An Inconvenient Truth
It showed Al Gore in a whole new light, smart, driven, has his priorities straight. It certainly put global warming at the forefront of my mind the last couple of days too. I've always felt that the world would have been going through these cyclic changes anyway, but that we (the human race) were speeding things up. I had no idea by how much though. |
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| I saw it & it just makes me angry that so many people do not try & do more to conserve energy or save our environment. Even if you can't afford hybrid cars or alternative energy solutions, people should at the very least recycle & turn off a few more electric appliances to conserve energy. Even your next light bulb purchase, spend a couple more bucks and buy energy efficient bulbs.
I do beg everyone that is in denial about global warming, to please watch this movie with you political influence aside. Al Gore has compiled such good resources to get the point across. I'm sorry that not enough people saw him in this light when he ran for president. He was one of the most pro-environmental political figures of our time. Just think what our world might be like now...  
Here's a link to the movie site if you are interested... http://climatecrisis.org/ |
| HAHAHAHAHA, I just posted on your other thread about this movie (didn't see this). I agree it showed Al GOre in an entirely different light, it was well done and informational. It did annoy me that he had to get a little political in it, but I forgive him (I voted for him). |
Tasker's Mom wrote: It did annoy me that he had to get a little political in it,
Yes, I agree with you on that too. I think there was enough non-political information to let people make their own conclusions. |
| I haven't seen the movie, but have heard what it's about. While I agree that global warming might be occuring and that people need to take more care in how they live their lives in regards to waste and energy and resources and all that, I also think that this movie can be considered alarmist and one-sided and that there are many sources to back up this idea...
Just google An Inconvenient Truth and Inaccurate. |
barney1 wrote: I haven't seen the movie, but have heard what it's about. While I agree that global warming might be occuring and that people need to take more care in how they live their lives in regards to waste and energy and resources and all that, I also think that this movie can be considered alarmist and one-sided and that there are many sources to back up this idea...
Just google An Inconvenient Truth and Inaccurate. All I can recommend is to watch the movie & make your own conclusions. There will always be people disputing theories. As far as alarmist attitudes, I think the sirens should be screaming for governments to put alternative energy resources into action now. I'm not sure why the hold-up. |
| I won't pretend I know much about this issue but have heard a few things that particularly intrigue me.
Some say that a huge percentage of pollution is caused by animal farts. 
If a person were to buy a Honda Civic Hybrid (for example), it would take more than 10 years before the gas savings would catch up to the added cost of a hybrid and you would "break even". Any diesel car (yay Volkswagon Jetta TDI!) can run on used vegetable oil with no modifications to the car whatsoever. I think there is a small amount of processing that should be done to the oil first to remove sediment/floating bits of food stuff but that is do-it-yourself. You can make a deal with your local fast-food joint or restaurant and get their used cooking oil virtually free. Now that's alternative fuel! As long as you don't mind your car smelling like french fries (mmmm!). |
| Check it out: http://youtube.com/watch?v=YOGIh3yRltE
They tested the used cooking oil in a diesel car and only got slightly worse gas mileage than with regular diesel... but since the cooking oil was free....! |
Sheepie Heaven wrote: I
If a person were to buy a Honda Civic Hybrid (for example), it would take more than 10 years before the gas savings would catch up to the added cost of a hybrid and you would "break even". People need to do things like buy hybrids not because it will save THEM money but because it will decrease to amount of pollution. One of the reasons that "renewable" energy is such a hard sell is because it isn't necessarily the "cheapest" form of energy and people can't see beyond their own wants and needs to what is best for the planet and the generations to come. |
| How much are emissions really decreased by driving hybrids? All I ever hear about is how "great" the gas mileage is.... yet those hybrid SUVs get worse mileage than our Grand Caravan yet people/celebrities rant about how great their hybrid SUV is. It doesn't seem to make sense.
Wouldn't emissions be greatly decreased by carpooling more, walking more, taking public transit, etc.? We have something called Drive Clean, where every car owner is required to have their car's emissions tested regularly and if it doesn't pass certification, the car owner must pay for repairs to reduce harmful emissions to an acceptable level. Too bad it seems transport trucks and buses are not required to pass Drive Clean! I imagine it would make a big difference if school buses, public buses and transport trucks were held to the same emissions standard. Just some thoughts. Interesting discussion. I haven't seen the movie yet, but will rent it when I get time... and will also read about the stated Inaccuracies afterwards too. |
| I am just starting to read and learn about this stuff but from what I understand emission control and gas mileage are two different tomatoes. The United States has the poorest emission control requirements of any Nation in the world, CHINA is the best.
If you have a vehicle that meets higher emission control standards (and it is the emissions that are creating the problem) you may not necessarily get better or even great gas mileage.............. I need to do a whole lot MORE reading and learning before I speak with any degree of knowledge on the issue.............. I'll get back to you!!! |
| Hey, thanks for being honest! I know very little about this stuff myself, but am also very interested in learning more. Please post links if you find any useful and credible information on the web.
I assumed that amounts of emissions would be directly proportional to fuel consumption - i.e. garbage in->garbage out, but if that's an incorrect assumption, I'm glad to hear it and I'm interested in understanding how this stuff works. I'd also be interested to hear how emissions for diesel cars running on used cooking oil compare to regular gas and regular diesel emissions... are they cleaner? |
| Emmissions is the amount of crap that comes out the exhaust. It can be very high on a badly maintained 4 cyl Honda, or it can be very low on a well maintained 8 cyl gas guzzler.
