Every time I see the words mysterious, unexplained, aliens or something similar in a program description, it’s a sure sign to choose another channel. Life is too short and I need to save my tinfoil for culinary pursuits.
Where do the people who produce shows like Oak Island get their money to produce such BS? One could despair.
You got my point, but it doesn’t stop stupid zealots from doing stupid things, while the cowering masses grab the faint glimmers of hope. Even a mentally traumatized, rich teenager has a world platform to shake up a desperate public into over reacting. When you become so blind thst you’re willingbto follow Al Gore and the little girl down a rabbit hole, I stop listening to the statistics. All ya’ll can follow what you want. Water front property is still a high commodity, especially for politicians who tell you the east coast will be under water up to the steps of Appalachia by “2020”. If true, I can’t fix it, nor can anyone else. As suggested by someone in an earlier post, I do what I can - and I add, they can keep their long noses out of my business, especially when the same criminals are selling our sovereignty.
Given how far the extremists have moved in opposite directions since Bush vs Gore (Dec. 11, 2000), the two big Als (lefty Al Gore and righty Al Simpson) seem like moderates!
I watch the behavior of the talkers. Millions wentbto that green company and the following week. It went bankrupt. As long as the politicians keep buying waterfront property, I dont expect the sea to cause too much trouble. Sorry. I dont trust politicians. Do what you can. That’s all you can do.
When a bureaucrat tells you they’re helping you, be suspicious if your back gets wet and they say its raining.
My career was in the electrical industry, mostly on the industrial and utility side, and I still maintain subscriptions to the trade magazines that report on progress in the generation and distribution business. Guess what: the electrical industry is bullish on sustainable clean energy across the board, it’s NOT just a polarized political issue. They know it’s feasible and they are investing in it.
Despite what anti-green handwringers like Jyak fuss about, we actually ARE making enormous progress worldwide and even in the USA in converting to renewable energy. The fact that the big stakeholders in conventional carbon-based energy are rapidly shifting their investments into the new technologies is the real evidence. The IBEW (the major electrical trade union to which most of the workers in the power industry below and where they are trained) is going big on preparing their workforce for the new energy grid. I can tell you from having spent years on site at many coal fired power plants that they are nasty to work on and horribly costly to maintain for the entities that own them – electrical workers are very enthusiastic about the new technologies, most of which require more brains than sweat and brawn to build and to maintain. In fact more gigawatts of energy production have been brought on line in recent years than conventional oil and gas based generation infrastructure. There are now nations that are at or near 100% renewable energy generation.
People tended to whine the same way when cars began to replace horses and telegraphs began to replace the Pony Express. Always naysayers and prophets of doom. But Time always proves them wrong.
There were plenty of ventures that I’m sure people were whining about that didn’t move forward as planned. From Stanley Motor Carriage Company to Enron and thousands in between. The Tucker Automobile was a great example of how government and big industry change the playing field to pick winners and losers.
In my mind a really great example of a technology being pushed to the side in all this is the plug in hybrid automobile. To me I would embrace this tech in a heartbeat if made affordable and it is for the most part not much different than pure hybrid. It creates a competition though between two energy sources and of course the cheapest one will prevail. What would be better than plugging in and then doing 80-90% of my driving with electric as I seldom drive real fast or more than 100 miles in a day. I wouldn’t have the fear of being caught out of juice and waiting hours and paying a premium for a charge when taking a longer trip. All the benefits of a fuel powered hybrid and an EV in one. This would not overly tax one infrastructure or the other and competition always lowers prices. The problem is this doesn’t meet the narrative of zero carbon. When you really think about it goals need to be set realistically if they are to be taken seriously. Climate rhetoric is not based in realism or they would know the goals are not possible and instead of going all in we would be spending half the fortune we are spending on trying to stop something into spending to mitigate the believed results. I don’t see trillion dollar projects for sea walls around NYC and pumping stations or plans to elevate the cities or move them. As mentioned former presidents and high level government figure in support of this mind set buying several multi million dollar estates just a couple feet above sea level. Are they not afraid?
