U.S. Passenger Vehicle Fleet Dirtier After 2008 Recession 176
MTorrice writes The 2008 recession hammered the U.S. auto industry, driving down sales of 2009 models to levels 35% lower than those before the economic slump. A new study has found that because sales of new vehicles slowed, the average age of the U.S. fleet climbed more than expected, increasing the rate of air pollutants released by the fleet.
In 2013, the researchers studied the emissions of more than 68,000 vehicles on the roads in three cities—Los Angeles, Denver, and Tulsa. They calculated the amount of pollution released per kilogram of fuel burned for the 2013 fleet and compared the rates to those that would have occurred if the 2013 fleet had the same age distribution as the prerecession fleet. For the three cities, carbon monoxide emissions were greater by 17 to 29%, hydrocarbons by 9 to 14%, nitrogen oxide emissions by 27 to 30%, and ammonia by 7 to 16%.
In 2013, the researchers studied the emissions of more than 68,000 vehicles on the roads in three cities—Los Angeles, Denver, and Tulsa. They calculated the amount of pollution released per kilogram of fuel burned for the 2013 fleet and compared the rates to those that would have occurred if the 2013 fleet had the same age distribution as the prerecession fleet. For the three cities, carbon monoxide emissions were greater by 17 to 29%, hydrocarbons by 9 to 14%, nitrogen oxide emissions by 27 to 30%, and ammonia by 7 to 16%.
Requirements didn't change though (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if they're dirtier than they were when brand-new, they're still within-spec.
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sure, they meet the emissions...for theyear they were made.
is that not the point the article is making? that if not for the recession's impact on sales there would have been a larger fraction of the total fleet of cars made up of newer cars with lower emissions, which would have the effect of lowering the overall average emissions of the fleet as a whole. but because of the recession those sales never occured, which leaves the average emissions of the fleet as a whole higher than would have happened had the
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Calling them "dirtier" is wrong then. Less-clean-than-expected would be accurate. They didn't get dirtier, they simply sold less vehicles to make the air cleaner than it has been without them.
Older cars and older engines get to the point where seals, gaskets, etc. start to decay enough that they allow oil into the engine. This causes the exhaust to become "dirtier". It's cheaper for most people to burn oil than it is to get the engine seals replaced. So, yes, the cars do get dirtier over time. For example, my 2003 Nissan Murano was going through a quart of oil a month from years 8 through 10 (older Nissan engines are known to do this). About 18 months ago I traded it in for a new Jeep that
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We emissions-test everything 1967+ that was not exempt at manufacture.
Who is we? The federal emissions regulations don't require testing of every vehicle. That is up to the states. Most of them don't check.
Allow me to explain how emissions testing works. A vehicle is assigned an "end of useful life" by the EPA based on the type of vehicle. The manufacturer then ages the vehicle artificially by running it 24/7. The manufacturer then has to test the aged vehicle to show compliance. This typically means the emissions from a new vehicle are much lower than an old one. Ev
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>California added an diagnostic requirement that says your "Check Engine" light has to come on if it's likely you aren't meeting the emissions regulations. How many people drive around with that thing on?
So now, the natural response to a check engine light is to get out and tighten the petrol tank cap, since 99.99999653% of all check engine light lightings are caused by the evaporative emissions is buggered warning.
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> An EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) code is exceedingly common in which the valve is stuck or too much carbon buildup obstructing it.
I argue that it is almost always because the petrol tank cap isn't on tightly enough. Especially in Oregon where someone pumps your gas for you and screws up screwing on the cap. Other things happen, but not with anything close to the frequency of that cause.
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Or they don't have a gas cap at all.
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>but at least on my vehicle I can pull the fault code w/o any special tools...
Explain further. I have to use ab OBD-II reader.
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That's how it works in YOUR state. Neither of the states that I have lived in mandate any sort of emissions test.
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Vehicles are emission-tested based on specifications determined for their model-year of manufacture. In emissions-testing areas, those vehicles still have to meet those requirements for at least 25 years post-manufacture, sometimes they must meet them, PERIOD. We emissions-test everything 1967+ that was not exempt at manufacture.
