Efficiency

In response to the last post, while I do agree that our livestock may be contributing to the green house gas problem, I don't believe that it is one of the major contributors. I for one love meat and I don't fully understand how eating meat is considered non sustainable. I think there are many other more critical battles to be fought than "Eat less meat". For example, Humanity's addiction to fossil fuel is no secret, and the damage that is done by thee burning of these fuels is no secret either. However I'm shocked to find out how many people still think that global warming is a myth. At least one student in pretty much every one of my classes considers it "a myth started by the liberals in order to push a needless environmentalist agenda through the government in order to satisfy their lobbyists".

Now most politicians make me sick to my stomach as well, but there is now substantial scientific evidence to support the hypothesis of global warming and it's causes. CO2 and other emissions seem to be the biggest contributors to Global Warming. So how do we cut down our emissions without crippling our way of life. The obvious answer is to use less fossil fuels. This is a good option, but to the middle and lower class it isn't really an option. They have to get to work, they have to buy the cheapest groceries, and they have to keep their families warm. So then how do we help them to reduce their emissions as well? Do we depend on the upper class to help? In a perfect world perhaps that would work, but in a perfect world we wouldn't have the problem in the first place.

The answer I believe is to improve the efficiency in our energy systems. If Bucky Fuller can invent a car that can transport 11 people at a time with a ford model-T engine that gets 30 to 40 mpg you cannot expect us to believe that improving our current vehicles efficiency can't be done, even without the additions of bio fuels and hybrid technologies, it's time for engine technology to get back to basics then they can play around with their gimmicks. This should have been the Auto industries focus from the beginning they should have been competing with each other to produce a car with higher mpg's than the other guy. People would be spending less $ on fuel using less fuel itself and therefore be putting out less emissions.

They efficiency problem isn't limited to engine technology either. There is a lot of electricity just plain lost in the power grid due to unintentional resistance in the grid. This is something that could be fixed fairly easily simply by upgrading power lines, transformers and housing wires. The other simple thing that can be done is for people to unplug their appliances when their not in use. Even appliances that are not on are still pulling power from the grid. This could cut peoples power bills significantly and cut down on emission from power plants that have to burn more fuel to make up for the grid loss.