It is IMO hard for a thinking person to not at least question this stuff. In my whole life working in technical fields I have never encountered problems so black and white in how people view them. Whenever I did I always found there were ulterior motives in play.
Keep in mind when cars replaced horses and telegraph replaced pony express only to be replaced by telephones and then wireless phones it all happened because people bought into the technology and saw it as a better way to do something. Free enterprise and profit motivated the change. Nothing was force fed to the consumer it was win/win. This is what Musk was doing with his EVs he was providing a product that some people wanted and some didn’t and he was going to succeed or fail on his own merits.
It isn’t the technology, it the power behind it. I have no time to argue about topics when people ignore reality. It has nothing to do with zero carbon, which technology has less impact, extracting coal or crude. An argument can be made about dirty mining to make the batteries, and nobody wants to explain what happens to the dead batteries. We’re supposed to put our flashlight batteries in a special collection bucket, but your worn out car battery will get set out on the curb and they’ll turn the stuff into pop rocks with a little sugar coating that crackle in your mouth. Not one acknowledgement on this thread about the huge pile of condemned internal combustion cars that will suddenly sit idle vaporizing the hydrocarbons which is worse than the emissions from the exhaust. Carbon carbon carbon.
The fact is that electric cars are better. You don’t have to convince me. Several family members have Teslas, and others have hybrids. I brought up Governor Nukem telling people the day after he announced the future ban on internal combustion engines to not charge your electric car because It’ll overload the grid. Have any of the rocket scientist and engineers figured out how California is going to solve their energy shortage. What is it, 90% of the energy is generated using fossil fuel? Do we have 10% electric cars yet? Most people know they buy electric from the mid west, until they can’t generate enough for the local needs. Then they plan to eliminate gas stoves, fossil fuel to heat homes, add battery cars, no more gas grills, gas powered leaf blowers, or lawnmowers. Oh, just throw it on the electric grid. Not a problem! Just brown it out. Then nothing works. NOTHING!
Most industrial tools are three-phase and a brown out burns up the motor. Sun spot wipes out the grid. So what. Terrorists damage the transmission lines. EVERYTHING STOPS. EVERYTHING STOPS! So what! Too many people on earth anyway, right! That’s not sarcasm. It’s what I hear right on this thread, and seeing what I see, I have no confidence in the scientists, the weather predicted who can’t forcast the weather.
Humanity is like a pack of lemmings. The environmentalist chattered about declining eagle populations but are mute, MUTE, about the windmills killing them. Save the whales! Does any of the whale huggers even blink when a plethora of disoriented whales wash up on the Jersey shore. Speculation is the process of sonic testing setting up the windmills may be at the root of it. Selective anger - sacrifice a few whales for the good of the planet.
I don’t doubt the earth is warming. I don’t doubt man has accelerated the process. If you ride in a Tesla, or my son-in-law’s new Ford plug in truck, the acceleration that presses you back in the seat can’t be matched by an 8 cylinder muscle car. What gear head wouldn’t want one. Borla even make a programmable noise generator where you can pick the sound. Battery cars are just fine. I want one and I could buy one, but I know what’s coming. Maryland is a modern progressive place. The utility company offered discounts if you put a smart meters in. When the demand exceeded production, the electricity is just browned out. So the people didn’t know how the discount worked: they shut your power off, so you don’t use as much energy. The people didn’t realize until the air conditioner stopped cooling on the hottest nights. Now everybody has a smart meter. Rather than making more power stations, they just shut your power off. Not building mote power plants.
Then they rethink strategy. Recharge everything during peak power, which is where the energy production is at its peak. Sun don’t shine at night, and wind slows down. What a mess, what a stinking mess. They’re lying to you. I look at people and it reminds me of a fish with a hook in it’s mouth. Have you ever been a week without electricity from a storm. How will you go for water, food, recharge you car. You can recharge your phone in your car, or just get away from it all to live in a hotel in the interior. The engineers always brag about their calculations and the numbers. Statistics.