In California, vehicles are tested if they are newer than 1973 or 1975 or something, I always forget because let's face it — American vehicles of that era are garbage, even trucks. You want 1969 (maybe '70, occasionally '71 for some models) or older for pretty much everything, or a much much newer vehicle before it's worth a crap. But wait; diesels which didn't come with emissions equipment so far don't have to have it if they are used for personal use. Commercial vehicles, on the other hand, have had
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Only part of the equation (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is if replacing the fleet would have triggered production based pollution that offset any gains. Making new cars isn't a pollution free activity after all. The net result may have been a reduction in worldwide pollution instead.
Older cars reduce pollution (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly.
Manufacturing a car produces a significant amount of pollution. If the recession means that fewer cars were sold, and instead the existing cars were used longer, this would reduce pollution.
Unless this effect is accounted for, the headline here is meaningless.
from www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Environment/E_Overview/E_Overview2.htm [umich.edu]:
"Historian Mark Foster has estimated that “fully one-third of the total environmental damage caused by automobiles occurred before they were sold and driven.” He cited a study that estimated that fabricating one car produced 29 tons of waste and 1,207 million cubic yards of polluted air. Extracting iron ore, bauxite, petroleum, copper, lead, and a variety of other raw materials to process steel, aluminum, plastics, glass, rubber, and other products necessary to construct automobiles consumes limited resources, uses great amounts of energy, and has serious environmental repercussions."
see also:
http://www.theguardian.com/env... [theguardian.com]
Re:Older cars reduce pollution (Score:5, Insightful)
Manufacturing a car produces a significant amount of pollution
But it doesn't produce it downtown L.A.
Unless this effect is accounted for, the headline here is meaningless.
Not if your interested in the air quality in downtown L.A.
L.A. is dirtier right now than it otherwise would have been without a recession. That's not meaningless.
Total pollution footprints are interesting in their own right but they aren't the only conversation worth having.
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Are you sure that the recession didn't result in less people being on the roads in LA particularly, thus resulting in less pollution than if the recession was avoided?
Nope.
Care to cite a study showing the regional decline in traffic over the period, and the analysis of its impact pollution in support of your hypothesis?
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Sure. But traffic deaths were already trending down, so while there was a decrease in traffic / traffic fatalities only part of that can be attributed to the recession.
Further, even at 10% fatality reduction; if you use that to infer a 10% traffic reduction, and therefore a 10% pollution reduction... and these are are all pretty handwavy connections that would need to be proprerly established.
But even we carry that through, that's less of an effect than the fleet aging effect in the original article.
Sources [Re:Older cars reduce pollution] (Score:2)
So cite some sources yourself.
Re:Only part of the equation (Score:4, Insightful)
We talked about this back during the debunking of the CNW report that claimed that a Hummer and a Prius had a similar environmental footprint, har dee har har. What the report showed is that you can still lie (badly) with statistics if you are willing to be a dumbass. But what we dug up is that production of the average vehicle only consumes about 1/4 to 1/3 of its lifetime energy production. In order to make the Prius come out even with a Hummer, it had to fail around 100,000 miles and you had to barely drive the Hummer every year, but it had to make it to 300,000 without major maintenance. But even for a passenger vehicle, you can achieve a useful improvement in energy consumption with a feasible improvement in energy efficiency even before taking account of the downstream effects of that car purchase. Typically you sell the old car, and then someone else lets go of theirs when they buy it, and eventually somewhere down the line a really crap car hits the scrap heap and everyone wins.
Unfortunately, that's actually kind of unlikely in passenger cars even though it's possible, because people want pissed-off cars and the trend is to continue to offer more and more horsepower, although these days the mileage is not going straight into the toilet so I guess that's some kind of improvement. However, just 1 or 2 mpg improvement on a commercial vehicle that sees 500,000 miles or an OTR truck which might conceivably see millions (and most of them in the single digits) is going to make a significant difference, so the improvements are especially meaningful in fleet vehicles.
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and they require much more bad stuff to make then a f150/hummer/suv
Sorry, pray tell what this "bad stuff" is? You mean nickel? Someone should probably let you know that steel production is one of the nastiest things that we do, and Aluminum is right up there too so don't let the F150 lull you just yet — though it does enhance recyclability. Even the old NiMH Prius packs are recycled, in Anaheim — at the same facility that recycles Tesla packs. Modern EVs use LiPo and will soon be using LiFePo, if not an even more stable (and benign) chemistry.
