It is amazing how many assumptions people make without checking the facts. They assume transit consumes less energy than cars (not true for most U.S. transit systems). They assume suburbs are more heavily subsidized than cities (the vast majority of subsidies go to the cities). They assume that highways are unfairly subsidized (actually, subsidies to transit are greater than to highways even though highways move a hundred times as many passenger miles).
The latest set of assumptions center around greenhouse gases. I’ve already addressed the assumptions that transit emits less greenhouse gases than cars and that high rises emit less than single-family homes.
The control and treatment of this hypertensive tendency through natural ways could canada sildenafil not be succeeded under maximum circumstances as a result of which this tendency demanded the diagnosis with the help of medicines like Claritin-D and Nasacort AQ. The idea don’t operate order generic levitra mouthsofthesouth.com for the exact purpose it turned out planned, on the other hand, Damiana must by no means be taken when pregnant. Anti-impotence is completely finished with Sildenafil citrate, the core component. generic levitra online best online viagra Following are the steps to use vacuum devices: The lubricant is used at the base of a man’s organ to prevent blood flow out of the penis. Of course, people also assume that suburbs emit more greenhouse gases than denser cities. Now we have evidence that this assumption is wrong too. The Australian Conservation Foundation has taken the trouble to calculate per-capita greenhouse gas emissions for every postal code in that country. Wendell Cox has tallied the results for neighborhoods and suburbs in Sydney.
It turns out the lowest emissions come from very low-density exurbs, followed by low-density suburbs. The highest emissions come from denser neighborhoods in the city itself. A local skeptic of smart growth has written some commentary about these results.
Unfortunately, too many people — often supported by planners — want to impose policies on the general public based on untested assumptions. If we are really going to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, I hope we do it by focusing on actual emissions and not by engaging in all sorts of misguided social engineering that punishes people for living in ways that some elitists think they should not live.
Then there are those party poopers that ask:
Can you name the most significant greenhouse gas (in terms of warming effect)?
How much of the total greenhouse effect is due to CO2?
How much of the total annual CO2 emission is man caused?
According to the Anaretic ice cores, which comes first: rise in temperature or rise in CO2?
When will the ice finally uncover all of those medieval Viking farms that are still buried under ice on Greenland?
Thanks
JK
Of course, this trumpeted narrow finding doesn’t apply** to all countries, although the ideologues won’t tell you that.
DS
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/jie.2007.1220
Dan, I could not read those sources but don’t see anything that refutes the ACF findings.
The full URL directly contradicts the ACF. The book link explains why, page numbers in mouseover.
DS
johng, this is from one of the precursor papers to the book I linked above:
DS
Randal:
As usual, you don’t report the whole story.
According to the report, in Australia, motor vehicles only account for 10% of total greenhouse emissions, and direct household consumption only about 30% of total emissions. The rest is accounted for by industry and business. Before concluding that the “suburbs emit less greehouse gases than cities” it would be useful to know where various industries are located in Australia. It could be that per capita emissions are higher in higher density areas because there are greater concentrations of business, as there usually is in cities.
In the U.S., transportation accounts for around 27% of emissions (Karlock, look up the source yourself), of which most is from motor vehicles. Applying the same methodology as they used in Australia, it follows that per capita greenhouse emissions in U.S. suburbs would be much higher than most U.S. central cities, on the presumption most business has moved to the suburbs (apparently Australia has retained a higher percentage of business in the cities compared to the U.S.) But we wouldn’t know for sure until someone does a similar analysis in the U.S.
One thing in Australia that is substantially different from the U.S. is much larger percentages of the affluent live in the inner cities, so this fact alone generates higher per capita consumption for those areas. However, the Australian study compared community spending patterns, but didn’t stratify the data by various income groups by community.
In other words, one can see the aggregate consumption, but you can’t conclude from the analysis that someone of “X” income in a low density suburb would emit less than someone with “X” income in a higher density area. To put this in American terms, no one has yet compared the total per capita greenhouse emissions of, say, rich people who choose to live in Manhattan versus those in the same income range who live in the suburbs. Many members of these groups may own weekend houses, but the rich Manhattan residents are much less likely to drive during the week on average than their suburban counterparts, and then mainly on out-of-town trips; both groups probably fly in similar proportions.
As I previously stated, driving and transportation fuel usage patterns will make a much bigger difference in the U.S. In Australia, “petrol” use contributed only about 10% of their greenhouse emissions, versus 27%+/- in the U.S., the large lion’s share of this being from automobiles and light trucks.
In the U.S., transportation accounts for around 27% of emissions (Karlock, look up the source yourself),
JK: So what?
Would it go down if we gave up cars for smelly buses and toy trains as opposed to switchiing to small cars? NO – it would go UP!
Would it go down if we all moved into crappy high denity housing? Prove it
What is you point other than longing for a Victorial life style?
Thanks
JK
msetty In Australia, “petrol†use contributed only about 10% of their greenhouse emissions, versus 27%+/- in the U.S., the large lion’s share of this being from automobiles and light trucks.
JK: Are you saying that 27% of the water vapor emitted in the USA is from transportation? Do you have a source for this?
If you are taking of CO2 emission (a minor greenhouse gas) from the USA, you are clearly wrong because natural sources account for over 90% of all CO2 emissions, so transport cannot be 27%.
Thanks
JK
Karlock:
If you are taking of CO2 emission (a minor greenhouse gas) from the USA, you are clearly wrong because natural sources account for over 90% of all CO2 emissions, so transport cannot be 27%.
OF HUMAN-CAUSED EMISSIONS, NOT NATURAL!! Water vapor????? Part of the natural weather cycle.
Go get yourself a basic ecology textbook. Over many thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, nature has ADAPTED, balancing these emissions. The fundamental PROBLEM is that humans have been dumping increasing amounts of pollution into the environment at a rate many times faster than the natural environment can adapt! And this is an impact that, so far, we haven’t retooled society’s rules, including those that govern markets, to take into account.
Karlock is a classic example of that scourge of human society (and increasingly the planet), an ideologically-motivated IGNORAMUS WITH ATTITUDE!
Karlock is a classic example of that scourge of human society (and increasingly the planet), an ideologically-motivated IGNORAMUS WITH ATTITUDE!
F**k your self you idiot.
You might also try learning some science instead of ecology. One is fact based, one isn’t.
Thanks
JK
Non-fringe society is no longer debating these kooky claims. Society is debating adaptation and mitigation approaches. Dead-enders who still argue the false claims of denialist websites aren’t worth the energy to correct, IMO.
Quick anecdote:
Last election season the Republican incumbent House Rep came up to press the flesh and visit some sites in my town, so I took him around. His staff came first and scouted the places I named, and the Rep and Campaign Manager came later. I of course took them to the Senior Center and one of the ladies pulled the Rep aside and told him to not pay attention to the global warming hype, it was all fake. There were quick, uncomfortable glances between the CM and me, and me and the Rep. The Rep changed the subject and the CM mentioned something soothing to me about not worrying about what happened as it happens occasionally.
The point? The senior’s opinion wasn’t a starter with the Rep. He knew what the science was and wasn’t swayed by the occasional lone loon spouting something that they read that appealed to their emotion. Bottom line: electeds don’t listen to this cr*p. They don’t have the political will to galvanize action, but they don’t listen to the crazies.
DS
Dan He knew what the science was and wasn’t swayed by the occasional lone loon spouting something that they read that appealed to their emotion.
JK: OK Dan, why don’t you tell us what the science really is. Start by telling us:
What is most significant greenhouse gas (in terms of warming effect)?
How much of the total greenhouse effect is due to CO2?t
How much of the total annual CO2 emission is man caused?
According to the Antarctic ice cores, which comes first: rise in temperature or rise in CO2?
