Can we talk about world population?-Page 8| Off-Topic Discussion forum |

jamscal Dork
6/18/15 9:54 p.m.

Water can be created too.

Water is a byproduct of combustion, as all gearheads know.

The solution is closer than we think.

Curmudgeon MegaDork
6/19/15 8:27 a.m.

Heh... several years ago there was a guy who was running an AMC Gremlin on hydrogen. There were pictures of him collecting and then drinking the exhaust water. He was a partner with none other than George Barris, yes that George Barris.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/27/ebay-find-of-the-day-hydrogen-powered-1972-amc-gremlin-by-georg/

My only concern: multiply that by however many million cars, would that possibly change weather patterns?

GameboyRMH MegaDork
6/19/15 10:16 a.m.

Curmudgeon wrote: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/27/ebay-find-of-the-day-hydrogen-powered-1972-amc-gremlin-by-georg/ My only concern: multiply that by however many million cars, would that possibly change weather patterns?

Certainly far less than today's ICE exhaust would (which also includes some water vapor, in fact). The amount of exhaust water from a hydrogen car is very small.

The problems with running the world's cars on hydrogen are in sourcing and transporting the fuel (you either make it by splitting water with electricity - much like charging a battery - or you get it from fossil sources). It's also about as expensive as gasoline per-mile right now.

GameboyRMH MegaDork
6/19/15 1:23 p.m.

Related news: We're now officially causing a mass extinction:

http://phys.org/news/2015-06-sixth-mass-extinction-declares.html

Giant Purple Snorklewacker MegaDork
6/19/15 1:45 p.m.

GameboyRMH wrote: Related news: We're now officially causing a mass extinction: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-sixth-mass-extinction-declares.html

Great News!

KyAllroad Dork
6/19/15 4:55 p.m.

GameboyRMH wrote: Related news: We're now officially causing a mass extinction: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-sixth-mass-extinction-declares.html

Yeah, that's about right. Bees are on the way out. Our food will be right behind them.

The article has the morbidly amusing line: "unless human act immediately and decisively to change the course of events...." Like humanity could EVER get together and act in its own best interests. Honest to FSM, we could see the asteroid falling on our heads and people would argue and procrastinate our way into extinction.

Knurled UltimaDork
6/19/15 5:44 p.m.

In reply to KyAllroad:

That asteroid is just a liberal conspiracy to waste my tax dollars on NASA. FUNDING DENIED

(asteroid falls, kills billions-with-a-B)

How come nobody did anything about the asteroid? Stupid incompetent government.

GameboyRMH MegaDork
6/19/15 5:44 p.m.

Nah, I think if we knew an asteroid was coming to hit us, we'd act quickly and decisively. That's a very clear, simple and concrete problem with a fairly straightforward solution. Big rock gonna smash us, gotta knock it out of the way. But when responsibility is diffused and the effects slowly creep up on us, then we argue and procrastinate right to our extinction.

It's the "boiling a frog" problem. Of course while that's an excellent analogy, if you actually tried to boil a frog slowly it would jump out when the water became uncomfortably warm. So collectively you could say we have poorer survival instincts than a frog.

Streetwiseguy PowerDork
6/19/15 9:32 p.m.

KyAllroad wrote:
GameboyRMH wrote: Related news: We're now officially causing a mass extinction: http://phys.org/news/2015-06-sixth-mass-extinction-declares.html
Yeah, that's about right. Bees are on the way out. Our food will be right behind them. The article has the morbidly amusing line: "unless human act immediately and decisively to change the course of events...." Like humanity could EVER get together and act in its own best interests.

Do you think there is actually anything we could do that would make a bit of difference, even if everybody on the planet worked together? I'm not so sure, myself.