Dirtier than a hypothetical, not an actual (Score:5, Informative)
From the actual abstract [acs.org]:
The article shows that the actual 2013 fleet is dirtier than the hypothetical 2013 fleet where the age distribution matches the 2007 fleet age distribution.
It does not show that the actual 2013 fleet is dirtier than the actual 2007 fleet. It's a question not addressed by this study, but I would be surprised if actual 2013 was dirtier than actual 2007.
That's nice... (Score:2)
Now what would have been the environmental cost of manufacturing and transporting all those cars, and disposing of the ones they replaced?
The solution is extremely easy (Score:2)
Just wash them!
Next!
On a per-mile basis, probably (Score:3)
But from a raw amount, the price of gas dropped since fewer people were driving to work, and fewer goods were being shipped, so I'd have to guess that the total number of miles driven during that time dropped as well. The per-mile amount of pollutants that went out may have been higher, but the total amount that went out may have been far less than a few years before.
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One reason for that might be (Score:3, Insightful)
The cost of replacing a vehicle today.
When manufacturers are offering 72 and 84 month financing on a car it might indicate the prices are a tad out of line with the income of the buying public. My 13 year old pickup still runs well and is in pretty good shape rust wise (one spot on the drivers door). The kicker is, it's paid for. A repair now and then is nothing compared to the $30k+ cost of replacing it.
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As a result, owning a new car is something that many people only dream of.
And why would you even want to own a car? The utilization factor of privately owned cars sucks. I'm waiting for self-driving flexible rentals. If all you want is to get from place A to place B, let computers figure out how to do that most economically. And I don't mean just finding a route, but, among other things, scheduling vehicles to people with regular schedules. Those vehicles don't need to stand in parking lots. In fact, you'd be able to get rid of a lot of the parking places because the vehicles would be permanently busy.
Typical response from someone who lives in a dense area and who never travels or drives anywhere...
Some of us actually drive long distances to visit relatives, go on vacation, or have special requirements such as towing . Some live in communities where there isn't any public transportation or in areas where public transportation just doesn't go from point A to point B or with low density where a car service just wouldn't be profitable enough. In each of these situations its cheaper (or a requirement) to o
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This isn't really surprising at all (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife and I were both laid off within a week of each other during the tech bubble bursting in 2001. That was a real wake-up call to do things differently with respect to money and spending. She was lucky and got another job two weeks after being laid off, it took me seven months. During that time, we really cut back on a lot of stuff and really started watching the money coming in and out. When the economy was on the mend and our positions seemed pretty secure, we replaced our old cars when new ones -- mine in 2002 and hers in 2007. I'm still driving the 2002 (it just clicked over 200K miles) and hers is still ticking along fine at 120K. Both vehicles have a few cosmetic problems (scrapes, dents, etc -- general aging, nothing horrible), but are still reliable and have been fully paid off for years. We have cash in the bank to procure replacements when they need to be replaced. As long as they are reliable and safe, there's no real compelling reason to get new ones. Even when we have to sink some money into a repair (maintenance doesn't really count -- you'd have to do that on a newer vehicle, too), the money spent on repair is generally far less than the X number of months since we had to repair something if we had a car payment. I'm also reasonably handy so I can do a lot of the work myself, which keeps the cost down -- when the windshield washer motor went out recently, I was able to replace it for under $20, no paying a mechanic $80/hr plus $20 for the part. I do turn big jobs over to the mechanic (like the timing belt), but routine stuff I can do.
When the car starts having serious trouble (e.g. electrical faults, won't start reliably, etc), a major component goes (e.g. engine/transmission) or if it becomes unsafe to drive (corrosion -- we live in the rust belt, although rust isn't nearly as bad as it used to be), we'll get a replacement. But until then I'm fine putting money away and letting it work for me and driving the thing as far as I can without having to spend the money on a replacement.
So we soldier on with our 13 year old car and 8 year old car, that would have been rust bucket jalopies when I was a kid, but due to better technology they are still quite viable as reliable transportation.
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We're doing the same with our cars. I got my new car in 2009 when my old car (a 1999 model IIRC) began having major problems. My wife's minivan we purchased before our first son was born in 2003. Both of our cars are paid off now and we're "basking" in not having car payments. (Where "basking" really means the money gets drained out of our bank accounts in other directions like home repairs.)
