Will the USA green up its act?

[storch]

Originally posted by weaselsan
Going down to 38 tonite here in Daytona....Was going to go out with the boat and do some Red Snapper fishing. Not now!

betcha the makarel is running near shore though.

[moot]

typed and scrapped a super long post, but yeah, basically I agree.

[lazs2]

ahhh... so it is a bs list cherry picked in order to make the U.S. look bad?   The U.S. does have the strictest controls in the world allready and any further reductions would be minor and at a great expense.   for instance... if you have a millionth of a part of hydrocarbons from car exhaust currently and reducing a million cars by half would have less effect than 4 guys mowing their lawn every week, and cost 2,000 per vehicle....

not hardly worth it.

We could probly cut the greenhouse gas the most by simply stopping all air travel except in emergencies and for produce.   Or... all pleasure boating....

lazs

[Yeager]

but did not include Mexico because as a developing nation, Mexico is exempted from having to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.
====
I believe giving exemptions on such a critial mass issue as global warming is not fair or equitable.  Either everyone cuts their emissions or the whole deal is off.

The United States will not shoot our economy in the heart just so the developing nations can use all the excess energy left over from our self inflicted restrictions.  

No way.   After experiencing the political tone coming from europe and asia towards the United States these past dozen years I am in no mood to give the governments on those continents ANY advantage.

[beet1e]

Originally posted by Curval
I belive that although the US does have very high levels of greenhouse gas output it also the HIGHEST quality control and STRICTEST in controling them...requireing scrubbers etc to filter the toxins out...whereas Russia and China have no such restrictions.  Given the boom of industry in China and in Russia I doubt that the US is higher than those countries.

Certainly the US (especially California) was way ahead when measures were being applied to lower toxic emissions from car exhausts. I believe that 1975 was the first year that all gasoline powered cars in the US had to have a catalytic converter. Perhaps only Japan was ahead of the US in this development. In Britain it wasn't until c1988 that we started to see unleaded petrol, and it wasn't until 1991 that I got my first car with a CC - a Toyota.

The three way catalytic converter changes the composition of the car's exhaust gas from hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen into pure nitrogen, water vapour and carbon dioxide. But whereas these gases are less harmful to us, the water vapour and carbon dioxide are greenhouse gases and are therefore responsible for global warming.

[Vulcan]

Looking for the source of your data the best I could find was:

It is difficult to obtain greenhouse gas emission estimates for many countries; however, energy data are widely available. The following table is derived from International Energy Agency, 1998; U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2000.

So, at best its a guess from a bunch of left wing tree hugging man hating whale humping lesbians with an agenda.

I've see thermographic imaging of the pollution in China, and its contribution to El Nino, and theres no way the USA produces more than the Chinese.

[ravells]

I think there are two big problems:

First: Everyone who is not in Europe or the US wants the lifestyle (and the massive ecological footprint it leaves) of those places - I'm not sure if the planet can support that sort of lifestlye for everyone on the planet. But we now have China and India q.v. the population statistic post on this board, who want to catch up and catch up fast. That means more pollution everywhere which is going to affect everyone.

Second: To my mind the most important contribution that oil makes to the world economy is in the manufacture of plastics - not petrol for cars. There are alternative energy sources to drive cars, and as far as I know apart from hemp which can can be used to make some limited forms of plastic like substances, we don't have any other material which can make the plastics to the tolerances we require in industry apart from oil.

What it boils down to is that people are going to have to change their lifestyles because if we follow the present industrial/economical course we are following as a planet the future is pretty dim unless we find some amazing techonolgical breakthrough very quickly.

Talking about emissions being reduced in the US makes no sense if the industry which is producing goods for the US economy is in China or India who are not eco-friendly in their production processes ... but cheaper. All it means is that production is going to move to those places.

Still, I don't have kids and I don't think there's going to be some sort of ecological meltdown in my lifetime. But for those of you who do, you might want to take your heads out of the sand.

Ravs

[Casca]

Originally posted by beet1e
... water vapour and carbon dioxide are greenhouse gases and are therefore responsible for global warming.

Hey, just what ya need to grow plants.  What a happy coincidence!

[Gh0stFT]

Country Y: "bla bla bla until country X dont reduce theyr greenhouse gas emission why should we?"

Country X: "bla bla bla until country Y dont stop theyr greenhouse gas emission why should we?"

bla $ bla $ bla...

[ravells]

Damn!

Ghost, you just reduced my seven paragraphs into about 44 words.

Ravs

[lazs2]

country x... we have the strictest emission controls in the world..

country y.... yeah...well... well... well.. yu should pay for everyone elses at least until your economy is as third world as everyone elses...  How can you not love your fellow man enough to sink down into the mud with him?

lazs

[NUKE]

That's about right Laz.

They want the US to pay and pay, so other crap countries can pollute and pollute.  Overall, emmissions would not be less anyway.

[ravells]

What you don't understand (or you do and you are ignoring) Lasz is that those third world countries want to become first world countries by supplying first world countries with the goods first world countries want to buy. And the industries in the first world countries don't want to produce stuff in places with expensive strict emission controls (like the US). Those industries don't give a damn about where their stuff is produced, even if those companies claim they are as American as apple pie.

Head....sand...Lasz!

Ravs

[NUKE]

ravels, so why would any country want to impose emission controls?

[NUKE]

The US imposed emission controls on itself, before anyone else was even thinking of it as an issue.

The US imposed controls on itself out of concern for the environment, not our economy. Now little watermelon countries want to impose penalties on the US out of concern for their economies, not the environment.......otherwise they would not want to pollute, ala China.