All the political arm has to do is shut down the grid. Take the bus or subway, but don’t stand too close to the tracks, somebody might have an episode and throw you in front of the train. Chicago can’t stop crime or solve homelessness, but they have 90 million borrowed from the covid fund that we borrowed from China to house the uninvited people looking for the American dream, and they also get health care and you are educating the kids, while nobody stops the drugs (seems to me somebody is looking the other way and “them somebodies” is paid to look the other way. But we will save the planet with the electric cars. Keep the faith. Us ignorant hold outs will just be force fed you electric utopian world in a fantasy future, but I at least hope it’ll be a happy happy planet. But I know nothing, "I just do what I can . . . "
How did the Dutch come up with the idea about building seawalls. I never figured out, with all the lamd in a country like the US, why is New Orleans mostly bow sea level. Then they start to worry about global warming. Miami is filled swamp land. Silty soil settles, but they blame rising sea levels. I watch nature shows discussing rising se levels in the Chesapeake Bay. Ive watched the land masses in the area and personally witness the erosion of land. It isn’t sitting closer to the water, its eroding. The brainiacks proclaim its rising sea levels, but its mostly erosion. But what do I know.
More pleasant to enjoy life, rather than worrying about rising sea levels. That’s one reason i bought a house that’s 186 ft above sea level. 
Look forward to a new year, because TomL reminded us that the new season already got the jump on us. I got a lot to do and not much time to do it in before the water and air is warm. One year, I was on the water by 20 March.
The best we can hope for is minimize our own footprint - it’s the right thing to do. I’m going to try and the rest is up to someone else.
They call it “artisanal mining” and assure us that they only source from environmentally and socially responsible mines, when in fact the miners are constantly exposed to hazardous materials with no protection, and their pay is so low they’re basically slave labor. Additionally, China is getting rich and cornering the market while exploiting the workers and the countries where the materials are. This ongoing exploitation in the Congo is well documented in the book Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara.
Yeah, conveniently ignored. Do what each of us can.
I don’t mind targetted advertisements, but there are a few things that aggravate me. One is when an advertiser pesters me with the product I already bought. Another is half a dozen emails over the course of each day suggesting I take a look at the same product - once a day is enough. Another is the current gimmick on the forum of putting the spot advertisement over the next step in your navigating the posts. It’s shortsighted, because after serveral frustrating inconvenient episodes, I make a note to never buy the product. Smooth idea “Jeremy” or whatever the name of the “intern” with that brilliant idea. I suspect its an intern, because an experience advertising executive would know better.
You misunderstand me. I’m not anti green. I actually said I’d like to own an electric car. I dintbwant tomwake up and have some communist like Governor Nukem swindle me into landfilling my perfectly good car and take a loss because he made it worthless, then con me into buying an electric car (to swell his insider information investment portfolio), then shut the electric grid down so my new $60k car is worthless. The final insult is to take a bus or a subway with sick criminals preying on trapped victims who can’t rely on the 2nd amendment protection to defend against rampant crime, because criminals are the victims and you interfered with their self preservation by resisting as a victim. When I get into these topics, I’m automatically the ignorant one trying to keep the technology from advancing our beautiful life. Just the way the horse owner didn’t want the cars. Now the car owners are the ignorant ones. I get it, whsts that saying, “Im your huckleberry!” D U N, dun! You’re right, I’m wrong. Nothing I do can stop it. I just do what I can. Big Joe offered energy independence . . . Ha! Ha ha! Ha ha haa haaaa!
A number of years back my friend who has a recovery business asked me if I wanted to keep him company on Saturday as he was planning to make a bunch of trips about 30 miles away to a car dealer hauling (Cash for Clunkers) back to our town to a scrap yard. I said why not I haven’t seen clunkers smashed in a while.