When will the ice finally uncover all of those medieval Viking farms that are still buried under ice on Greenland?
Tell us what Dr. Wegman of the NAS said about the quality of the statistics that were behind the famous “hockey stick†temperature curve that Al baby likes to flaunt.
Tell us what the NAS said about the reliability of bristle cone pines, used by Dr. Mann as a temperature proxy for the creation of his “hockey stickâ€Â.
Tell us what happens to the famous “hockey stick†when you remove the bristle cone pine (and one other – I forget which) data?
Tell us about the link between the length of the solar cycle, cosmic rays, other solar emissions and earth temperature.
Tell us how many polar bear colonies are thriving and how many are distressed and why.
Tell us how CO2 affects hurricanes.
I could go on, but if you answer all of the above honestly, you cannot still believe Al Gore’s crap.
Thanks
JK
Oh, look: yet another state regulating GHGs **. [/unties hands from behind back]
—snicker—
DS
** http://tinyurl.com/2975s7
So Karlock, using potty language, I see? Wah wah wah!
Ecology is a well-developed, highly respected HARD SCIENCE, just like biology, physics, geology, etc., even if you don’t believe it (doesn’t matter if you do or not; ecology has dozens of peer reviewed journals, just like any other science).
I believe you’re referring to those who take “Ecology” to be a religion, which I don’t. Funny response from someone who clearly thinks his economic beliefs are facts, but reacts like a true believing zealot, religious style, when his beliefs are questioned.
Have a nice day, Gridlock!
Dan: Oh, look: yet another state regulating GHGs **. [/unties hands from behind back]
–snicker–
DS
** http://tinyurl.com/2975s7
JK: Once again a planner shows their profession’s complete lack of respect for facts and rationality. Only feelings and appearences count for them: gee, it feels warm today, let’s force society to revert to the middel ages.
Thanks
JK
Dan: Oh, look: yet another state regulating GHGs **. [/unties hands from behind back]
–snicker– http://tinyurl.com/2975s7
JK: Your “–snicker–“ tells the whole story – it takes a planner to snicker when low income people’s lives are about to be destroyed by high energy prices and/or being forced to commute in cattle cars.
Just shows how heartless and uncaring planners really are.
Thanks
JK
Peta reported that the Beef indusry provided more CO2 than the transportation industry. Who knows about sheep. Any one seen the Google video ‘Global Warming Swindle’. It does make a point!!!
Cattle & METHANE (not CO2!)…
So, did PETA (IMHO, as unreliable a source from the “left” (sic) I suppose as people like “G.K.” on this site from the “right” (sic)), compare the emissions from U.S. cattle industry compared to the 60-80 million bison that once roamed through the Great Plains, let alone the other tens of millions of individuals in herds of caribou, elk, deer, pronghorn, etc. and other large herbivores that dominated the North American landscape before they were mostly supplanted by the cattle industry? I doubt it.
It doesn’t matter if the suburbs contribute more pollution right now. As we move more and more into alternative energy, more and more transportation will be electric and solar powered and pollution and greenhouse gas emissions will be nil. So the planning loonies will have very few arguments against “sprawl” (as they call it).
OK, Rotten, here is a (too long) treatise regarding what “reasonable” transit and urban advocates want, recognizing that the likes of Karlock want to claim we’re like the true environmental extremists at http://www.churchofdeepecology.org,
for example, which we emphatically ARE NOT.
If as Karlock claims, we are out to take away “freedom” it is mainly through properly pricing carbon emissions and getting auto travel to cover its actual, documented costs currently not directly covered charged to the act of driving (like carbon emissions, “free parking,” the cost of accidents not covered by auto insurance, general fund and developer contributions to road building, etc.)
Things are never so simple as may appear. The new investment required to convert the existing fleet of 240 million+/- motor vehicles to electric propulsion through the one option of “pluggable hybrids,” for example, is at least two trillion dollars including replacing and expanding the required fleet of power plants, over and above the regular purchase of new vehicles as replacements.
