Bill Gates Uses 10,000 Times The Energy Of The Average American, MIT Says

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What I want to know is, if global warming turns out to be nonsense (highly likely given recent information) or harmless (may even be beneficial - previous warm periods allowed longer growing seasons => more food, etc), then will Mr Gore return the money he has gotten by being a prophet of doom? "carbon credits" may rank as the greatest scam of all time...
 
zozzlhandler : what new information has come out that contradicts global warming theories? The last thing I heard is that ice is melting at a record pace and the northern passage will be usable as a shipping lane in a few years. No?

There are some puzzling comments in this article:

"What is interesting is that the group found that your carbon footprint impact rises with your income"

How is this interesting?! Of course your carbon footprint will rise with income levels. Poor people don't own 60" flat screen tvs, high performace cars, etc.

"For example, buying a hybrid car may save you gas money, but people are likely to spend that extra cash something that may have an even larger carbon footprint, such as a long plane trip"

Buying a hybrid car will save you *gas* money, but it definitely won't save you money. The $22K (?) Prius gets less than 10mpg more than my $3500 used honda and you will never recover that difference in gas savings.

I'd love to know how they calculated Bill Gates' carbon footprint.

 
'Lets see what Al Gores footprint is..........'

Well I hear as a Noble Peace prize winner (stifles laughter), he is allowed to omit the environmental impact of all those private/small jet trips he takes. Apparently 'green' Hollywood gets a pass by him as well as they all own hybrid cars that sit in their garages as they are chauffeured around in limos...those films don't have too large a carbon footprint either(?)
 
I have seen several articles showing that the most recent trend appears to be cooling! (Of course, without a lot more study, these are no more certain than warming. What we need is more study, not more panicking.) I will look them up and post links as I find them. There was also the correction to NASA data that removed most of the warming trend (which, of course, did not receive the publicity the original data did). For info on previous warm periods, it is a historical fact that the Vikings grew grapes in Greenland! Must have been quite a bit warmer, and if so, where were all the horrible disasters that are being predicted now?
 
"For info on previous warm periods, it is a historical fact that the Vikings grew grapes in Greenland! Must have been quite a bit warmer, and if so, where were all the horrible disasters that are being predicted now?"

That is interesting. I suspect the disasters are at least partially related to our world population. Thousands of years ago the earth didn't need to support 7 billion people. Food production is already a critical issue. Another population related issue is the number of people living in low lying costal communities that will be under water if current trends (cyclical or not) continue.
 
Ummm, taxation doesn't reduce carbon emissions. It just give my money to those rich politicians to spend on even more energy consuming things (all those programs they are talking about). Sounds like an expense account cut for the politicians and government officials would work best. It will cut down on the private jet trips. All the extra money saved can go to paying for my Social Security, so that I actually have money to continue contributing to global warming in my old age.
 
What really gets my goat is people who think they are being green by buying the latest alleged gas-sipping vehicle every few years. My 99 Civic gets around 33mpg but the kicker is it has 125k miles, and I intend to drive it until it's dead- the carbon footprint of buying a new car every couple years hugely offsets any gain from a little less emissions. Also- what's with the piss-poor increase in MPG performance over the years? Chevy's tiny little Aveo only gets 34mpg, what gives?
 
Zozzlhandler - thanks for the links, but did you read the whole article in the first link? The cooling is related to La Nina, and does not reflect a change in the trend.

"But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases."
 
The small changes in mileage are largely due to the fact that this year the EPA changed their mileage tests and most cars dropped significantly. The Yaris is one that was affected less than most and it went from 40 MPG to 36 MPG if I remember correctly.

As for the people saying that all of this greenhouse stuff is a load of bull... well maybe we are heating things up noticeably, and maybe we are not, but that doesn't contradict the fact that we do consume more energy resources than any other nation on a per capita level.

Buying new cars every 2 to 4 years is absurd, my last car lasted me nearly 10 with minimal problems and probably could have gone longer had one of my cylinders not busted. Also investing in energy efficient home improvements can notably decrease the cost of cooling or heating your home.

Also finding alternative fuels is important. Ethanol is a bit of a mistake, but there are other more promising fuel technologies on the horizon. And it is time to embrace nuclear once again. We are already seeing the effects of a diminishing supply of oil and gas, we need to find a replacement or get caught with our pants down.
 
The hybrid car market is a shame. Honda killed their 2008 hybrid Accord because according to customers "It does not look like a hybrid." So being "green" has nothing to do with actually saving the planet, its all about looking like you want to save the planet.
 
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