Sign 2 Petitions to Repeal CAFE (or just 1)

[camaro-dreamer]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

I'm hoping for CAFE to be replaced. We both know that CAFE's requirements are getting increasingly stringent, but the buying habits of Americans are not changing to keep up with them. As a consequence, we're getting more expensive technologies placed in the powertrains of cars that everyone uses. While these are good for some innovation, they are bad because they artificially increase the price of these powertrains and reduce customer choice in engines, performance, and features because the money that would go to manufacturing those options is spent elsewhere.

While GM and other manufacturers have done a great job of providing excellent products while still complying with federal regulations, it is clear that Americans need to eventually be nudged toward more efficient, smaller vehicles. How do we nudge people toward vehicles that allow the corporate average to improve? Prices go up. Americans like big vehicles disproportionately more than Europeans or Asians, and it shows in car purchases. CAFE provides some consideration for this by offering a better system for trucks, but it fails to help larger cars, and your average family isn't driving Minis.

What needs to happen is a change in the system, but environmentalists won't let this system die without a replacement, so we have to compromise. We compromise by offering an alternative system. The industry leadership can then meet with elected officials and appropriate members of the executive branch to discuss what standards are reasonable, and then those can be enacted. While this is taking place, it doesn't make sense for CAFE to continue since a replacement would be in effect, so it is likely that there would be a loosening of future standards until the new system can take effect.

I think this is really a false dichotomy.

[The_Blur]

Originally Posted by camaro-dreamer

I think this is really a false dichotomy.

The door's that way. It looks like this wouldn't be your first troll here, Mustang driver.

[camaro-dreamer]

Explain please. I have not received any messages suggesting that I have broken any rule here. You are presenting a false dichotomy. You suggest that the only two options are CAFE or something else which also regulates CO2 emissions. Why do we have to accept either?

[The_Blur]

Originally Posted by camaro-dreamer

Explain please. I have not received any messages suggesting that I have broken any rule here. You are presenting a false dichotomy. You suggest that the only two options are CAFE or something else which also regulates CO2 emissions. Why do we have to accept either?

We don't have to accept either. I don't see any alternative proposals posted, so the ball's in your court to publish something that the White House can review. I'll gladly sign a repeal CAFE petition.

[camaro-dreamer]

Originally Posted by The_Blur

We don't have to accept either. I don't see any alternative proposals posted, so the ball's in your court to publish something that the White House can review. I'll gladly sign a repeal CAFE petition.

My opinion of those who support CO2 as a pollutant is not something that I would be allowed to express on this forum. People think they are killing the planet by emitting CO2. These people exhale copious amounts of CO2 produced by cellular respiration every day. How can they stop killing the planet? I think arguing with them is a fruitless endeavor. Each time, you will be expected to compromise. Each time you argue, you lose a little bit more.

In fact, I did mention an alternate proposal in my post above. If we think CO2 is something that we need to target, what can we do to increase the fuel economy of the 7 mpg truck that delivers all of the crap we buy to the store? We need to figure out what we can do to this very targeted market which clearly emits far more CO2 than most passenger cars. We need to do so by focusing our investments on research in this area in order to improve the fuel economy of the big semi truck. At the same time, we need to be sensitive to economic concerns as well as CO2 emissions.

In addition, we could seriously reevaluate the way in which we deliver things to the stores and our homes. There are gross inefficiencies in use of automotive fuel resources when we can ship any item at any time with any turnaround time.

I would much rather speak to my US Senator or US House member about what I think should be done for fuel economy standards. Primarily, this is because those people are in the legislative branch. They can actually make the laws. The executive branch is not given this authority from the US Constitution.

[AdamZ]

Signed....99,989 to go lol

[Captain Awesome]

Originally Posted by Mr. Wyndham

As I showed them these things, I made sure NOT to tell them what to think. Which was important, because I feel so strongly about this. The painfully obvious inconsistencies led them to want to know more...which was my plan. After a week or so of guided research using legitimate online sources, 9/10 of them decided that they believed the evidence suggested our planet was warming...but that it is not man who is causing it.

They decided that it is a good thing to try and save our environment by doing things like recycling, reducing waste, and increasing efficiency in most all things...but they said that it was because it was just the right thing to do. They didn't feel they needed to "save the environment" from some galactic catastrophe.

I was proud of them....I hope they remember it, as they grow up.

It sounds to me like they DID grow up!

I generally take the same approach as you do when dealing with these situations at work and socially. For the most part the people I meet will make the logical choices once you cut through the spin and sensationalized narrative they are caught up in. I love it when I can get their critical thinking kickstarted. it really is a wonderful thing.

An easy approach is to get them to discuss something you know is bogus and then feign ignorance so they have to explain the situation to you, while you play dumb and confused. You ask the right questions a naive person would ask, and eventually they spot the conclict and it's like a light goes on.

Originally Posted by 90503

...lol...A favorite of mine was a volcano in the Philippines that covered up Clark Air Base a few years back (I think that was it) spewed out over a thousand times more pollutants into the atmosphere than man has since the start of the industrial revolution...lol

Here's a fun one.... go to central park in NYC with someone who believes man is ruining the earth. Show them the huge grooves carved in the exposed rocks. Ask them if they realize that those grooves were made by boulders the size of buildings being pulverized by a 5 mile thick sheet of ice that slid down from Canada a very short time ago (in relative terms to the age of the earth).

