Skip to main content

Silly no-no's!





California passes bill cutting cars’ carbon dioxide



The California Legislature has handed automakers a major defeat by approving a controversial bill that would make the state the first in the nation to regulate vehicle emissions tied by many scientists to global warming.
Only, humans contribute just 3% of the carbon dioxide in the air. What percentage does California contribute?



Well, let's guesstimate based on the figures at this site, for which I cannot vouch, but since he seems to support this entire effort to reduce carbon dioxide production, he's good to go for this argument.



Unfortunately he uses pretty pictures instead of numbers, the better to show how horrible things are. Looks like the US of A cranks out around 1,350,000,000 metric tons annually, whilst California puffs out 9,500,000. Hmm, get out my calculator here.... So, California produces 0.7% of the US total. The US produces 25% of the world total for carbon dioxide produced by human activity. (See that 3% link above.) That means California contributes 0.175% of the US total, and that's 0.00525% of the total amount of carbon dioxide produced annually (from all sources, man-made and otherwise).



i.e. - Eliminating 100% of California's human activity based carbon dioxide production means precisely dick to the total worldwide production.



This is the victory of symbolism over substance. What are the possible results? Oh, the easiest way for auto manufacturers to meet these requirements is to restrict the types of vehicles they sell in California. There is no emissions control device that can make this happen, so you 1) alter the power source or 2) reduce the per vehicle production. Any of the former are still untenable and the latter is easy; smaller cars, smaller engines, less production.



Which, tada, is the real goal.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Wow, it’s been over a year. What a way to get back to this blog because… Are the films of the MCU getting worse? It’s a serious question because the latest that I’ve seen, Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania , are strong arguments that the answer is “yes.” Summary: Ant-Man & Ant-Family get sucked into the quantum realm, where skullduggery is afoot. A load of crap ensues. I’m an Ant-Man fan. I loved the first film despite its flaws. It would have been wonderful to see what Edgar Wright may have wrought. It was clear, though, that replacement director Peyton Reed kept some of Wright’s ideas alive. The result was one of the MCU’s most intimate films, a straight-forward tale of a Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) desperate to remain in his daughter’s life while being “gifted” the life of a superhero. Ant-Man and the Wasp sorta stayed that course, but naturally, because this is the modern MCU, we had to have a female superhero take over, the titular Wasp (Hope van Dyne,
Post a Comment
Read more

John Wick: Chapter 4

No sense in playing coy, this is a great film. I’ve seen it twice and while I don’t quite love it in the way I love the first, original John Wick , it’s my #2. It’s a little overlong, has some wasted space and time, has one absolutely pointless and useless character, and generally ignores the realities of firefights, falling, getting shot, hit, etc. All that notwithstanding, it’s a great action flick, has a genuine emotional core, and is well worth your time if you’re into that sort of thing. Like I am. Summary: John Wick (Keanu Reeves), last seen saying he was fed up with the High Table, goes to war to obtain his freedom. Some of the most incredible action scenes ever filmed ensue, culminating in a very satisfactory finale and a devastating post-credit scene. The first Wick film was a surprise hit. It was a simple, straight-forward tale of vengeance told in a simple, straight-forward manner. Where it stood out was its devotion to human stunt work, on exploiting long camera shots that
Post a Comment
Read more

Rogan

The entire Joe Rogan controversy is an example of the kids being left in charge and the adults refusing to teach them any better. I’m not a regular consumer of podcasts. There are a couple I listen to from time to time, but nothing on a regular basis. While I’ve caught a few minutes of the Joe Rogan Experience on YouTube, I’ve never listened to his podcast. One of the primary reasons for that is that you have to subscribe to Spotify to do so, and I prefer Qobuz, Tidal, or even Amazon Music. Rogan is behind Spotify’s paywall and that’s that. But the nature of the fight is about more than who does or does not listen to Rogan. This fight goes to the very nature of the First Amendment and the fundamental concept of the United States. And yes, I understand that cuts both ways. What’s his name and Joni Mitchell are free to yank their creations from Spotify, no ifs, ands, or buts. I’m not denying their right, I’m questioning their reasons. Rogan talks to people. He does so largely unfiltered.
Post a Comment
Read more