My father questioned why we wouldn't just replace our cars with newer models. He seems to think any car over 3 y
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Home repairs and children ... we also similar money drains in our house.
My dad was definitely of the "paid for is great" persuasion, our family cars were driven well past the 150K mark ... which was something of an achievement for automobiles made in the 80's. Not impossible to do by any means, but today's autos can really sail by the 150K mark a lot easier than their 80's counterparts.
It seems 3 years would be an awful time to trade in, you take an enormous hit the first year and then you likely just paid
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your dad isn't wrong, just different view. if you aren't willing to drive a car for 10+ years, there is a sweet spot for the trade in somewhere around 3-4 years. the dumbest thing is trading in at 6 years (of course, this all depends on financing, and the particular car).
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Exactly. His view is that you trade in every 3-4 years to always have the newest model car and likely least mechanical issues. My view is you drive your car 10+ years and get a new car when you start getting major mechanical issues. I don't drive many miles and take good care of my car, but problems do happen. I had a muffler/exhaust issue a couple of months ago that cost me about $600 to fix. This is only about 2 car payments, though. The car has been paid off for about 11 months, so even paying for
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I've never bought a new car, always used cars (around 40K to 60K in mileage) and drive them till they drop (around 200K). Last one had 220K but failed smog check as one of cylinders had a leak of some sort. Other vehicles that got up to 200K I dumped because their transmissions failed (replacement costs more than the car). My latest is a 2008, I prefer an older because windows of new cars are getting smaller but yet MPG of this vehicle is much better than my previous vehicles.
It seems there are some peopl
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At least looking form the European point of view. No more everlasting Mercedes W124 :-)
W124 was some time ago. And the last reliable S-Class was the W126, also quite some ago. Those cars were just "overengineered", as if there were any such thing. For as much as they cost, they should last forever.
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Do not expect your next car to last as long as current one. There is much much progress done in programmed life of product.
The only way to sell such a car is as a lease where the car gets junked at the end of lease. Else you'll suffer a reputation hit from all the people who held onto the car past the cutoff - that would mean lower demand for your products. But a lot of the value in leasing is selling the vehicle at the end of the lease. So this means a substantial loss in return. So you need a vehicle that is sufficient quality that people are willing to pay you enough over its lifespan to profit off the vehicle yet you're jun
Externality--tax it! (Score:3)
This is why we should keep the gas tax even after implementing a mileage fee. In fact, the cost of dirty air is up to $1,600 per person annually [fullerton.edu] in medical costs and lost work days. Shouldn't the polluters pay those costs?
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and of course we need to use the money to build your precious bike lanes
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Bike lanes are a horrible idea. Bikes are not cars! They should not mix with cars in traffic. It's better to just let them up on the sidewalk. Most sidewalks aren't that occupied with walkers anyway. On the occasion that a biker and a walker do collide... injury. Car or truck and bike... death. Think about it.
The exception... I'm not talking about big metropolitan areas. That is a different world from the majority of land area. There the sidewalks really are full of people, the traffic is slower and
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Drivers don't expect anything on the sidewalk to enter a crosswalk at the speed of a bicycle, so the only safe way to ride a bicycle on a sidewalk is to dismount at every intersection. This just isn't very practical for transportation.
On roads where speed limits are high, bike lanes are more practical.
On streets where speed limits are low, bicyclists can almost keep up with traffic, so bike lanes aren't so necessary.
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Are you going to pay for the carbon that coal plant squirts into the atmosphere to charge your Nissan Leaf?
Didn't think so.
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Better a well-maintained coal plant emitting scrubbed gasses than a thousand poorly-maintained gasoline cars belching out exhaust fumes with little more than a catalytic converter to help out.
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Something like 12% better in the USA, last I read. Perhaps that's outdated now, but cars are cleaner now than they were and coal is still coal. And a modern catalyst system is pretty damned good, because now we have a downstream O2 sensor to monitor each cat, to say nothing of heated O2 sensors that start working right away so that we can enter closed-loop mode before the vehicle even comes up to full operating temperature — something few pre-OBD-II cars did. Couple that with direct injection and a re
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Then those who are below the poverty line or some other income threshold can get a rebate, tied to their previous year's income.
