Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: global warming *radical* solution...

as an engineer - I'm all about efficiency so recycling, reuse, and using waste material as part of a "closed loop" system is a great thing. but there is also not many people who know about or care about the technical solutions - a lot of the decisions that are being made are political in nature and mostly based on obtaining and growing healthy economies.

It would be a great economic shift and the markets would go haywire if things moved to fast. Personally, I would welcome a change, acknowledge that old-rules may or may not apply, and go through a few years of growing pains. But most politicians, market watchers, and owners of stock, and economists do not like uncertainty...at all, period.

I've got a friend w/degrees in Math and Economics and she is basically on the ground floor of creating a NOX/carbon emissions trading system and she says that it's totally nuts trying to understand the economic relationships of the "alternative/new-energy" economy, but it's worth it.

Here at the BOL lounge and elsewhere a big deal has been made about CFL lightbulbs. The whole CFL situation is very telling:
Here we have a technology that a) saves money b) conserves resources c) performs well. It's an absolute win-win-win and yet adoption rates are ridiculously low; hence the talk of legislating them into use.
The situation illustrates the general public's ignorance/apathy on environmental issues.

Because the public does so little for the environment, it's incumbent upon engineers AND politicians to impose solutions on the public.

My faith in politicians is low: President Bush disingenuously suggests that corn-derived ethanol is great for us while one the most effective, proven, and simple way to reduce fuel consumption and related greenhouse gas emmisions - a gasoline tax - is nowhere on the radar.

My faith in engineering and technology is higher (though I'm biased 'cos my father was an engineer):
Big ticket items like cars, airplanes, steam turbines, etc. are all much more efficient than they used to be due in part to legistlation, in part to cost savings, but due in part to the fact that engineers just engineer things efficiently when possible.
The net effect is that the public is more efficient these days by accident. That V-6 w/ 6 speed tranny in the car is more efficient than some 4 cylinders w/ 3 speed tranny's from 30 years ago... the new fridge uses less energy just 'cos it's there... recycling has gained favor largely because it's not only good for the environment, but good for business thanks to engineering improvements... etc.

So get back to work Shalin. No pressure or anything =)

If it wasn't for immigration and 'guest workers' most industrialized countries would be losing population. The simple fact is that they do not produce enough children to sustain their existing populations.

I can't call if you agreed, disagreed, or something else.

reading Swift's "A Modest Proposal".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal