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MmeGigs -> RE: How The Obama Administration Elevates Science (6/29/2009 5:14:53 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Racquelle
What puzzles me is why any of the average folk feel the need to rally behind the claim that global-warming doesn't exist. What do you hope to gain? It won't keep your taxes lower.
What puzzles me is why some are fighting so hard against doing anything about global warming when most of the stuff that has been suggested we do are things that don't involve major changes to our way of life and would be a great benefit to us even if humans have nothing to do with global warming.
F'rinstance, better fuel efficiency in vehicles. We hear folks squawking all the time about our dependence on foreign oil, but if we used less gas to run our cars, we'd be less dependent on foreign oil, would we not? Our vehicles would be pumping out less exaust, which would improve air quality in smog-ridden cities. Perhaps we'd have fewer of those air quality alerts where they suggest that folks with health problems stay indoors. Perhaps we could eventually do away with testing vehicles to make sure they meet emissions standards, which costs both tax $ and individual $. Drivers would spend less on gas and have more $ to save, invest or spend on other stuff.
There are a slew of suggestions that can save individual households hundreds of dollars a year. Switching to compact fluorescent bulbs, shutting off the power to appliances and other devices when they're not in use, turning the furnace and water-heater down a few degrees and the air-conditioning up a few degrees... These not only save money for individual households, they reduce the demand on our already-strained electricity infrastructure.
Reducing waste by purchasing stuff that uses less packaging and recycling and composting whenever possible saves $ for a household - we pay less to have our garbage hauled away since there is less garbage and we extend the lifespan of landfills. Creating new landfill sites costs a lot of money that increases our taxes and/or garbage haul rates.
There are loads of things that would save $ and power that we'd never even notice, or that would make life a lot more pleasant. Retiming stoplights, for example. quote:
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory assert that, across the nation, traffic signal re-timing programs have resulted in travel time and delay reductions of 5 to 20 percent and fuel savings of 10 to 15 percent.
Another research group says better management of the country's 272,000 traffic signals would cut emissions of carbon monoxide and other pollutants by 22 percent.
Even if the whole global warming thing is a total farce, most of the things that have been suggested to combat it have so many other obvious benefits that it seems totally assinine to reject them just because they're associated with global warming.
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