This was before man climbed out of the trees, so how did the climate change so much all by itself? Maybe the climate is supposed to change! Man is pretty arrogant to think that his doings can comare with the destructive power the earth has all by herself.

What are these people going to say when the next supervolcano erupts? Yellowstone park is about due to bury the midwest. And don't get me started about asteroid collisions.

Let us not forget the tons and tons of dust that fall from space onto the earth each year. That stuff is pollution too (even heavy metals!) and over time it increases the mass of the earth and changes the orbit too!

Climate is simply a slow motion weather system.

Originally Posted by camaro-dreamer

The problem is that these people think CO2 is a pollutant.

Actually, in one of the most wrongheaded decisions of all time, the courts ruled that it IS a pollutant, and killed hundreds of thousands of jobs with the stroke of a pen.

[The_Blur]

Originally Posted by camaro-dreamer

My opinion of those who support CO2 as a pollutant is not something that I would be allowed to express on this forum. People think they are killing the planet by emitting CO2. These people exhale copious amounts of CO2 produced by cellular respiration every day. How can they stop killing the planet? I think arguing with them is a fruitless endeavor. Each time, you will be expected to compromise. Each time you argue, you lose a little bit more.

In fact, I did mention an alternate proposal in my post above. If we think CO2 is something that we need to target, what can we do to increase the fuel economy of the 7 mpg truck that delivers all of the crap we buy to the store? We need to figure out what we can do to this very targeted market which clearly emits far more CO2 than most passenger cars. We need to do so by focusing our investments on research in this area in order to improve the fuel economy of the big semi truck. At the same time, we need to be sensitive to economic concerns as well as CO2 emissions.

In addition, we could seriously reevaluate the way in which we deliver things to the stores and our homes. There are gross inefficiencies in use of automotive fuel resources when we can ship any item at any time with any turnaround time.

I would much rather speak to my US Senator or US House member about what I think should be done for fuel economy standards. Primarily, this is because those people are in the legislative branch. They can actually make the laws. The executive branch is not given this authority from the US Constitution.

Don't give me that narrow-minded the-Constitution-doesn't-say-agencies-exist argument. They exist. The executive branch administers legislation passed by Congress. We wouldn't have stoplights or judicial review if everyone read the Constitution so narrowly. If you had studied policy as seriously as you claim to understand it, you'd know that.

I'm not stopping you from talking to your senator or congressman. Unfortunately, unless your elected officials are on a committee relating to the environment, you probably won't be heard. Committees, congressional districts, and political parties aren't in the Constitution either.

Moreover, you're 100% focused on carbon dioxide, but I clearly pitched a program that would focus on ozone-scavenging chemicals that do not naturally occur without technological interference. Trees and algae can clean up carbon dioxide. They can't clean up some of the other near-unpronounceable stuff that we produce.

You did mention a proposal above, but no one is searching the forum for your personal ideas on how to fix the CAFE problem. Unless you bring it forward, you're letting your democratic process down. It's up to every citizen to contribute to their democracy, and your voice is not heard just through voting. If you want something done, you have to let people know about it.

[Mr. Wyndham]

Originally Posted by Captain Awesome

It sounds to me like they DID grow up!

I generally take the same approach as you do when dealing with these situations at work and socially. For the most part the people I meet will make the logical choices once you cut through the spin and sensationalized narrative they are caught up in. I love it when I can get their critical thinking kickstarted. it really is a wonderful thing.

An easy approach is to get them to discuss something you know is bogus and then feign ignorance so they have to explain the situation to you, while you play dumb and confused. You ask the right questions a naive person would ask, and eventually they spot the conclict and it's like a light goes on.

That was the approach I took. Because of what I think, I was actually afraid they might come to the same conclusions as Al Gore a couple of times....but reason, and critical thinking prevailed.

Blur...I like your second petition, better. Signed that one, and I hope everyone who cares about this does, too.

[Dznts]

signed

[Lou_Dorchen]

Have you posted this petition on other car sites as well? I'm sure Ford, Dodge, and even import enthusiasts aren't fond of CAFE standards either.

[The_Blur]

Originally Posted by Lou_Dorchen

Have you posted this petition on other car sites as well? I'm sure Ford, Dodge, and even import enthusiasts aren't fond of CAFE standards either.

I'll keep myself to Camaro5 and Corvette7 for now. I wouldn't want to run into the same trolls all over again.

You're more than welcome to share those links anywhere online. They don't even show up in the petition search until they have 150 signatures, so please share.

[trademaster]

The lead ambition of Corporate Average Fuel Economy is not to reduce pollution, that's your first mistake. That is a very small portion of the intent of CAFE. CAFE was introduced after the Arab Oil Embargo in an attempt to hedge demand against volatility and disruption in supply as to avoid resultant recession. The footprint function wasn't even introduced until 2011, nearly 40 years after the legislation was first passed. CAFE standards are regulated by the NHTSA, not the EPA. The EPA simply determines the methodology of measurement of vehicle fuel efficiency by which the NHTSA develops CAFE standards. Read up on the 1973 Yom Kippur attack on Israel by Egypt and Syria, the resultant NATO "separation" and near miss of nuclear war, the OAPEC embargo and US oil crisis, the 1973-1974 US stock market crash, and the policy development in the following half-decade. You will see that it is impossible to discuss CAFE in any regard without getting deeply political. CAFE is a legislative tool to remove as much power over the US economy from the hands of Arab oil producing countries as is feasible.