We got there and the first pickup was a beautiful Cadillac about 8 years old, low miles. spent its life in a garage and I doubt ever saw snow. Not a flaw on the car and the old couple “clunkered” it feeling they were saving the planet buying an economy little death trap by comparison with a high MPG spec. They were not burning enough gas to offset the energy used to make the new car and ship it or its parts from halfway around the world. They likely could have enjoyed that beautiful car for the rest of their life and not enlarged their carbon footprint any more than the unnecessary new car was. The mechanic came out when we were hooking it up and told us this one didn’t want to die. He said he poured the bottle of ground glass the government mandated in the oil and started the car and it purred like a kitten the whole day refusing to die until it ran out of gas. At that point they put gas in it and another bottle of ground glass and several hours later she died a smoking, shuddering death. We hauled this beauty to the crusher.
Next on the list was a really nice looking RAM 4WD truck. It was every bit as nice as the truck I was driving. Another mechanic came out and told us that 2 weeks before he replaced the transmission in this truck and he had the same truck at home in need of a new transmission. He offered my friend several hundred bucks to drop the truck off over night and he said the next morning it would be ready to go with a transmission in it just not the new one. My friend wanted to help the guy out but couldn’t be sure this wasn’t some kind of a sting/test as he signed a contract that parting out wasn’t allowed so he said no. when we dropped it off at the scrap yard he told the guy there it was a new transmission and a great looking truck and they guy said yep but rule is straight in the crusher no exceptions.
I was sickened by the whole process and I saw the rest of the lineup we were to haul in and I said enough and didn’t go back.
What starts out to some politicians sounding like a good idea and I’m sure backed by big companies wanting to get older products out of the way to sell new. The year after Cash for Clunkers the price for used cars was really up around here and it was hard to find older nice cars. The poor people that need these cars and never buy new cars were not the ones trading in clunkers they were nursing along their clunkers. The people doing the deals were richer people that wanted to feel good about cleaning up their carbon footprint at least in their minds and getting a new car partly funded by tax dollars paid by the ones that even with the help couldn’t afford the deal. 
Looking in the rear-view mirror, it’s easy to see the Cash for Cash for Clunkers (C4C) act as a boondoggle. Led by Senators Stabenow [D-MI] and Brownback [R-KS] (Remember when boondoggles could be bipartisan? Ah, the good 'ol days!). There’s no question that it was a terrible waste to send good vehicles go to the crusher but, as is often the case, there’s more to the story.
Gas was expensive in 2007. Oil prices had risen from $50 barrel early in that year to $130 barrel in mid 2008. Bush 43 was Prez, an election was on the horizon and people were clamoring for action. People wanted higher mileage vehicles, but the big three US automakers were late to the party and their sales were riding a long decline. Though C4C didn’t get a vote in the '07-'08 Congress, it did pass in '09 when GM and Chrysler were facing bankruptcy. So, C4C, in addition to being an air quality bill, was also intended to pacify consumer anger at high gas prices and be a part of the huge US auto industry bailout of 2009.
Imagine doing that 282 million times. 282 million; what a great way to get rid of the recycled glass, eh? How about taking them out and dumping them in the occean? Or bury them in the desert. They could incinerate them to burn off all the non metallic stuf, then recycle the remaining metal. Bury them vertically to create Stone Henge art.
A house is the biggest investment in the life of most people. A car is the second biggest invrstment (unless there’s a boat, a secondary property or a business). Even if the value of each car is between $100 and $1,000 dollars, the investment is lost. If someone stopped me on the street and told me to hand over my wallet or my car, I would severely hurt them! So how does a lobby group think I would react to the mission about taking my car.
I have a deal: if anyone wants my internal combustion engine, I’ll sell the whole car for bluebook value, then invest that in a Teslas. Street value to replace my car is between $13,000 and $20,000. A few green believers think that I’m afraid of technology. Ha! What do you think I used as a trade in when I gave up my horse and saddle to buy the car? I don’t want some huckster politician to condemn it. I want to be compensated for it. Don’t . . . Reach . . . Into . . . My . . . Pocket . . . And . . . Take . . . My . . . Investment . . . Unless . . . You . . . Are . . . Ready . . . To . . . Fight . . . For . . . It. It’s not that I don’t embrace going green, I just think the proposed methods are criminal.
