And now we've struck the point of hyperfixation and Opti literally not listening to anything. Remember- I only brought up walking cities as an example, now he's clinging to it.
Opti said:
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
Yes, "only" half a billion tons of CO2, not counting all the other benefits that regular exercise gets people, or the long term effects of people now not using resources, or the health benefits, ect.
1% improvement should never be considered? If I spend 30 minutes on my project car a day and only make 1% progress in doing so, should I just scrap it because it isn't 5 or 10? Should I scrap going to the gym tonight because I'll only increase my deadlift by ~10 lbs? You're giving up before you even try Opti.
You are equating something you can actually achieve easily
Putting down sidewalks tends to be easier than roads, yes. But jokes aside I don't remember ever saying things would be "easy", so you're putting words in my mouth again 
and quickly at no cost to others
It's my tax dollars too dude.
with very low stakes,
THE HIGH-STAKES BEHAVIOR OF WALKING ON A SIDEWALK, TONIGHT AT 7 ON ESPN 8! seriously, what "stakes" lmao
going to the gym or working on you car everyday, to something that is so pie in the sky it will never happen
It is happening- I have proved it's in Denmark, and I can detail how it's being used in Paris, Pennsylvania, and other dense metro cities. But you'd have to listen and read, and considering where your comment went... lol, lmao.
and would take decades even if it could and still essentially be immaterial. They are not the same its a false equivalency and a terrible analogy.
I didn't know "progress" on something was now split into different categories. Is there a list that shows "real" progress from "fake" progress? How is this magic chart gonna deal with states and nations that have different issues in combating climate change?
All jokes aside, Half a billion tons of anything is magically immaterial? My analogy must be spot-on if you're just gonna claim it's bad and not prove why.
Half a billion sounds like a lot, but relatively its not. If your solution was easy to implement, with little to no cost, and could be done quickly I might be in favor of it. You going to the gym is not the same as getting the entire world to bike at the level of Denmark.
I used walking cities as an example of how Denmark has such low emissions, and here you are claiming I'm gonna force everyone to their level? I know what you're really doing here Opti, but I want you to explain now you're mindset as to why you think that's acceptable to make that reach.
Remember how everyone used that claim of "too spread out" for why electric cars wouldn't work in the US? I wonder why they stopped lmao
And "Cant bike goods into walkable cities"? I didn't say that, don't be putting your words in my mouth now . What the hell is "Large scale biking"? People think I'm nuts doing ~5 miles total to my local gym but it only takes me 15-20 minutes. Is biking a mile away to grab half and half from my local supermarket "Large scale biking" too? This phrase means friggin nothing lol.
I didnt claim EVs wouldnt work because the US is spread out. I said biking and walking on a large scale wont work because the US is too spread out.
You're not reading my comments Opti. What the hell is "Large Scale Biking"? What the hell does "Spread out" mean? I'm talking about a city, not riding 20 miles to one.
Im glad that you have the time to spend 40 minutes biking to and from the gym and only covering 10 miles, not everyone has the time or the physical capability to do that.
Which is why I talk about it as giving people options instead of driving. You're not reading my comments Opti.
If you walk to your supermarket to buy bread but the bread was trucked in by a diesel truck and the energy used to keep the lights on is made by a coal plant 40 miles away, you havent made a material difference.
Prove it. So now I haven't made a difference because of LIGHTS, not because I now didn't use gas to get something? The lights were gonna be on anyway son, I just chose not to put more crap into the atmosphere.
It's a tool in the toolbox, it gives people options- and my prior links showed it absolutely is, since Denmark makes a quarter of the carbon the US does and it's apart of it.
If you think people biking in Denmark makes a real material difference its shows a complete misunderstanding of whats going on.
Then prove those linked articles wrong. Go on, pull yerself up by them bootstraps and get to work now
Opti EVERYTHING needs fossil fuels. They're gonna run out eventually, so why would you EVER want to burn more than you need to? Again, you're giving everything up before you even try, demanding some kind of silver bullet to all these ills when that'll never exist.
I agree. Why would we ever burn more than we need to. We disagree on where that point is.
You literally claimed that half a billion tons of ANYTHING doesn't matter earlier- what "point" could you possibly have now lol
God, your Nihilism is a hell of a drug.
I think its dumb to use the energy source that emits more CO2 and is less energy dense to only mention a couple of the drawbacks (wind) compared to a a better one.
Then prove it, like I said.
Emphasis mine. You go from "we have a massive waste problem" with a link to recycling for it existing, now "Well we're only just starting and it's government's fault!" as if the Free market wasn't the real driving factor here behind wind and solar power (LINK 1 and LINK 2). You don't get to use the fed as a cop-out here opti; these corporations bury the blades because the problem is mostly one of cost and access to equipment, AKA cost. Quoted from the Union of Concerned Scientists:
I dont deny wind and solar cost has come down. It obviously has. My problem with federal government is they incentivized something that was not economically viable and they set the parameters to make it viable.