The cost for lithium-ion batteries for laptops is currently around $1,500-$1,700 retail for each Kwh of storage capacity. At wholesale prices, this means that the battery materials themselves–before the electronics these batteries need and the price markup–is currently around $500 to $600 per Kwh of storage.
Price of batteries is important because a “pluggable” hybrid such as a Prius will require an additional 13-15 Kwh of onboard battery storage. Presuming that the price of large lithium-ion batteries can be cut down to $200 per Kwh of storage including the required electronics and overheating protections, this will still add $2,500-$3,000 to the price of a typical small vehicle such as a Prius. If one assumes $5 gasoline, the payback for saving 100 gallons per year–going from 45 mpg to, say, 90 mpg equivalent, is 5 to 6 years, and about double including the additional electrical expenses for replacing the gasoline otherwise burned.
The point is that replacing the current burning of gasoline with solar, nuclear, and other non-carbon-emitting options is going to be a lot more expensive than the current artificially cheap travel made possible by still relatively cheaply priced gasoline. Since the current American suburban pattern is based on quite artificially dirt-cheap transportation (which also encourages excessive trips with relatively low value, say, compared to commuting), what the tipping point is towards more rational development patterns (e.g., such as higher density suburbs such as in Europe) remains to be seen.
Unlike what the likes of Gridlock Karlock and his ilk will claim, SERIOUS transit and urban advocates have never expected the automobile to disappear, just that other modes such as transit, walking and bicycling take their proper place in balance with motor vehicles. I think the point of balance is around 50% or less urban travel (trips, not neccessarily passenger miles, a secondary measure) by automobile, with the rest by transit (10%-20% in most places), and the remainder on foot and bike. This will make for much more livable cities, and be a good compromise.
To get to the needed balance, this will require gradually increasing taxes on carbon emissions, a gradually increasing per mile fee on vehicle travel (mainly to maintain the existing road system!!), and gradual phase-in of area-wide parking charges a la Dr. Donald Shoup, designed to offset the many years of damage caused by so-called “free” parking–originally imposed by 1930’s-1950’s government dogmatists, and the Highway Lobby, deluded by “Arcadian” mythology and prejudice against cities, and virtually every municipality in America thinking they’d solve the “parking” problem by mandating parking rather than letting property owners decide what they needed.
To eliminate the “new taxes” objection, these new resource consumption taxes on automobile usage–and other polluting activities requiring a large input of natural resources–can gradually replace current taxes on wages and other investment, except perhaps for something “off the top” for needed new public infrastructure investment, e.g., electric-powered transit, high speed rail, etc. Road maintanance and expansion (what will still be needed) from mileage fees.
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/.
Hey, Ignaramus With Attitude ™, it was the “Farm Under the SAND” NOT the “Farm Under the Icecap!”
Sheeeezzz….
Karlock, you asked a lot of questions. All of them have been addressed before from various sources.
In order for people to have a true understanding of the issue, they must have a rather deep grounding in climate science.
Most of us (including me) have to rely on science writers to translate for us. It is an incredibly important job. I cannot independently verify the claims of the broader scientific community. I must rely on others. I assume that you do, too.
*Tell us what Dr. Wegman of the NAS said about the quality of the statistics that were behind the famous “hockey stick†temperature curve that Al baby likes to flaunt.
There is lots of controversy around the particular study that Al Gore shows. It isn’t entirely accepted in the scientific community. The exact argument is beyond me (as a non-expert).
However, this is largely a detail because there are many other temperature reconstruction studies that have been performed and they are not controversial, and they show exactly the same kind of trend that the original study did:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png
Dr. Wegman, in particular, questioned a part of the results, but he did not find fault in the general statistics
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/the-missing-piece-at-the-wegman-hearing/
*Tell us about the link between the length of the solar cycle, cosmic rays, other solar emissions and earth temperature.
