[Pred the Penguin]

The point is to raise attention.
If I've done all I can to lower my carbon emissions, why can't the factories?
Doesn't seem to be working very well though...
Sure we get better cars, more trees (in some places), even lights are better on our eyes.
Look over there! There's a big building spewing black smoke into the sky and green liquid into the ocean... but it's probably not too bad, we already have super efficient cars!

[Nuke]

you need production to meet demand. of course we made the environmental regulations stricter for our factories, so what happened, they were all shut down and reopened in china where there is less regulation. when the same thing happens in china the factories will move elsewhere. its a double whammy because the quality of products are reduced, so you need to replace stuff more frequently. you throw the old one away and buy a new one. then you have the fact that the factories are always re-tooling the lines and producing a new product every 3 months, you have fewer user serviceable parts, so you cant fix anything, further driving up the need for production. add on top of that the carbon cost of transport. its just not an efficient way to do things, cheaper maybe, but not efficient in the long term.

first thing you can do to reduce the carbon emissions of factories is to keep them local. you can regulate them, assure quality, assure availability of replacement parts. you have to move product a lesser distance. you create more repair oriented jobs, not to mention production jobs.

self regulation for individuals can only go so far. self regulation of industry, is practically impossible.

[Titan]

Give all the soccer moms with SUVs hybrid SUVs. That's a start. If you take a car that does 40 MPG and make it do 42MPG, whatever. Take a big SUV that does 15 MPG and make it do 30MPG, that's a way bigger impact.

Then again, Hybrids waste rare resources or something.

While we're on industry, who's seen Gasland?

[Nuke]

id rather see all cars go pure electric. then build nuke plants.

[Titan]

I remember seeing something about a car that ran on compressed air, and the action of the tires rolling or something continously refilled it.

Nuke, you live in Alaska. Most electric cars have a range of about 40 miles. Nothing in Alaska is less then 80 miles apart  Besides, basically they're giant batteries that we can't dispose of.

[Angelus]

id rather see all cars go pure electric. then build nuke plants.

while i'd like to see electric cars, i'd miss the sound of an V8 engine.
And i doubt somehow, that nuclear powered cars are a good idea. 

[Bobboau]

most green tech is (supposed to be) super efficient by nature (which is how it achieves it's greenness), this has the added side effect of often making it cheaper to operate over the long term with the only caviot being how long will the machine in question last. assuming a well made machine, most "green" alternatives are also green in the form of it's effect on your bank account, a solar panel will set you back a proportionately large amount of money, but it will give you power for 4 billion years (longer if you move it to another planet when the sun starts to die) so in the long run it's cost is effectively nothing compared to the return it produces. it is for this reason that I like much of the "green tech" like the CFLs and wind farms, most of them are probably just as harmful to the environment  in the long run, as most of them are made from far more toxic materials than there brown cousins, but because I don't especially care about that aspect of them it doesn't matter, I've replaced nearly every light in my house with some form of florescent, not because I care about carbon-dioxide, but because I care about my budget.

[Nuke]

I remember seeing something about a car that ran on compressed air, and the action of the tires rolling or something continously refilled it.

Nuke, you live in Alaska. Most electric cars have a range of about 40 miles. Nothing in Alaska is less then 80 miles apart  Besides, basically they're giant batteries that we can't dispose of.

youve never taken the 8 hour drive from anchorage to fairbanks.

id rather see all cars go pure electric. then build nuke plants.

while i'd like to see electric cars, i'd miss the sound of an V8 engine.
And i doubt somehow, that nuclear powered cars are a good idea. 

the nukemobile

most green tech is (supposed to be) super efficient by nature (which is how it achieves it's greenness), this has the added side effect of often making it cheaper to operate over the long term with the only caviot being how long will the machine in question last. assuming a well made machine, most "green" alternatives are also green in the form of it's effect on your bank account, a solar panel will set you back a proportionately large amount of money, but it will give you power for 4 billion years (longer if you move it to another planet when the sun starts to die) so in the long run it's cost is effectively nothing compared to the return it produces. it is for this reason that I like much of the "green tech" like the CFLs and wind farms, most of them are probably just as harmful to the environment  in the long run, as most of them are made from far more toxic materials than there brown cousins, but because I don't especially care about that aspect of them it doesn't matter, I've replaced nearly every light in my house with some form of florescent, not because I care about carbon-dioxide, but because I care about my budget.

while i dont like the entire green movement, some of the technology that has come out is pretty awesome. though i kinda wish they would have held off on the cfl bulbs, and developed led based bulbs instead. these days we got these high wattage leds which are capable of lighting a room with the proper diffuser. led bulbs also last forever and well tolerate on/off cycles. modern battery technology is awesome. i really like how badass the power system in my r/c heli is. fly that thing all weekend on a single charge.

[Kosh]

the only way that kinda life style is sustainable is to have the world set up as it is now. where the majority of people live in total poverty and the elite few in the developed world use up all the resources

This planet is not the only place where we can get resources you know.....

