First electric tractor ride

[Fuddyduddy1952]

CO2 is just one form of pollution and considered responsible for global warming.
To me there needs to be a common sense approach to solving the problem instead of self proclaimed experts, one example Nobel prize winner Al Gore who makes a larger carbon footprint than most!
The top ways to help lower CO2 and increase oxygen (look it up) is to re-forest and farming, so to me you don't fight polluting technology with more polluting technology...the answer is nature.
Earth's top oxygen producer is oceanic plankton, so again, polluting the oceans is a huge problem...but the big picture has to be looked at with ALL countries on board. You can't live in a clean first floor house with a moldy basement.
Common sense should prevail, we have modern internal combustion engine emission technology that has extremely lowered pollution. Believing going to a new electric technology and spending $trillions without the entire world on board is a fools paradise in my opinion.

 

[Eagle1]

First thing should be to look for technology we have the resources to build. As of today there are not enough known mineral deposits to build a fossil fuel replacement system using current technology. Well that is unless we reduce the population by 60 to 80 % reducing energy and food demands by the similar percentages.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Look, I favor nuclear energy and drive a Suburban. I burn wood as primary heat for my home, with natural gas backup. I dislike wind farms. I like solar. Coal is a major polluter. So are oil based fuels. I dislike ethanol, as it's production is a terrible waste of BTUs. I love my 2-stroke engines.

So it's not like I'm actively trying to end our way of life, which I enjoy a lot. However, reality is that it is unsustainable. When I was born in 1961 there were just over 3 billion people on the planet. By the end of 2022, it's projected to hit 8 billion people.

8 billion people burning fossil fuels... it's gotta go somewhere. And it's unsustainable.

Personally I have to agree with some things, disagree with other things you say. Coal: my cousin owns foundries mainly in the US but Mexico and China as well. He tells me with all the recycling and scrubbers what people see coming out of the chimneys is steam!
We have technology for clean burning coal and fuels.

 

[MossRoad]

Personally I have to agree with some things, disagree with other things you say. Coal: my cousin owns foundries mainly in the US but Mexico and China as well. He tells me with all the recycling and scrubbers what people see coming out of the chimneys is steam!
We have technology for clean burning coal and fuels.

I remember driving through Gary, IN in the 60s and 70s. That's my benchmark for visible air pollution. Everything was in an orange cloud, and everything itself was stained orange. Houses, buildings, telephone poles and wires. It was awful. Seriously the worst air anyone has ever seen. And a unique stink, too.

Drive through there today, and the air is as clear as can be. Yet Indiana still has some of the worst air quality in the country. That's due to several reasons; lots of commuting, and coal fired electric plants.

 

[California]

I remember driving through Gary, IN in the 60s and 70s. That's my benchmark for visible air pollution. Everything was in an orange cloud

Looked like this? The dome in the middle-left is California's State Capitol building. Photo I posted here 10 years ago.

Our politicians didn't dream up smog rules simply to control people. Rather, they were slow to respond to the public's demand for breathable air. Then other places with air like this adopted the standards that tamed this.

And this photo isn't even local pollution. Rather, it blows in from the San Francisco Bay area where the air is always cool and fresh then is trapped up against the Sierra Nevada range. Bay Area people wondered why Central Valley cities were so insistent about air quality ... they didn't see any problem!

Actually Los Angeles was worse. Days when kids were kept indoors for recess. I was down there for business a few times per year. Getting off the airplane in Burbank was same as when you scrub a shower using too much bleach, it burned the lungs. I couldn't imagine living there. No wonder the residents were pressuring the politicians to "Do Something!!!"

So now there are air pollution standards.

 

[ultrarunner]

Will the good enough, job well done moment ever be reached or will the goalposts continue to be moved?

It seems the billions and billions spent on engineering ICE will sunset and one has to wonder if the plan was not to improve but eliminate could that money have been better spent?

Remember when headlines touted the Internal Combustion Engine as a savior freeing cities from the filth, stench and cruelty of horse drawn conveyances?

It also enabled those remote to access the playing field enjoyed by those close to rail and help break the grip rail had in the marketplace no matter that it was heavily subsidized in the West awarding alternate sections of land to the railroads…

 

[MossRoad]

Looked like this? The dome in the middle-left is California's State Capitol building. Photo I posted here 10 years ago.

Our politicians didn't dream up smog rules simply to control people. Rather, they were slow to respond to the public's demand for breathable air. Then other places with air like this adopted the standards that tamed this.

And this photo isn't even local pollution. Rather, it blows in from the San Francisco Bay area where the air is always cool and fresh then is trapped up against the Sierra Nevada range. Bay Area people wondered why Central Valley cities were so insistent about air quality ... they didn't see any problem!

Actually Los Angeles was worse. Days when kids were kept indoors for recess. I was down there for business a few times per year. Getting off the airplane in Burbank was same as when you scrub a shower using too much bleach, it burned the lungs. I couldn't imagine living there. No wonder the residents were pressuring the politicians to "Do Something!!!"

So now there are air pollution standards.

No. It was much worse. You couldn't see 1/4 mile some days.

 

[cqaigy2]

CO2 is good for the planet, do you want more and denser crops? Or do you prefer to see starving people? CO2 is running at 400-500ppm, plants die at 150ppm and during the Jurrasic CO2 was up to 4500ppm, and that wasn't an issue. CO2 has nothing to do with the temperature and besides, we are still coming out of the last ice age, so naturally the planet is still warming. CO2 is good not evil, enviro-whackos are what's evil.

So that's wrong, it doesn't produce denser crops, it produces crop with more carbohydrates. Those increase carbohydrates make the crop less desirable and of poorer quality.

 

[California]

[cars] also enabled those remote to access the playing field enjoyed by those close to rail and help break the grip rail had in the marketplace no matter that it was heavily subsidized in the West awarding alternate sections of land to the railroads…

I wonder how many people know that. 131 million acres were given to the railroads by the federal government to encourage development. Lobbying works! 'Entitlements' aren't anything new.

Wikipedia:

Checkerboarding in the West occurred as a result of railroad land grants where railroads would be granted every other section along a rail corridor. These grants, which typically extended 6 to 40 miles from either side of the track,[2] were a subsidy to the railroads.

Railroad land grants split the land surrounding the area where train tracks were to be laid into a checkerboard pattern. ... odd-numbered plots were given to private railroad companies, and the federal government kept even-numbered plots.

My great-grandparents homesteaded land - with a title from the government - then SP railroad claimed it was within their checkerboard. They and neighbors raised $20k, a huge sum 150 years ago, to send an attorney to DC to appeal. Never heard from him. They had to go homestead a different parcel.

 

[ultrarunner]

I was at a hunting camp in the middle of nowhere and learned the 640 acres was railroad property…

No railroad around but there was many years ago 20 miles away…

Railroads also had their own law enforcement and pension funds…

The Octopus and the Big Four - FoundSF

www.foundsf.org