hairyben wrote:
antera309 wrote:
I can see the sense in the argument "Burning fossil fuels MIGHT affect the Earth's climate, so let's play it safe", but even so, use of private motor vehicles only accounts for 10-13% of the total CO2 that mankind emits anyway (the rest being from Power Generation and Industry). If every car on the planet was crushed tomorrow, it wouldn't make any difference.
evan if all cars were electic we still burn fossil fuel to make most of our power anyway, plus there's inherant inefficiency with remote generation, distribution, multiple step up/step down conversion, charging and storage compared with point of use fuel combustion so I fail to see how electric cars are truely "green".
Absolutely. And if cars were abolished altogether, the electrical power and/or diesel used by the additional trains & buses required to get the people around would quickly take up most, if not all, of the 10-13% that was just "saved".
The use of the "Greenhouse effect" debate by Politicians as an excuse for raising taxation really doesn't do it it's due credit. It's a fascinating subject that has been debated by some of the biggest minds on Earth.
The Earth is such a complicated system that it will take us years to even begin to understand what effect the burning of fossil fuels will have.
Remember, CO2 is "food" for plants - the photosynthesis reaction that plants carry out in sunlight converts CO2 (and water) into Oxygen and food for the plant. If CO2 levels were to rise, it would be hard to imagine plants not evolving to take advantage of the extra food source and photosynthesise faster.
At any rate, many top scientists believe that by the time we have burned enough oil to have a significant effect on the balance of gases in the atmosphere, we will have already developed clean energy alternatives such as Cold fusion reactors, hydrogen-powered vehicles etc. This stuff isn't that far off - within our Children's lifetimes, definitely.