If a majority believes a green lifestyle is necessary to save the planet, that is a great start if they all embrace it fully. When I see it working, I’ll be happy to follow.
Governor Nukem has enough in the California budget to offer undocumented travelers free health care. That’s criminal, but apparently Californian tax payers are behind it. That’s what I’m talking about. Your movement, your commitment. Wonder how much electricity could be save if everyone turned off the Christmas decorations? Ban hot tubs! Ban recreation boats with motors. Abolish amusement parks. Turn off street lights and lighted business signs. No air conditioners in homes. Happy New Year.
I wasn’t looking back in the rear view mirror with 20/20 hindsight, it was all too apparent at least for me this boondoggle was then what it became later.
At that time I could really care less about the long-term affects of C4C it was IMO simply a waste of resources. I actually had a friend at the time that had a car that the engine was on life support and the car was drivable and inspected still. I told her to take advantage of C4C as no dealer was going to want her clunker as a trade in and she wanted a smaller more efficient car anyway. We looked her car up on the list and because it was EPA rated just one MPG higher than the C4C threshold even though it was spewing smoke with shot rings and valves the answer was no C4C for her. I put a couple bottles of Lucas oil treatment in the car and she drove it another year saving up for something better.
There is no end to stupidity bipartisan or not. Not to bring politics into this I’m of the belief what we have in control now is a uniparty anyway as we did at that time. Fine line between bipartisan and uniparty.
Fine line. Some say better to be dupped and misused, as long as there is a perception of improvement.
My offer still stands, but so far no takers. If I drove my valuable car to a landfill and invested heavily in green technology, only to have a duplicitous politician (regardless of party affiliation) shut off the power source to manipulate me into leaving my expensive new electric car in the driveway so I can take the train network or bus system they promoted and took money under the table to promote. That angers me. To be told that I’m a rube because I shun technology angers me. I’m not riding public transportation until they start prosecuting people for assaulting passengers.
I served this country feeling I could in a small way preserve the individuality many of us value. I and my children all paid out of pocket for our college education. Now little snots want someone else to pay for their Gucci college, only to get indoctrinated as anti-semetic, anti-captialist, and I’m considered an old white man (at least they got that right) for my contribution. These kids are smart enough to realize that a plumber, electrician, carpenter or welder will pay for their education, then come out and be their boss. So be it. If a person smells a huckster, the woke mob calls you backward. I guess I am. Women were banned from men sport teams, because they might get hurt. It shocks me that women can stand by and let men join women sport teams and support it, while women get hurt by men who couldn’t even place on a men’s team, but then when a woman ties the same time, the dressed up guy gets the award for being brave. Who wants to buy my car so I can get an electric one? I’d like to sell it around 2034.
Many, many people and companies recycle car batteries. In fact, car batteries are the most recycled products in the U.S., having a 98 percent to 99 percent recycling rate. Most individuals simply return their old car batteries to the dealership or the store where they are purchasing their replacement.
If you buy a car battery and do not return the old battery you will generally be subject to a “core charge”. Pretty much all of the components of a car battery are recyclable. Many auto parts stores provide free battery installation, as they make money off of the old batteries.
Sorry, I intended to say the power battery for the electric car. Lithium batterirs are different. You’re correct about the core deposit on an ignition battery for a gas powered car. The deposit is so high, most batteries are retirned to recover it. I just bought 2 car batteries this summer. I believe the deposit was at least $25. The free installation is gone or going away at most stores. My car battery is in the trunk and most places no longer replace it free. The GM Colorado is an ordeal to remove/install, and the places I checked would not deal with it free.
Not sure how you recycle a modern battery. The solid lead in the old batteries has been replaced by some oxide coating or other thing. Have no idea about safe disposal of the byproduct. In a perfect world, they would just add it to Mountain Dew for that citric zip, the way they add polyethylene glycol to sweeten it and give it that slick texture.
Perhaps everybody could be gven a neutralizing pack then just bury the old power battery packs in the back yard