[Nuke]

the only way that kinda life style is sustainable is to have the world set up as it is now. where the majority of people live in total poverty and the elite few in the developed world use up all the resources

This planet is not the only place where we can get resources you know.....

then by all means go sign up for an asteroid mining crew then

how the hell are we going to mass-colonize space if we cant even properly manage existing resources?

[Kosh]

then by all means go sign up for an asteroid mining crew then

how the hell are we going to mass-colonize space if we cant even properly manage existing resources?

Who says we're not managing existing resources? People around the world are getting richer and therefore want to buy more stuff.

[Pred the Penguin]

Which isn't really managing resources...

Nuke is right. We are being more eco... just not in the right way yet.
And plus most people view money only int the short term. Short term in this case the length of their lives.

[Kosh]

Which isn't really managing resources...

But economics does manage resources, with prices.

[Nuke]

Which isn't really managing resources...

But economics does manage resources, with prices.

when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.

[General Battuta]

Unfortunately true, economics is a great local optimizer but - like evolution - has very little global planning capability. This is why space travel has had such a hard time getting anything done, and why it may in fact never go anywhere: getting anything up out of the gravity well is enormously costly, which makes the startup price astronomical. With uncertain returns, well...

[Kosh]

when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.

So how come the environment in the former Soviet bloc countries had so many serious problems? Supply and demand alone do not save the planet, but sensible environmental regulations do. Besides, the development of the third world means people stop living in cold, dark, mud huts. Apartment buildings, air conditioners, etc doesn't come from nothing.

This is why space travel has had such a hard time getting anything done, and why it may in fact never go anywhere: getting anything up out of the gravity well is enormously costly, which makes the startup price astronomical. With uncertain returns, well...

Maybe it doesn't have to be

[General Battuta]

when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.

So how come the environment in the former Soviet bloc countries had so many serious problems? Supply and demand alone do not save the planet, but sensible environmental regulations do. Besides, the development of the third world means people stop living in cold, dark, mud huts. Apartment buildings, air conditioners, etc doesn't come from nothing.

It's not like the Soviet Union's command economy ever did any environmental protection either. But China is currently blowing the US out of the water in terms of environmental tech.

This is why space travel has had such a hard time getting anything done, and why it may in fact never go anywhere: getting anything up out of the gravity well is enormously costly, which makes the startup price astronomical. With uncertain returns, well...

Maybe it doesn't have to be

Yeah I've read that, and I'm particularly optimistic about the economies of scale argument, but it remains to be seen whether this is a viable plan (which the current round of privatized spaceflight startups should show us) or just pie-in-the-sky true-believer optimism. For now the system is basically reliant on patronage; it needs to get a toehold in the launch sector.

[Nuke]

when you let prices manage resources, your managing resources for profit, not to save the environment. supply and demand doesn't mention saving the planet anywhere.

So how come the environment in the former Soviet bloc countries had so many serious problems? Supply and demand alone do not save the planet, but sensible environmental regulations do. Besides, the development of the third world means people stop living in cold, dark, mud huts. Apartment buildings, air conditioners, etc doesn't come from nothing.

so long as the third world exists, it will be exploited for its resources. environmental regulation here will not stop multinational buisness from opening up shop in the 3rd world where little or no regulation exists, and exporting it back here. this is not beneficial to the environment. the 3rd world has to be brought up to our level. now if everyone lived like us the rate of depletion would go through the roof, and we would have nothing left to take resource collection off world.

[Kosh]

It's not like the Soviet Union's command economy ever did any environmental protection either. But China is currently blowing the US out of the water in terms of environmental tech.

It's true that China has quickly become the center of manufacturing that stuff, but the technology itself is usually not actually developed in China, it's done in the US. I'll also point out that by practically every measure the environment in China is decidedly worse.

For now the system is basically reliant on patronage; it needs to get a toehold in the launch sector.

Yes, exactly. We should have started weening off of NASA's patronage a real long time ago. At least it would have been nice if that is possible. Another problem with high launch costs, at least with the shuttle, has been the army needed to maintain them. According to the uncited wikipedia article, the shuttles had, in total, a workforce of 25,000 people to maintain them and remanufacture the pesky fuel tanks. For comparison to the theoretical Skylon which is intended to be serviced by a ground crew of 200 for each craft. Assuming all of this is anywhere near accurate, that alone would represent a massive cutback in expenses.

so long as the third world exists, it will be exploited for its resources. environmental regulation here will not stop multinational buisness from opening up shop in the 3rd world where little or no regulation exists, and exporting it back here. this is not beneficial to the environment. the 3rd world has to be brought up to our level. now if everyone lived like us the rate of depletion would go through the roof, and we would have nothing left to take resource collection off world.

So what do we do with the 3rd world, kill them? Keep them poor? Tell them that they can't have heated homes, or homes made out of anything more resource intensive than mud? Actually increasing scarcity will make the materials more expensive, which in turn actually makes going into space to get more resources that much more economical and appealing to investors.

[Snail]

So what do we do with the 3rd world, kill them? Keep them poor? Tell them that they can't have heated homes, or homes made out of anything more resource intensive than mud?

You know I think some politicians over here would like to do just that.