Send them a cheque or add it as a line item to whatever other social assistance they're getting.
It's not fucking rocket science so don't get all bunched up over it.
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There's no need to know how much gas each person consumed. Just give everyone on welfare the same amount. It's simple, it creates the proper incentive to conserve, and on average it won't burden the poor.
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You know who that kicks in the balls? Poor people.
Just about any tax on dumb harmful behavior is going to disproportionately affect poor people. The solution is to offset the tax with progressive policies. For instance, a tax on excessive emissions could be offset with an increase in the EITC [wikipedia.org] or a "cash for clunkers" program, or some other policy that puts the money back into the pockets of the people that need it most.
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Knew there would be someone like you in this conversation.
You know who that kicks in the balls? Poor people.
There's always some idiot like you in any conversation.
You want to help poor people? Then go help poor people. There are ten thousand policy changes that would help poor people. Go advocate for some of those.
Unless you actually are advocating for policies to help poor people. But I doubt it.
Taxing problems [Re:Externality--tax it!] (Score:2)
Unless you actually are advocating for policies to help poor people
Yes I am. This is one of a thousand stupid ideas that slice at the little bit of money poor people have.
And thus there are a thousand good ideas that could remove those slices. My experience is that anonymous cowards who shout "it will hurt the poor!" about any possible tax actually don't give a damn about the poor, they are knee-jerk anti-taxers. But you can prove me wrong: simply respond to this post stating "I believe we should put the federal inheritance tax back in place, and also that we should increase the tax rate on the top earners." That would do it.
Have you ever been poor? I have. Many in my family have. It sucks.
Last time I was poor-- which admittedly was a v
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At a minimum, the fees and taxes for operating a car should pay for all externalities of operating a car, including highway maintenance (at the moment they don't), all effects of pollution, and for that matter all costs relating to automobile accidents. If they don't, then car owners are getting a subsidy at the expense of taxpayers.
Are you trolling, or do you not understand how roads work? They both provide you benefit if you like to buy things at stores, and are also damaged more by the trucks which deliver things to those stores (and, of course, those which make up the visible bulk of the fueling infrastructure) than by all the passenger vehicles combined. I'm all for the cost of road maintenance being accounted for correctly, but where the bulk of the money would actually be coming from is the goods which would be purchased by thos
Too simple, let's make it more complicated (Score:2)
Roads need to be paid for somehow-- you do seem to admit that. You seem to be saying, well, rather than a gasoline tax, let's invent some vastly more complicated method of paying for roads. Or something. Maybe a new supplemental sales tax-- that will help the poor because you seem to think that gas taxes are regressive but somehow sales taxes aren't. Or invent an entirely new form of rapid transit-- reinventing personal transit from the ground up has got to be easier than figuring out how to pay for mainta
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Roads need to be paid for somehow-- you do seem to admit that. You seem to be saying, well, rather than a gasoline tax, let's invent some vastly more complicated method of paying for roads. Or something.
No, no I don't seem to be saying that, not to anyone who speaks English. What I am saying is that fuel taxes are a poor way to pay for our transportation infrastructure, and that there is no reasonable basis for the assumption that they should pay for anything other than the cost to society of burning fuel.
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Roads need to be paid for somehow-- you do seem to admit that. You seem to be saying, well, rather than a gasoline tax, let's invent some vastly more complicated method of paying for roads. Or something.
No, no I don't seem to be saying that, not to anyone who speaks English.
You neglected to quote the very next sentence. I wrote (that you had said):
Maybe a new supplemental sales tax--
What you had written was
"I'm all for the cost of road maintenance being accounted for correctly, but where the bulk of the money would actually be coming from is the goods which would be purchased by those who do and do not drive alike.
To anyone who speaks English (your phrase) a tax on "goods which are purchased" is known as a "sales tax." Of course, if you simply taxed gasoline, then the goods which are transported by truck will
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Look: a gasoline tax is very simple, and puts the tax burden of maintaining roads on the people who use roads.
Putting that in bold doesn't make it any more true. Only the first part is. The second part is a lie. The people who use the roads the most (that is, those who do the most damage) don't pay proportionally more.