This is getting to be a very tired argument thrown around by people who have seen too much of a silly “documentary” called the Great Global Warming Swindle. I could go on about this supposed documentary and all its flaws, but I will just stick to how it purports that warming is primarily due to solar activity. As it happens, Real Climate has a bit of a discussion of this:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/friday-roundup/
*Tell us how CO2 affects hurricanes.
A new layman’s book is out on this topic. The issue is far from decided in the scientific community, but current evidence seems to point towards more and worse storms.
http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/07/16/storm_world/index.html
Congratulations, Randal, on the success of your blog! I have recently visited blogs of your loyal opposition, and see that this post alone has more comments than at least one other blog has in its entirety. Don’t be surprised if you see more of your loyal opponents show up here in an effort to get someone to pay attention to them.
If you are taking requests, I would like sometime to read your thoughts on the growth of private communities.
Thanks
werdnagreb Karlock, you asked a lot of questions. All of them have been addressed before from various sources.
In order for people to have a true understanding of the issue, they must have a rather deep grounding in climate science.
Most of us (including me) have to rely on science writers to translate for us. It is an incredibly important job.
JK: Unfortunately most science writers have little knowledge of science. As evidence, just consider:
1) All the articles a few years ago about how superconductivity will reshape society by saving electricity in motors and transmission. It was self evident BS at the time for anyone who had enough science background to recognize that there is little to improve in electric motors or transmission. A few percent, yes, but not society changing improvements.
2) The hydrogen powered car. Just recently have our esteemed science writers figured out that there is no easy source of hydrogen. Before that they filled our popular literature with crap.
3) We are seeing a climate change repeat now. The writers have forgotten that 30 years ago there was a panic about the coming ice age. It lacked a second rate politician to promote it, though so it didn’t reach today’s hysteria levels. Take a look at: http://www.saveportland.com/Climate/index.html
werdnagreb I cannot independently verify the claims of the broader scientific community. I must rely on others.
JK: That is what hacks like AL Gore rely on you not doing.
werdnagreb I assume that you do, too.
JK: NO!!! I make it a practice to check the facts before I open my mouth. Or before telling others that they must live in poverty to save the earth. Too bad Al Gore isn’t smart enough to look for an other side. Actually I think Al and others of his ilk think that humans are too wasteful and should be forced into a life of poverty to save the earth, but will not admit it in public.
From the remainder of your post, it is obvious that you made no effort to see if there is an other side. There is and it is at least as credible as the chicken little side. Why don’t you try to find the answers without relying on Al Gore’s science advisor’s web site (realclimate):
Tell us what Dr. Wegman of the NAS said about the quality of the statistics that were behind the famous “hockey stick†temperature curve that Al baby likes to flaunt.
Tell us what the NAS said about the reliability of bristle cone pines, used by Dr. Mann as a temperature proxy for the creation of his “hockey stickâ€Â.
Tell us what happens to the famous “hockey stick†when you remove the bristle cone pine (and one other – I forget which) data?
Tell us about the link between the length of the solar cycle, cosmic rays, other solar emissions and earth temperature.
Tell us how many polar bear colonies are thriving and how many are distressed and why.
Tell us how CO2 affects hurricanes.
Check out the conclusions sections of these:
The NAS report is at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11676.html
The Wegman report is at: http://energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/108/Hearings/07192006hearing1987/Wegman.pdf
(Be sure to check Wegman’s bio – he was president of the NAS statistical group.)
You will also learn from these: climateaudit.org junkscience.com co2science.org
Thanks
JK
The rest of the planet is looking back at the lunatic fringe there on the dock as society’s ship has sailed.
What is the freak saying?
Dunno.
What should we do to adapt and mitigate?
Well, there will be winners and losers and where will the losers migrate to?
Not sure.
Some places take migrants better than others…etc.
They’re not using industry-funded FUD talking points about hockey sticks and AlGore.
DS