gilligus
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Ambassador from the Alliance of Socialist States
Posts: 100
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Post by gilligus on Oct 6, 2005 14:56:32 GMT
Many radical Greens talk about banning cars as a solution to global warming. However, more moderate liberals say that tightening up on things like emissions and gas mileage requirements are a more reasonable solution. What do you think?
Vote and discuss!
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gilligus
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Ambassador from the Alliance of Socialist States
Posts: 100
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Post by gilligus on Oct 6, 2005 14:58:08 GMT
I voted the first option. I am a pretty harcore Green when it comes to ideals. At heart, I'm really a "return to the trees" kind of guy.
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Post by Dobbyniania on Oct 6, 2005 21:02:26 GMT
I'm on the national steering committee of Campus Greens and I in no way support a ban on cars. It's silly and a politica dead end. Banning cars doesn't solve the problem, we have to shift towards a more sustainable and locality based living pattern. Banning cars would simply put a band aid on the issue.
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Post by D.S. of Soviet Sexy Girls on Oct 6, 2005 21:23:35 GMT
Banning cars would have the world coming back to an earlier age, with people obliged to travel for hours only to reach close destinations, in most developed countries, we'd be back to the 1890's. Common and public transports aren't developed enough to sustain the traffic of travelers. I'm generally opposed to "hard-core" greens since I think they don't understand (or don't want to) how better our lives are now than before the technology improved it. Hanging in trees is not a comfortable way to live More seriously. Banning cars would also hurt economy. Automobile industry is a powerful one and have many people working in. Such a radical measure would make ten of thousands jobless in countries such as France or Germany. Also without car, you can say adios to a globalized economy and economic links even between close regions, as an important part of fret traffic is made by road. I'm totally for better designed motors and car that burn less gas, use bio-fuels, use hybrid technologies and eventually for hydrogen cars. I think it is possible that in at last 50 years most of world's car would be hydrogen and/or electrical ones.
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Koona
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RED
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Post by Koona on Oct 6, 2005 21:28:36 GMT
Amen to that, the motorised way of transport is here to stay until we can fly easier, but problem not in the car, but what are the car's sideeffects.
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Oct 7, 2005 11:41:03 GMT
Indeedy, to the above 2. The solution is to improve public transportation and encourage more walking/cycling ect, the streets must be taken back for the people! In addition car numbers should be cut down, encourage car sharing and people should be encouraged to buy cars suitable to them, why the F buy an SUV or 4by4 if you live in the city in an office job eh? Fuels should be altered to biofuel/fuel cell technology = result zero emissions, petrolium products should be entirely redirected towards manufacture.
Industry should be cleaned up and energy production be accomplished by a combination of renewables and atomic power, with much research into fusion. Finally plant trees and green things all over, better inviroment for us all!
There global walming solved......if only!
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gilligus
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Ambassador from the Alliance of Socialist States
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Post by gilligus on Oct 7, 2005 11:53:28 GMT
Well, within the current governmental/societal infrastructure that currently exists, that would indeed be a wonderful solution, albeit a ways off. However, when it comes to what I would really like to see, I'm a bit of an Ishamel-ist. I honestly think that, no matter how high tech and efficient and advanced we get, as long as the human species tries to play God, they will be a parasite on the earth, a stain of creation. Now, although we will never "kill the earth," we will certainly harm it to an incurable degree.
But for now, RM's way seems good enough. It's a start.
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Oct 7, 2005 11:56:36 GMT
"human species tries to play God, they will be a parasite on the earth,"
Biochemist Grumblings and Mutterings...:.D
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gilligus
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Ambassador from the Alliance of Socialist States
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Post by gilligus on Oct 7, 2005 14:53:09 GMT
It's not just ramblings...there's a reason that the people who know most about the topic think the way they do.
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gilligus
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Ambassador from the Alliance of Socialist States
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Post by gilligus on Oct 7, 2005 17:38:13 GMT
How would we fix the damage? I would love to hear a proposal, because if you come up with a legitimate way to repair the ecosystems that the pollution being dumped into rivers and oceans and the sky is damaging, then by all means, go ahead and drive your Ford Excursion. But until that happens, I will continue to campaign.
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Post by D.S. of Soviet Sexy Girls on Oct 7, 2005 20:25:19 GMT
Be careful, ozone can be very toxic and a powerful greenhouse gas in the lower atmosphere, don't produce too much of it I think that the damage caused by human are not irreversible. Just try to think on geological scales. Earth have been much more warm then today (during the Miocene area for example), and it had cooled enough to enter in ice ages more than once. All is a combination of changes in orbits and inclination of Earth, Sun's power output and, even for some, galactic level of cosmic rays... On the long term, any damage done by humans would be erased, even the more dangerous such as nuclear or chemical contaminations. However, I totally agree that on human scale, this would be very very long, and I assume in my upper text that humankind ceased to pollute (maybe because there is no more humankind : . Reasonable solutions exists so that we can keep our way of living and preserve the biosphere. On the parasite thing, just a little thought. How something that evolved from and within a system (the biosphere) could be a parasite for that system ? That is not a logic rule for successful lifeform, imo. Something I want to introduce in the debate : Nuclear power. I know that fusion is the ultimate source for power only producing a ridiculous amount of nuclear wastes, but what do you think of a more massive usage of fission ? My country is the one with the highest level of nuclear energy and we have the purest sky of Europe (considering occupied areas). I'm for the use of fission to produce cleaner energy, since the amount of nuclear wastes is eventually not that great compared to the one produced by petrol/coal power-plant. Only their nature is different. I say we have enough room to stock them for long amount of times, thousands of years if needed. So ?
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Post by canteria on Oct 7, 2005 21:40:01 GMT
I'm not sure about this issue. Stricter fuel emission laws are a must, and I would support banning cars if there was a gigantic web of public transporation.
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commustan
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Post by commustan on Oct 8, 2005 1:18:52 GMT
I live in an area without public transportation, so I go with the second option.
If we ban cars, does that mean banning farm machinery too? That would mean less effiecient farming, and less food to feed the starving world.
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gilligus
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Ambassador from the Alliance of Socialist States
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Post by gilligus on Oct 8, 2005 2:07:00 GMT
Well, like I said, I'd be all for a total reverting to the pre-argicultural revolution lifestyle. Now, if we pretend, for a minute, that my ideals are in any way possible, we could say that, without large corporate farms, there would be no need for such machinery. If people felt it necessary to grow food, they could grow enough for themselves, and maybe give/trade away whatever excess they have.
But let's stop pretending now. Banning cars isn't realistic without a very extensive public transportation system.
Banning cars means cars. I take this to mean privately owned automobiles. I know that semi trucks are the cheapest way to move large quantities of goods so, until an efficient railway netowk can connect all vital points, let's say that semis can stay legal.
So yes, you can keep your tractor. But you get fined for driving it on the roads.
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Post by Revolutionary Masses on Oct 8, 2005 13:46:45 GMT
Sorry that came out wrong, I meant to say as a biochemist I fully believe that we should be allowed to "play god".
As said im all for nuclear power, its got its problems but so has everything else! I dont think we should ban cars, just cut down on the ammount of them and change what they run on.
I personally would be against this, it holds nothing for me, while I encourage a greener lifestyle I oppose such a drastic reversion. We would be freezing out development, we have already lived that era we must move on!
One topic I would like to bring into the debate is population and its control, a major source of problem is that the wourlds finite resources are being overused and this can only get worse as population increases. Should we all be adopting china esque population managment to obtain the "optimal" population?
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