What you seem to be missing is that I didn't actually propose doing what I described in my comment. You assumed that because I described a system that would fairly and accurately account for road maintenance (at least, more fairly than fuel taxes) that I was proposing it. I was telling you what a fair
Not solving the problem doesn't solve the problem (Score:2)
EVs are such a trivial fraction of the vehicles on the road that your objection here is pointless. Possibly some time in the future it won't be. But it is now.
As for other vehicles-- the amount of gasoline used, and the amount of road damage done, are both going to be proportional to how far you drive. Road wear will also be proportional to weight (which decreases gas mileage). Therefore, yes, the amount of gas used for transporting stuff tends to be proportional to the amount of damage done to the road.
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the amount of gasoline used, and the amount of road damage done, are both going to be proportional to how far you drive. Road wear will also be proportional to weight [...] Therefore, yes, the amount of gas used for transporting stuff tends to be proportional to the amount of damage done to the road
NO. NO IT DOES NOT. You in fact have no idea what you are talking about at all.
People driving 1000 miles are going to do roughly a hundred times less damage than people driving 100000 miles
NO. NO THEY ARE NOT. The typical vehicle does basically NO DAMAGE WORTH MENTIONING to the roads whether you drive 1 mile or 100,000 miles. Only the heaviest vehicles actually wear the roads to any degree worth mentioning. A human can actually exert more force per square inch on the pavement than the typical vehicle because of the relative size of the contact patch.
What's the point here? You don't solve any of the problems you mention-- you don't even try to solve any of the problems you mention.
And neither do you. You just wave your hands in ignorance and clai
Why not simple [Re:Not solving the problem...] (Score:2)
You have failed to convince me that you know anything about road maintenance. You also haven't convinced me you have much understanding of economics. What you say implies that we should build roads that trucks aren't allowed on, because (according to you) that means that they will cost nothing because they are maintenance-free. Yeah, right. Write to your state governor: roads that don't have to be paid for at all! Every politician will love you.
Around here the worst damage to the roads is done by salt an
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You have failed to convince me that you know anything about road maintenance. You also haven't convinced me you have much understanding of economics.
That's because you're ignorant. If you knew about the subject on which you're holding forth, you'd have a different opinion.
Around here the worst damage to the roads is done by salt and snowplows. This is needed even if no trucks use the road. This should be paid for by the people who use roads
You benefit from the existence of roads whether you use them or not, or even whether you're currently buying goods transported on them, although you are.
Unless a sales tax is based not on the cost of the goods but on the mass, the distance it is shipped, and the kind of vehicle used to ship it, it doesn't address the problems you mention in any way.
I never suggested a sales tax. You are suggesting a sales tax. You are therefore a hypocrite and/or idiot.
you are saying that the simple solution won't work because of trivial and inconsequential problems
The fact that a fuel tax does not in fact apply the tax to those who incur the road damage is not a trivial or inconsequential pr
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Everything ends up hitting poor people though. That's the problem with poverty.
If you just outright banned dirty gas, prices would rise and that disproportionately impacts the poor.
If you just outright allow whatever to happen, then health costs will rise and will disproportionately impact the poor.
Poverty means everything impacts you disproportionately, including inaction. Money provides cushioning.
Is there a way we can attempt to solve this problem in a way that is not overly onerous on the poor? Inste
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The left hate poor people. They want to force them out of work and make them reliant on the state, so they'll vote for left-wing governments.
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Your argument fails to address why you shouldn't pay for the externalities of your own gas usage.
How about the positive externalities of gas usage? Shouldn't we get paid for making the world a better place through gas usage?
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Predicted... repeatedly. (Score:5, Insightful)
The idiots enviromental activists don't seem to grasp that caring about the environment is directly proportional to wealth. Look at poor countries and tell me how many of them give a dam about the environment? Exactly.
So going on a crusade against the evil capitalist corporations that actually keep us from being that dirt poor... accomplishes what? Ironically it makes us all pollute more because we stop caring about the environment as we start having issues feeding ourselves.
Rule ONE of EFFECTIVE environmental activsism:
DO NOT make the host society poorer in the process. Violations of this rule will result in instant proportional decreases in everyone caring about the environment. Anyone that doesn't already grasp this clearly doesn't pay any of their own bills. Which makes everything clear since most environmental activists tend to be teenagers or trust fund kids.