There are many factors contributing to the cleaner air effort. It is a combination of the amount of fuel, the type of fuel, and maintenace of the vehcile etc. etc. Even the amount of air in the tires. The gas that burns the cleanest is, of cource, the most expensive....
The Clean Air program does not apply to older vehicle, which is a shame. I also think it is being phased out, as it did not seem to accomplish what it was set up to do.
But the whole global warming issue scares the daylights out of me. Fine for those of us, who may not be around to suffer the consequences, but now the scientists are saying that in 20 years there will be no fish left in the ocean...(or was it 40?...it was in my kid's lifetime, thought)... What exactly are we doing to this planet? Or NOT doing? |
| I think the clean air program never applied to any car in mid or northern Ontario
Bosley's mom wrote: The Clean Air program does not apply to older vehicle, which is a shame. I also think it is being phased out, as it did not seem to accomplish what it was set up to do. |
| http://ehso.com/ehshome/auto-emissions_chronol.htm
Here is a link to the history of Emission control in the US. I could not find a "world wide" comparison. I did find an article that said that Canadian emission contorl regulations are "harmonized" with the us, I think that means they adopt the same reulations we do. |
jean wrote: I think the clean air program never applied to any car in mid or northern Ontario
Huh? It most certainly does... I know I've had to go through several e tests, every other year and or when I buy a new vehicle... for several years now. How are you getting away with NOT doing it? LOL You cannot renew your stickers if you don't... |
| Hadn't heard anything about Northern Ontario being any different. I'm sure it applied to all of Ontario.
"Older" cars did have to be E-tested too, though it depends on your definition of "older". I remember when E-testing was initially introduced to our area (5-10 years ago?), our 1982 car had to be E-tested but our 1980 car was old enough that it didn't need to be tested... yet. If my parents had kept it, it would have required E-testing within a couple years, and it certainly had to be E-tested (and safety tested) when it was sold as every car/truck must be re-tested every time it is sold. I hadn't heard that the Drive Clean program was being phased out though. Too bad if it didn't have the desired effect. |
Steph, one of our cars is a Toyota Prius and when my husband gets home I will ask him about the emissions. Our reason to buy the car was mainly all about the gas that we "were not" using. Another reason was that we wanted to support hybrid auto makers to continue producing cars less dependent on gasoline. Eventually I think the hybrid cars will come down a lot in price. I sure hope so by the time we are ready for another vehicle. Vegetable oil cars are very efficient, but unfortunately they are illegal to operate in a lot of areas around here which boggles my mind. 
Do you guys remember when it first came to light that Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) were damaging the ozone layer? World wide, manufacturers stopped using them in their products and the difference it made was remarkable. In An Inconvenient Truth they actually pulled a core from a glacier in the Arctic, which they read like tree rings, and you could see the difference from when the world stopped using CFC's. I don't know why we can't put stops on other things like cutting down trees in the rain forest, using clean energy like Nuclear, Wind & Solar Power all would help. I always had believed all of the theories about global warming before but the science evidence that was shown in the movie was astonishing. |
| I found out about the emissions on the Prius. When using gas, the emission produced is way below the standard in the US including the toughest state, California. When operating on battery, the emission is 0.
Also, on http://climatecrisis.org/ "Take Action" button on the right >> "Become Carbon Neutral" link upper right of the earth photo. You can take a survey to see how much Carbon Dioxide you are producing. We got a 2.5  . |
| The moment you're using the battery there are 0 emissions. However, that's misleading.
The battery is charged by the engine, which produces emissions. When the battery needs charging the engine works harder than it would have to to just push the car, so it produces more emissions than would be necessary to just push the car. The batteries weigh a lot, causing the car to be less efficient. The batteries are made of lead which is environmentally dangerous, and must be recycled, which takes quite a bit of energy and water. ...and those tires are expensive! 
Yes, they are more efficient, but not by much. We're still burning fuel in a highly inefficient manner, creating kinetic energy (motion) from expanding gasses, in order to turn a stator to produce electricity, or to turn the wheels on the car. The real energy in the gasoline is heat energy, and we just throw it away out the tailpipe or out the radiator (and off the brake rotors to the extent they're needed over the regenerative braking). That energy should be captured and fed back into the car -- even if to boil water to make steam to spin a turbine and make some more electricity! Or how about a steam cylinder? lol Better yet, charge up some highly dense batteries from home, where electricity generation and distribution is somewhat more efficient. In your case, right from the sun!
But I'm just a dreamer. |
| I was watching the World's Strongest Man competition the other day and one of the challenges was they were strapped into a shell of a car and they had to carry and walk the car a certain distance, kind of Flintstones style...Not very energy efficient for people (I think it got like 20 steps before exhaustion!), but not bad on emissions (well, I don't know what these men were emitting!). |
barney1 wrote: I was watching the World's Strongest Man competition the other day and one of the challenges was they were strapped into a shell of a car and they had to carry and walk the car a certain distance, kind of Flintstones style...Not very energy efficient for people (I think it got like 20 steps before exhaustion!), but not bad on emissions (well, I don't know what these men were emitting!).
Probably more methane than the emissions that little 900 pound car was capable of making! |
| Great information presented in a very easy to understand fashion. Scary, what we are allowing to happen in our world. It doesn't even matter what you do or don't believe or want to dispute because you can visibly look at our environment and see changes that are not for the good.
I'd also heard about no fish in the ocean and was talking to some friends regarding that. They were telling me in the CA Bay Area there are certain times that fishing is not allowed at all, not even individuals. They were also telling me that Japan uses large nets that captures entire schools of fish. |
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