Damn it's almost like that's the point of a subsidy or something lol
You cant say an industry that was largely propped up by government subsidies is a result of the free market.
If you're gonna try to spin this into a "No True Scotsman" debate about what is and isn't a free market enterprise just because they received help from a government, you will lose before you even start. I would willingly argue that everything you touch has that dirty rotten hand of gubernment affecting it in some way- the touch screen in your phone was publicly funded research, google was originally ran off of pubically funded servers in UC Sacremento, and businesses everywhere accept tax breaks to set up in specific states.
This is a huge reason why nuclear is so expensive in the US, large regulatory changes quickly and after the investment.
Totally not because many nuclear wastes are bone poisons and we didn't know in the 40s-50s, or because we learned more. Or because we got scared. Like seriously dude, if you want people to jump onboard with nuclear for our future you need to at least understand and address the issues with it.
Also your quote essentially says yah its expensive and hard to cut the blades so we are largely still just burying them. Thats exactly what Im saying, we havent solved it.
You're not reading my comments Opti. I'm using it as an example that an issue can be solved, you're using it as an excuse to not do something.
There's a lot of ways to save the earth, but I doubt laziness is one of them.
You understand theoretically we may have a solution,
I don't see how a used technology, active tooling and live examples can make something "Theoretical" outside of science.
deployment is a whole different thing. One that apparently isnt viable according to your own source. So we still have a problem. Dont tell me its solved then post a source saying its not.
You're not reading my comments Opti. I didn't say it wasn't a problem. I said we are making solutions to them.
Wrong. From the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: "EVs convert over 77% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12%–30% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels."
I'd LOVE to see you prove how that massive chain of transportation of gasoline from Texas is somehow equally as efficient as my cities grid.
Thank you for proving my point. "Energy from the grid." Where does energy from the grid come from? In the US it largely comes from trucking large amounts of fossil fuels to a plant that then uses that fossil fuels to spin things and create energy. Theoretically very similar in the way that we use gasoline in an ICE. All you did is was move the yard stick from in front of to behind energy creation. Ive already presented the efficiency loss from coal and nat gas plants, how come you dont equate that into the efficiency of EVs?
Then prove the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy wrong, and prove that grid energy is still less efficient than a gas engine in a car.
It's partially that, also "If you want to continue to own smart phones, accessories, laptops and all other current aspects of western life you need more lithium-ion battery production, which you don't have yet." Lithium Iron Phosphates are cells that last ~5 times longer than a lithium ion and are far safer and cheaper, so there's tons of reasons to go for them over stock Li-ion cells that make much more sense for your average consumer.
As for who else- Everyone really has said they're gonna do it, Toyota is with the terribly-named BZ4X but i'm having a hell of a time finding the article that showed buyers which was which outside of range. I think there's 3 different BZ4X'es, one using Samsung cells, one with Panasonics and a third using BYDs.
So another we are working on it. As in its not solved but we are working on it.
We have cars on the road using LiFePO4 now Opti. You even admitted to knowing that with Tesla and asked me what other manufacturers are doing so too.
Why does the government subsidize/force people to move into non viable solutions (wind/EVs) before we have solutions to problems that cause massive amounts of waste or human suffering?
Now my car is suddenly non-viable again? Prove it, like how you need to prove the power in my wall is somehow worse in efficiency than a gas engine that demands blending of different fuels like alcohol and ethanol (with their own supply chains), trucking from station AND refinery, refining, piping, and pumping out of the ground.
You said " Cap and trade and carbon taxes wont do anything" and I'm genuinely asking why. I need YOU to prove your opinion.
It is obvious.
It clearly isn't.
It creates a barrier to entry on behalf of the already established polluters because they have the capital already and it becomes more expensive for competition to rise.
Okay, but what competition could possibly appear in the petroleum space? To own enough wells to compete and to be able to refine your own petroleum into just say, Kerosene, you'd need a massive amount of money anyway. Why would established companies step on each others toes, if they're making healthy profits sticking to their own little spheres of influence?
Since its a govt program and we all believe the largest corporations have their tentacles in the government, its also very much susceptible to lobbying and structured in a way to help the largest and hurt their competition. Its the same old thing as many of our laws "its only illegal if you cant afford it."
True.
The costs just get passed onto the consumer, while as you stated "everything needs fossil fuels" so at the same time they get to make it harder to compete with them.
But then you're back to the crux of the issue- you need big power to change that and tip the balance to the consumer, i.e. government, or something similar. But you claim its evil but refuse to give other options or courses of action.
You may say well that makes it more economically viable for alternative energy source to pop up. Thats a long process and even they need fossil fuels.
Again, everything demands fossil fuels. They're basically the planet's heroin, and only now with lithium and "eh, good enough" battery tech do we even have a possible alternative.