This is not to say that I don't care about the environment or don't think we should do something to protect it. HOWEVER, if you fuck up the economy in the process get ready for everyone to start giving you just as much attention on the issues as the Chinese government. That is, at best you'll be humored/patronized while the people actually making real choices will quietly and systematically ignore everything you've said.
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They may not be protesting for protecting the environment much but in many poor places, maybe the majority they are getting sick and dying young from exposure to polluted water and/or air. But.. hey.. the environment is a first-world problem. Just shut up and send them some bags of grain right?
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You completely missed the point. Good work.
You fuck up the economy = no one gives a shit about the environment.
Do you logic?
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Just shut up and send them some bags of grain right?
We send them our industrial base. We also send them signed trade agreements with MFN status.
They send us finished goods made safely outside the Environment. And sans any OSHA EPA NLRB costs, tariffs or the slightest customs impediment. Thus, we are free to pad our regulatory nest however much we need to gratify our environmental virtues.
And this scheme works ok until you create a huge cohort of former-middle-class-now-subsistence-worker voters. Those folks have no patience for hypocrite [usnews.com] climate warriors
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They send us finished goods made safely outside the Environment.
wut
Did you know that there's days when Los Angeles has more pollution which has floated over from China than the home-grown kind? The CARB menace has been so successful at cleaning up air here at home that we can actually be sucking down more pollution produced from the production of the shit that we buy that's made in another country, across the sea.
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It is the First World that is going to have to lead with cleaning up our act on the environment, green tech, etc;
There is no way in hell you can ask people who barely survive to worry about pollution.
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And if your solution to clean things up makes the first world poor or even less wealthy... get ready for all the people that care and send you money or are willing to buy expensive stuff to do things the green way... for all that to dry up.
Solutions to the problem must be economically neutral. There are ways to do it. Most of them involve the government giving tax breaks proportionate to the upgrade cost or finding other technologies that are actually able to fill the void at an affordable cost.
There is a t
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utter bs that you ultimately validated as being 100 percent correct.
BS apparently means inconvenient truths you have a hard time with... that isn't what bs stands for by the way.
It means Bullshit Shit. It implies that the subject under discussion is untrue. Which is the opposite of what I was saying. So... *yawn*.
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You clearly don't know anything about living in such countries or being that poor.
When you're that poor... living in shit... feeding your children garbage... you don't care about the environment. You care rather about YOUR environment. And you know that the fastest way to improve conditions for YOU is to have more money. Go to the slums of any desperately poor country and offer people there 1 million dollars if they poor a river of shit into the pristine ecosystem of your choice.
How many of them will do it?
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Your rule 2 is only relevant if rule 1 is broken. If they don't impoverish their host society then they can drive around in limos all they like. it is only when they drive around in limos while making everyone else poor that there is a problem.
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Truth hurts. Suck it.
Trading off clean cars and costs (Score:3)
If you really want cleaner air, the best thing to do would be to get as many old cars off the road as possible, so that people will be driving new cars. The new cars are so much cleaner than the old cars, it's amazing.
With the above in mind, I don't think the government should tighten up emissions standards even more. All the easy gains are gone, and now it takes engineering and expense to make cars pollute even less, which means that cars will be more expensive. If the government forces all the cars to be cleaner, all the cars get more expensive so it's fair as far as car makers go; but making new cars more expensive means people are more likely to keep driving dirty old cars.
There is a good discussion here: http://keithhennessey.com/2009/05/19/understanding-the-presidents-cafe-announcement/ [keithhennessey.com]
Thus, while it may seem counter-intuitive, I believe the best way to get the air cleaner is to leave the standards right where they are and try to get the cost of a new car to drift downward.
The new cars are much safer than the really old cars also, so getting more people into new cars will also save more lives than making the crash standards tougher.
I think that within 20 to 30 years, the majority of vehicles will be electric anyway, and emissions will be very much reduced. (The reason I think that: improved solar technology and new storage technologies will bring down the cost of electricity; and battery costs will come down, especially due to the Tesla "giga-factory". I know I'd be happy with an electric vehicle, and rent a gas vehicle for my occasional long road trip.)
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If you really want clean air the best thing you can do is move to an isolated mountaintop.
