in the magnetic field of the sun will effect the climate of the earth. The climate is the result of the temperature of the core and the effect that has on ocean currents. Earthquakes and volcanic activity (which are the result of what's going on in the core) affect the ocean's currents, and volcanic activity punches tremendous amounts of gases up into the atmosphere. We have dozens of active volcanoes right now doing just that. Volcanic activity has been going on since the beginning, long before we even existed. There were ice ages, warm periods, ice ages, warm periods, etc. before we were here, and after we were here. We do not effect the climate like the environmentalists want you to believe. We DO effect the environment through pollution, which is why it's easy to be deceived by their claims, but the environment is not the same as the climate. They are two separate entities; climate can affect the environment, but environment doesn't affect the climate. The sun is the sole agent of climate change.

Interesting... if true it doesn't change much though. Imo it's best not to change our environment too much just in case we can't accurately predict the results of our actions. People want to have firm opinions about things, but humans are not omniscient and the best of us are often wrong on occasion.

I think none of this matters if population growth isn't addressed anyways.

Also, we may end up attempting to cool things down by blocking sunlight. There was a recent news article about tanker jets spraying something at high altitudes. It's a tough one to google, you just get curtains back...

[Royal Tiger]

The more Doc speaks the more I like him. He’s dead on. Want to drive a tree hugger crazy? Ask him why the temps are rising on Mars too. No SUV’s there

[Doc]

Originally Posted by Chazzz

There are no right or wrong answers. When passions run high there is always a way to spin it to back up a passion. Sad fact is for whatever reason, the worlds auto manufacturers have put the future the ICE on the back burner in favor of an EV and Atonomous future. One thing is for certain... Nothing lasts forever only fades away, day by day......

Actually, on some things there ARE right or wrong answers. The importance of looking behind the curtain to see who is behind the drama you're seeing up front, becomes critical when the con artists are trying to force changes into our lives that are in THEIR interests, but at our expense.

If you've ever watched our government politicians in action, it's immediately and painfully clear that many of them aren't exactly bright or quick-witted. Some of them are shockingly stupid to the point where you wonder how in the heck they were able to con voters into putting them in power. Being in power in D.C. means being in charge over EVERYONE'S lives. Since we don't have the brightest there, they become vulnerable to con artists who are much smarter at conning than the politicians are at recognizing and understanding what's being done to them. Some of them possibly do, but too many of them are easily swayed by money "pssst.... get this legislation passed and we'll make sure large amounts of campaign money are sent your way" or other such schemes, which essentially are bribes when you come right down to it. Too many of our politicians are for sale unfortunately, which again is not in our best interest.

Then you have a voting populace that largely doesn't know, doesn't care, doesn't want to put out the effort to educate themselves about things so they can make an educated decision at voting time. Some of them don't even bother to vote, and a surprising number don't even know who or what they're voting for if they do vote.

Committing to understanding requires NOT taking the easy-out of thinking there aren't any right or wrong answers. Yeah... there are.

Originally Posted by DaveC113

Interesting... if true it doesn't change much though. Imo it's best not to change our environment too much just in case we can't accurately predict the results of our actions. People want to have firm opinions about things, but humans are not omniscient and the best of us are often wrong on occasion.

I think none of this matters if population growth isn't addressed anyways.

Also, we may end up attempting to cool things down by blocking sunlight. There was a recent news article about tanker jets spraying something at high altitudes. It's a tough one to google, you just get curtains back...

Yes, exactly. Not only does it not "change much", it actually changes nothing. The sun is going to do what it's going to do, with or without us. But you can't say that if you want grant money and legislation funneling large amounts of money your way. Which is why you won't hear what I've posted from that group, and in fact, if they can get their way, even saying what I've said would be outlawed. I'd be hunted down and arrested for even daring to question their "settled science". It's only settled in their mind as being good enough to push the con. They're counting on the ignorant, lazy and uninformed to be swayed by their emotional alarm bell ringing. Anyone telling the truth and pulling back the curtain to show what's really going on is a threat. Google is not your friend; they're in charge of the curtain.

Yeah...population growth is the giant elephant in the room that's not being talked about, and it's growing bigger by the year. Solving that one is going to be about as volatile as any issue you can possibly discuss. Nobody is willing to talk about it right now, and it won't be until the size of the elephant begins crowding into their space before they start to yell HEY!. By then, any possible "solutions" will be ugly beyond belief. The best solution is one where we intelligently figure out how to manage it before it reaches critical mass. If we don't, mother nature may come up with her own solution and you can be sure that one will NOT be politically correct, or worry about diversity, inclusion, sexual preference, political party, religion, race or anything else. It's happened in the past; we're absolute fools if we don't learn from that but continue to just ignore that potential threat, pretending it can't or won't happen again.

Climate change is NOT an issue; population growth absolutely is.

[fastball]

Originally Posted by DaveC113

People have been shouting about the end of the world since the world began.

I agree with most of your points, although some of it is semantics. We do pollute too much and some of that contributes to the climate changing. This is undeniable.

At this point we're going to reach 10-11 billion if our population doesn't continue to grow, but it is. And the unfortunate part of that is the growth is being promoted in poor countries because people need family support to survive. In all countries we have religion saying people need to have more kids to fill the world with people of that religion. New Chinese policy is now to encourage it's 1.5B population to have more kids so China can accomplish it's desire to be the world's top superpower and dominate all of it's neighbors.

Population control is not an easy subject. We're here bitching about choice of cars, I don't see getting anywhere at all with the issue of having kids. Tax incentives for NOT having kids? Penalties for having more than 2 per couple? Yeah, not going to go over well...

And because natural selection has been taken out of the equation the scenario in the movie Idiocracy is going to seem more and more like real life. I'm thirsty, excuse me I need to get some Brawndo...

