Sweet Christ on a cracker...

To be honest, the first word that came to my mind as well while reading "facetious" was faeces. Of course, I have an excuse, I'm from Barcel...erh, Belgium.

erm, no, I just have a good vocabulary. Bastards.

Nee Ome Willem! Dat is vies!

*casts Resurrection*

Seeing as this is a hot topic in the media these days (must be distraction for all those US helicopter crashes, lol, jk) I thought i'd raise the issue again among ourselves, the most intellectually advanced panel on the internets!!1

Last time i discussed this on the forums, I was sceptical. I was shown some studies that indicated human activity has negligible impact on global warming. Now, with the topical bombardment on BBC and CNN, I'm leaning towards "believer".

I'm quite hazy on macroeconomics, but I assure you, I never cease to be embarrassed by the sheer stupidity at which we want to drive cars. Like motorways for example. We're all trying to get down the same bit of tarmac, why do we all want to get down it in our own death-tin? Don't get me started on city centres.

Frankly, I think we need to find the intelligence and courage to phase out the car.

I remember watching this topic for a while, but I never gave a cent to even read its title to the end. What I can say on it is: yes, it is real.

is global climate getting warmer? Probably. Is it due to humans? I dunno. Is it even a bad thing? I dunno. There've been sections in history much warmer than where we are now and they had an abundance of life. Maybe it's a good thing. Or maybe or planet will just become another Venus. Beats me.

I'll agree on the car. Well, I'll agree on the internal combustion engine. Phase it out, let's go with something a bit less noxious. Hydrogen looks like a damned good option. An improved public transportation system would be nice, too. Post WWII, the US had a huge federal investment in the highway infrastructure... all these two lane highways got upgraded to 4 lanes with a median for interstate travel. Why not force an upgrade of public transportation infrastructure now? The traffic situation in major cities is completely unmanageable.

We need huge a public transport network and I don't even think it's particularly hard to do. There are so many options.

I'm not sure about Europe, but in US there's actually alot of public interest in 0 emissions engines. The main problem with going fuel cell or whatever is that it's not available...you can't find a hydrogen gas station or anything. If it became readily available, I'm sure there would be a huge movement away from internal combustion. The problem (imo) is the massive cash clout the big oil companies have...they're blocking all this wonderful new tech from coming online because they're afraid they're going to be left behind.

Anyway, I think it's just a matter of time. All it'll take is a few people getting together and starting a hydrogen "refinery", a chain of hydrogen gas stations and a line of hydrogen powered cars. They'll make a killing.

The problem is getting hydrogen in your car safely. If you want to hold liquefied hydrogen in a tank you'll need one so heavy that it's no longer economical to drive around with it. Another option is binding the hydrogen to another material, but the problems there are that it takes too much time getting the hydrogen in and out of the material fast enough to make it run an engine or get fuel at a fuel station within a few minutes. So the tech is not quite there yet. Maybe the first place you're going to see hydrogen as fuel is in aircrafts. I know there have been tests for that, and you'll only need a hydrogen fuel station for every airport, instead of every few kilometres along every road.
I don't think big oil is holding back though. Maybe a few companies scared of the future, but even they know they're going to run out of oil and need something new to sell eventually (they're just afraid to take the first step and need to do too much investments). Shell for example has said they're an energy company, instead of an oil company.

oh, I don't doubt the oil companies are preparing to move. But I think they're holding off for profit reasons. Let's say we hit peak oil... as the oil supplies dwindle, prices will sky rocket... and most of that will end up in oil company hands. Which will give them the capital to retrofit all their gas stations for hydrogen (or whatever) when people start to get really upset with them.

Maybe I'm just jaded. I don't trust in the good intentions of any large company. I believe that profit is their sole, overriding concern.