If you meant clean air for the planet, not just yourself then your car is probably not the place to start. Use less electricity. That's where the majority of the air pollution comes from. Cars are a visible source of pollution, you see them everywhere but your daily drive might not take you past the local coal plant. Don't let that bias your thinking. Most of the pollution is from there, not from your car.
Start tu
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If you meant clean air for the planet, not just yourself then your car is probably not the place to start. Use less electricity. That's where the majority of the air pollution comes from.
Not so fast...
Where I live, in a valley with mountain ranges on two sides, and an inversion in the winter and ozone in the summer, the vast majority of that problem comes from auto exhaust. Sure, there is some pollution from industry, but our coal burning power plants are hundreds of miles away.
Really the only thing that is going to help in this situation is electric cars, but there you go, being powered by coal.
Unless we can get solar charging going...
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Nobody is going to feel sorry for you because you choose to live in a STUPID location and then complain that the location is excessively prone to trapping/concentrating pollution.
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It also makes them more likely to ride bicycles, buses and trains, and to walk or telecommute.
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If poor people can't afford to get to work, who's going to do the work?
Employers will be forced to pay more or find innovative ways to bring employees to work. So the problem will solve itself.
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Parent's is a very thoughtful post. I'll just add some figures [epa.gov]. The following represents regulations for NOX emissions by new cars in grams per mile.
1975: 3.1
1977: 2.0
1981: 1.0
1994: 0.6
1999: 0.3
2004-2009: 0.07
What I can't find is, what were typical emissions prior to the EPA - i.e., prior to 1970. Clearly the 1975 figure of 3.1 already represents a reduction; likely a significant one.
Essentially all of the pickup was in place by 1999. Everything since then has been an exhibition of EPA masturbation. It's be
Another Loan... (Score:2)
IMHO this is 99% of this discussion...
For the millions out there who drive vehicles 10+ years old(such as myself), one of the main reason we keep them instead of getting something newer is the obvious fact that THEY ARE PAID OFF.
Rocket Science, eh?
Unfortunately for the environment, I will stick with my old truck that gets 10mpg for the aforementioned reason.
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My current vehicle is now 15 years old and I have never been happier. Not just for being loan free for 10 years, but because not long after 1999 all cars became shittier in various ways, notably mechanically. Engine design is now so compromised by the ridiculously stringent emissions fetish that all other attributes are down the toilet: notably cost, longevity, and maintenance.
Buying a newer car doesn't make any sense. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry but that's just how it is going to be. Buying a newer car doesn't make any sense. They are far too expensive and they lose their value far too quickly. Even with occasional repairs for an older car and gas being expensive a new car is still just a money sucking black hole.
If you are worried about the price of gas just buy a smaller old car. If you are worried about the environment you probably shouldn't be thinking about a new car anyway.
The materials and parts are mined and built in separate places all over the planet. Your car probably has probably traveled more miles right off the factory line than it will in the first 10 years it is driven. Pollution was generated all along it's path. So.. if you are worried about the environment keep driving the jalopy and give some of the savings to an environmentally friendly charity.
Cash for clunkers was nothing but a thinly veiled donation to the auto industry.
Passenger vehicles dirtier after recession (Score:2)
Prosperity ... (Score:2)
So, prosperity is good for the climate.
Did they compare ALL recession effects? (Score:2)
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Yeah, that was my first thought too... TFA is behind a paywall, so can't really scan for it, but I bet they included the Cash for Clunkers program as a mitigating factor... maybe even projections on how things could have been much worse.
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i have some family who had a 2001 Acura and a 1992 Ford at the time
the Acura qualified but the Ford didn't. so they kept on driving the ford to work in a not so good area for another few years
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I got a tailgate off a 1992 ford that qualified... but it had a 460
still have it, in fact. since my 1992 ford has now died, I hope to get my money back out of it, too
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Ugh.. my inlaws came to live with us. They never had a ton of money and yet they never learned to conserve any either! (not an uncommon combination IMHO) Anyway lights are on all over all the time, the washing machine and drier never stop. Are those really full loads? If so then how many outfit does one person need to wear in a day? Dishes are washed every meal plus several times between(no I'm not advocated re-using them dirty but they could be kept dirty in the sink and cleaned once with one load of wate
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