- Joined
- May 18, 2020
Exactly. The USSR and the CCP currently treated and continue to treat the environment like utter shit. Too bad if you say something some white eco warrior who loves.kff a trust fund will call you racist.Sorry for double post, but the Aral Sea disaster was caused by the exact opposite of a degrowth mentality. The Soviets had really bizarre opinions about crops and agricultural science - see Lysenkoism and what they did to one of the greatest botanists of all time, Nikolai Vavilov, who ironically starved to death after his research saved millions from starvation. The Soviets refused to accept natural limits imposed on their growth, they thought that they could use the force of their ideology to bend nature to their will and force their nation to ascendancy. They basically ignored Bacon's maxim that nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. They did the exact thing that I just ranted about - they took land that was traditionally pasture for a very good reason and transitioned it to irrigated farmland in order to fuel heavier population growth and resource output in the region. In the short term it worked, but the area was an endorheic basin - every gallon of water they drew off the Amu Darya was one less that flowed into the Aral Sea. The sea wasn't filled in, the amount of water flowing in was simply decreased until the salinity skyrocketed, the sea shrunk down to almost nothing, and all the fish died, destroying the economic sustenance of hundreds of communities along its shores. Israel is in the process of doing the exact same thing to the Dead Sea today, in order to support a huge population influx that the land can't sustain long term.
As for the Dead sea, Israel is trying to feed it with desalinated water pipes in from the Med... We'll see.
They also have to deal with the Jordanians not giving a shit about their side of the dead sea.
When it's 90F+ outside you don't want to be buzzing around on a Vespa. I will say that a V8 SUV or truck for short trips is absolutely ridiculous.And there in lies one of my frustrations with this whole "green energy" fad. The people who should be going green, the people who also tend to push it the most, and the exact people that refuse to do it.
I once heard a statistic that 80% of vehicle journeys are single occupant, no cargo, distance of under 10 miles. I don't think that's completely true, but if we assume it's at least partially true, there's obvious solutions like motorbikes and mobility scooters, but these are often rejected.
My point is, Karen who is only doing the school run and the weekly shop doesn't need a huge American style SUV that gets less than ten miles to the gallon, and her husband doesn't need a second one just to get to the office. Both could do just as well with a bike or mobility scooter. The possible exception is the school run, though in many cases I don't see why they don't walk, and if they must drive they'd be better suited with an estate or even a small 5 door.
I hear all kinds of excuse like "my drive is kind of steep" or "I need the space", but none of these stand up to scrutiny.
Which brings me back to biofuels. For someone who like me who would use a vehicle infrequently, or for the Karens who use cars as status symbols instead of practical tools, biofuels would be perfectly usable. It shouldn't be a complete replacement for everyone, but massive population centers, why not? Save the high end and finite fuels for those that can actually use them.
Biofuels using waste or GMO algae or switchgrass is excellent. Too bad it lets people keep using combustion engines so greens hate them.
Efficient car shapes have been known for decades. Kammback or teardrop shaped.For a while in the early 2000's, there were some companies that were experimenting with 3-wheelers (2 front, 1 large drive in back) that had fully-enclosed sedan interiors and super-high MPG and performance with a sticker between 9k and 10k.
They were classified as "motorcycles" so were exempt from most "car" regulations.
I'm pretty sure the government killed them by either extending regs to them or other chicanery.
As it stands the only one I can find these days is the Polaris Slingshot - the damn thing is just as sexy as the concept cars I mentioned above but has no enclosed cabin and is a whopping $21.5 thousand.
Innovations like this that have the potential to improve our standard of living by making essentials much cheaper are smothered in the cradle every year.
Every carmaker on earth should be going full bore into hybrids and PHEVs but only Toyota, the Koreans, and sorta Ford are like that.
Everyone else is retarded and chasing the 100% EV future.
See GM, had a great hybrid powertrain they.... Stopped making in 2020 and refused to put into their best selling little SUVs.