[I cut out the links for brevity -Girth]
I didnt realize you agreed with huge fossil fuel companies about how we should regulate them.
Honey gets flies more than vinegar Opti.
There's a lot to unpack from these. One thing comes to mind at once- BP states they support it because "much of the action is occurring at the state and regional level", so I could see billionaire corporations preferring the far simpler route of a federal tax than 50+ varying state and local taxes, the latter demanding their own regulations and pricing structures and thus demanding more workers to do so.
Another detail is from the propubliuca article: "Critics attribute these increases, in part, to a bevy of concessions the state has made to the oil and gas industry to keep the program going. They say these compromises have blocked steps that would have mandated real emissions reductions and threaten the state’s ability to meet its ambitious goal of slashing its emissions 40% by 2030." so there's also a very real issue of corruption from the oil and gas systems in effective legislation. I also note :
"Experts say cap and trade is rarely stringent enough when used alone; direct regulations on refineries and cars are crucial to reining in emissions. But oil representatives are engaged in a worldwide effort to make market-based solutions the primary or only way their emissions are regulated."
... this part, since I'm also saying you need tools in the toolbox and something like cap and trade is apart of them and not a silver bullet like Cali likes to pretend it can be. I thank you for getting me these links tho; It'll be some time and more information before my opinion becomes more hardened.
Great example. Government ruins everything. "lets burn this toxic chemical, Dont worry the air is fine to breath. Ignore the bird and fish dying everywhere." Do we really want to compare atrocities committed by the govt vs corporations? Generally the ones the corps do are actually sanctioned by the Govt.
A train derails because of poor maintenance and a lack of workers, and it's gubernments fault, not the fault of the corporation and it's shareholders and CEO that run it? You do understand Norfolk Southern made $1.2 billion the year prior right? Or are you back to half a billion of anything not mattering lmao
As for the controlled burn, it's a different discussion but I can pull out my old HAZMAT manuals and explain why they did that. It's typically because the alternatives were worse.
So instead of having a way or method to change things... just don't? Toss it to (your words) equally untrustworthy corporations? Just Don't bother? I understand complaining, but we need solutions, not endless whining. I know what you're really doing here, but I want you to actually make a point- If we supposedly can't trust government (of it's people, mind you) or corporations to run power generation, then who?
I never said that large corporations are equally untrustworthy as the govt. In fact I will outright say the opposite. The government is less trustworthy than the large corporations. The corporations follow profit incentives, largely set by the govt,
I'm sorry, what. When did we become communist lmao?
The conversation about "whats being done" (this conversation) is largely linked with what the national conversation is. The national conversation is centered around a bunch of nothing-burgers, while we continue business as usual. My point is, if this is such a huge problem, lets look at actual solutions, not mandating EVs that are powered by coal.
Solutions you're still not providing lol
THEY'RE STILL SUPPORTING IT LMAO, THAT'S THE POINT 
Jesus, should we have not bothered with steam power because it ain't gas or diesel? No, we needed that E36 M3 as a stepping stone on the path of industrialization. Who cares if we get rid of nuclear if it leads to us going carbon-neutral and fixing climate change? We still did it.
Your point was we did a "180" on nuclear. I showed you a graph showing flat support over 30 years. Then I took your source and found the data behind it showing really only 15% of people support it, and most people dont support it or only support it as a stepping stone to a higher emissions energy source (wind). Its asinine and points to my previous point. We are stupid and arent doing anything. The goal isnt moving towards actual emissions reduction, its moving towards feel good marketing. The question was even framed as would you support it knowing it cleaned up emissions or something to that effect, and still they want the energy source that has a better marketing campaign (wind) but emits more.
You're not reading my comments Opti. You're still:
1. Not proving that Wind is higher emissions than gasoline or petroleum.
2. Not accepting they're still putting in nuclear as a low to zero carbon energy source over other options.
3. Not accepting that people change, opinions change (as has been shown) and that they later on just might not replace the reactor.
4. Not accepting that in the future, conditions might change that warrant replacement with a different power supply. It's a nuclear reactor Opti.
I agree bumper sticker politics is terrible, and thats how we get people thats opinions are completely aligned with the MSM and are taught to hate succesful people and bigger government is the solution to everything. Those ideas are opposite what the country was founded on and led to its success.
You claim to hate it too, yet you still did it. Why are you bringing up MSM? "taught to hate succesful people"? You're trying to pin a label to me in your brain but I'm not going to let you. As for:
bigger government is the solution to everything. Those ideas are opposite what the country was founded on and led to its success.
... we had a political party called the Whigs, whom a tiny federal government was their entire schtick for existing. They're dead now, and for good reason- that tiny federal government can't do much when you're wracked with economic failure after failure or answer hard questions like "How can we be a moral nation when we're partially built on slave labor" which early America was.