Crazy talk. What’s in the water over there in Colorado? Oh wait a minute, maybe it’s all the legal herb. Yikes!

[merlin803]

Originally Posted by Doc

Actually, on some things there ARE right or wrong answers. The importance of looking behind the curtain to see who is behind the drama you're seeing up front, becomes critical when the con artists are trying to force changes into our lives that are in THEIR interests, but at our expense.

If you've ever watched our government politicians in action, it's immediately and painfully clear that many of them aren't exactly bright or quick-witted. Some of them are shockingly stupid to the point where you wonder how in the heck they were able to con voters into putting them in power. Being in power in D.C. means being in charge over EVERYONE'S lives. Since we don't have the brightest there, they become vulnerable to con artists who are much smarter at conning than the politicians are at recognizing and understanding what's being done to them. Some of them possibly do, but too many of them are easily swayed by money "pssst.... get this legislation passed and we'll make sure large amounts of campaign money are sent your way" or other such schemes, which essentially are bribes when you come right down to it. Too many of our politicians are for sale unfortunately, which again is not in our best interest.

Then you have a voting populace that largely doesn't know, doesn't care, doesn't want to put out the effort to educate themselves about things so they can make an educated decision at voting time. Some of them don't even bother to vote, and a surprising number don't even know who or what they're voting for if they do vote.

Committing to understanding requires NOT taking the easy-out of thinking there aren't any right or wrong answers. Yeah... there are.




Yes, exactly. Not only does it not "change much", it actually changes nothing. The sun is going to do what it's going to do, with or without us. But you can't say that if you want grant money and legislation funneling large amounts of money your way. Which is why you won't hear what I've posted from that group, and in fact, if they can get their way, even saying what I've said would be outlawed. I'd be hunted down and arrested for even daring to question their "settled science". It's only settled in their mind as being good enough to push the con. They're counting on the ignorant, lazy and uninformed to be swayed by their emotional alarm bell ringing. Anyone telling the truth and pulling back the curtain to show what's really going on is a threat. Google is not your friend; they're in charge of the curtain.

Yeah...population growth is the giant elephant in the room that's not being talked about, and it's growing bigger by the year. Solving that one is going to be about as volatile as any issue you can possibly discuss. Nobody is willing to talk about it right now, and it won't be until the size of the elephant begins crowding into their space before they start to yell HEY!. By then, any possible "solutions" will be ugly beyond belief. The best solution is one where we intelligently figure out how to manage it before it reaches critical mass. If we don't, mother nature may come up with her own solution and you can be sure that one will NOT be politically correct, or worry about diversity, inclusion, sexual preference, political party, religion, race or anything else. It's happened in the past; we're absolute fools if we don't learn from that but continue to just ignore that potential threat, pretending it can't or won't happen again.

Climate change is NOT an issue; population growth absolutely is.

I wish this kind of common sense was actually common.

[Aragorn]

Not an expert in any of these fields, but a result from a quick google search showed population growth slowing and global warming increasing...? Just saying...

[Norm Peterson]

Pretty sure there would have to be some sort of "lag time" involved even if population growth was the only factor involved. And it wouldn't be as short-term as day to day or even year to year.


Norm

[Doc]

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Not an expert in any of these fields, but a result from a quick google search showed population growth slowing and global warming increasing...? Just saying...

A "quick google search" on global warming and population growth is like asking a politician's PR spokesperson if what the politician said was true...

Consider this. It took however long we've been on this planet until 1962 to reach a global population of 3 billion. 50 years later in 2012 the global population was 7 billion; we added 4 billion in only 50 years. We more than doubled the growth of all time in only 50 years. Only 6 years after 2012, we've passed 8 billion. We're adding more people at a rate faster than the rate between 1962 and 2012. It took 50 years to add 4 billion, we just added over 1 billion in only 6 years. If that rate simply stabilizes, doesn't increase, we'd be adding 1 billion every 6 years which means adding 4 billion in only 24 years; less than half the time it took to add 4 billion between 1962 and 2012.

There's no reason to expect the growth rate will stabilize. It's a matter of sheer numbers. If half the women in China simply have one child, that will add more people in 9 months than the entire population of the United States. And that's just China. India has reached 1 billion too.

We've got a problem.

Originally Posted by Norm Peterson

Pretty sure there would have to be some sort of "lag time" involved even if population growth was the only factor involved. And it wouldn't be as short-term as day to day or even year to year.

Norm

Lag time? With regards to what? Not sure what you're saying.

[90503]

Not to worry...they figured out the answer to overpopulation in 1973...lol...

[Aragorn]

Originally Posted by Doc

A "quick google search" on global warming and population growth is like asking a politician's PR spokesperson if what the politician said was true...

Consider this. It took however long we've been on this planet until 1962 to reach a global population of 3 billion. 50 years later in 2012 the global population was 7 billion; we added 4 billion in only 50 years. We more than doubled the growth of all time in only 50 years. Only 6 years after 2012, we've passed 8 billion. We're adding more people at a rate faster than the rate between 1962 and 2012. It took 50 years to add 4 billion, we just added over 1 billion in only 6 years. If that rate simply stabilizes, doesn't increase, we'd be adding 1 billion every 6 years which means adding 4 billion in only 24 years; less than half the time it took to add 4 billion between 1962 and 2012.

There's no reason to expect the growth rate will stabilize. It's a matter of sheer numbers. If half the women in China simply have one child, that will add more people in 9 months than the entire population of the United States. And that's just China. India has reached 1 billion too.

.

You are very right and a didn’t mean to imply a google search was the right way way to conduct research. In fact, if you feel strongly about the subjects of global warming and human population , you should look for peer reviewed research. It’s a great way to validate scholarly work.
Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend.