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What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

Perhaps because insulating the existing places we have that are older is not as exiting as having a culture clash about cars is why I think that a lot that can be done isn't being done. As you say, there is a lot of money flowing on both sides of that culture clash. But a lot of it could be going to actually making things better.
The point about efficiency is a good one and great incentive for home owners, but many rent and no control over their personal environment. It is up to government to regulate and/or incentivize landlords to meet certain energy and safety standards. The US favoring a laissez-faire private sector profit oriented approach lags behind many EU countries in whose policies ensure conservation, health and safety.
 
This idea fails to take into account the ripple effect of raising prices artificially on a necessity. Unless you can afford the extra money spent on energy, you will have to cut back on "non-essentials" first then scrimp on essentials as needed second. Since the majority will be "cutting back", the re-directed money to pay for energy will cause work force reductions for the companies supplying products other than energy. Push hard enough and the economy crashes from folks out of work. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

When the price of an item, perhaps a commodity goes up people will either cut back its use or find a substitute -- basic micro-economics. This is the mechanism for shifting consumer demand, of course. "Pushing to0 hard" can be avoided by starting with a small tax and increasing it over time.

To be sure, there is no "free lunch"; moving away from high fossil fuel consumption will have cost but it need be unbearable or harmful to the economy as a whole. Here in Canada we have a combination of Federal and provincial fossil fuel taxes (or alternate measures). In our case, the fossil fuel taxes started low and are gradually increasing; (not pushing too hard).

Our Canadian tax, furthermore, is "revenue neutral". That is the entire tax revenue is rebated to individual Canadian essentially on a level per capita basis -- the government claims that 80% of Canadian actually get more back in rebates than they pay in tax. The tax in effective falls on heavy users; (there a few excemptions).

Personally, rather than "revenue neutral" I would prefer that the tax revenues be direct to support & encourage green energy alternative. The redirect tax revenue thus would be put back into the economy mitigating negative direct effects of the tax.
 
The point about efficiency is a good one and great incentive for home owners, but many rent and no control over their personal environment. It is up to government to regulate and/or incentivize landlords to meet certain energy and safety standards. The US favoring a laissez-faire private sector profit oriented approach lags behind many EU countries in whose policies ensure conservation, health and safety.
I am both a renter (on James Island, South Carolina) and a landlord (in Guam).
I completely disagree, it is the government regulations that are in place that forces inadequate places to be rented to people.
Due to the government taxing more on a place that has been brought up to modern codes (thereby becoming more valuable according to the government, who then taxes it more).
So, it behooves the landlord to do as little as possible to properly bring a place to a high standard because that will take away any profits due to excess taxation.
 
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I think the Dutch would disagree
View attachment 398075.
I'd like the Dutch living in a very flat area to come do this where I live. Nothing but rolling hills, and high, high humidity. Which brings up a big point. There is no one optimum solution the world over. What works in the Netherlands can work some other places, but not everywhere. One of the big things I keep seeing are suggesting European solutions that simply are a non-starter in the USA where the population density is much, much lower and weather much different. Like the idea of Mediterranean architecture. Works great in that region. Total non-starter where you have high humidity with high heat.
 
Oh, I can answer the question of the thread title.

What does it take to successfully transition to a green energy economy?

It takes green energy being the best economic decision. You manage that it will take care of itself.

The best example is wind and solar. They are close to being the best economic decision. At some point in time they will be the clear best decision whether due to improved costs of wind and solar or due to fossil fuels becoming scarce enough it costs too much.
 
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I've never had my property value increase from energy saving improvements. Property assessment is tied to comparable sales that have increased or decreased or adding square footage or making unlivable square footage livable, finishing basement or attic or adding garage. I did take advantage of tax incentives for energy improvements.
 
Oh, I can answer the question of the thread title.

What does it take to successfully transition to a green energy economy?

It takes green energy being the best economic decision. You manage that it will take care of itself.

The best example is wind and solar. They are close to being the best economic decision. At some point in time they will be the clear best decision whether due to improved costs of wind and solar or due to fossil fuels becoming scarce enough it costs too much.
But let the natural market sort it out. Innovations have already happened to solar in efficiencies that got much better. That did not happen by government subsidies, that happened by the people who had it and other people who where interested in it demanding that it increase it's efficiencies if it wanted to be a bigger part of the mix. Government forcing people to use something has a tendency to stifle innovation. With things like "KickStarter" we are seeing a lot of innovations occur without any government input but making a lot of changes for the better.
 
Several times a day I am moving things that are big.
I'd say that I have lived in city's (Charleston, SC; New Orleans; Washington, DC, Pusan, S. Korea; Chongqing, China; Singapore; Freemantle, Australia and a few others).
I have also lived on many Islands and atolls in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific.
From 600,000 people to 38 million people. My living in any city of a size of more that 200,000 will not again happen in my lifetime.
So you won't have to worry about the vehicles that my family needs to work and live, living on the land, being in your city.
Do what you want in your cities. But don't force everyone else to do like you. Your cities is what does the most environmental damage to the world.
Not cars.
It's the mega concentration of every waste there is.
I need a vehicle to get work done on my property.
Who built my home? My family and friends.
Does it sit in idling traffic? Doing nothing. NO!
What causes many vehicles to sit in traffic? Cities.
Where are the major pollution centers? Cities.
I feel that you folks are trying to treat a symptom (and force everyone else in the world to live like you do, eating mostly pre-packaged food full of unhealthy things, giving your selves cancer, heart disease & many other health problems) instead of treating the root cause of the problem. It's being in a 15 minute city (or really any major city) that is the problem.
Do you want to eliminate cars? Please do so in your area then. If you don't need them and have another way to get around, IF I come there, I will use it.
But not everyone lives like you do (or would ever want to). I think that they way people live in cities is SAD. And I feel sorry for you folks. But, if that is what you like, OK.
Why ban them (cars and other things from doing what they are doing) when you haven't cleaned up your own back yard? Oh, I'm sorry, most of you probably don't have a back yard. Or any yard at all.
When I see people on horses visiting neighbors or just riding because they can, or families on bicycles riding paths & trails, more than I see cars on my dirt road, I am in my type of area. But a family car & a truck are necessary items to live like this. By the fact that they are not used that much, their minute amount of pollution is not concentrated.
I am much more worried about things like this:

A bag of Cheetos created a huge impact on a national park ecosystem​

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This undated photo provided by Carlsbad Caverns National Park shows a bag of Cheetos that was dropped off trail by a visitor in the Big Room at the national park near Carlsbad, N.M.(Carlsbad Caverns National Park via AP)
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FILE - Hundreds of cave formations are shown decorating the Big Room at Carlsbad Caverns National Park near Carlsbad, N.M., Dec. 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)
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This undated photo provided by Carlsbad Caverns National Park shows mold growing where a bag of Cheetos was dropped off trail in the Big Room at the national park near Carlsbad, N.M. (Carlsbad Caverns National Park via AP)

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This undated photo provided by Carlsbad Caverns National Park shows a bag of Cheetos that was dropped off trail by a visitor in the Big Room at the national park near Carlsbad, N.M.(Carlsbad Caverns National Park via AP)

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Updated 12:43 PM EDT, September 12, 2024
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A bag of Cheetos gets dropped and left on the floor. Seems inconsequential, right?
Hardly.
Rangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico describe it as a “world-changing” event for the tiny microbes and insects that call this specialized subterranean environment home. The bag could have been there a day or two or maybe just hours, but those salty morsels of processed corn made soft by thick humidity triggered the growth of mold on the cavern floor and on nearby cave formations.
“To the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact,” the park noted in a social media post, explaining that cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organized to eat and disperse the foreign mess, essentially spreading the contamination.
The bright orange bag was spotted off trail by a ranger during one of the regular sweeps that park staff make through the Big Room, the largest single cave chamber by volume in North America, at the end of each day. They are looking for straggling visitors and any litter or other waste that might have been left behind on the paved trail.
The Big Room is a popular spot at Carlsbad Caverns. It is a magical expanse filled with towering stalagmites, dainty stalactites and clusters of cave popcorn.
RELATED COVERAGE

From this underground wonderland in New Mexico to lake shores in Nevada, tributaries along the Grand Canyon and lagoons in Florida, park rangers and volunteers collect tons of trash left behind by visitors each year as part of an ongoing battle to keep unique ecosystems from being compromised while still allowing visitors access.

According to the National Park Service, more than 300 million people visit the national parks each year, bringing in and generating nearly 70 million tons of trash — most of which ends up where it belongs in garbage bins and recycling containers.
But for the rest of the discarded snack bags and other debris, it often takes work to round up the waste, and organizations like Leave No Trace have been pushing their message at trailheads and online.
At Carlsbad Caverns, volunteers comb the caverns collecting lint. One five-day effort netted as much as 50 pounds (22.68 kilograms). Rangers also have sweep packs and spill kits for the more delicate and sometimes nasty work that can include cleaning up human waste along the trail.
“It’s such a dark area, sometimes people don’t notice that it’s there. So they walk through it and it tracks it throughout the entire cave,” said Joseph Ward, a park guide who is working specifically on getting the “leave no trace” message out to park visitors and classrooms.
The rangers’ kits can include gloves, trash bags, water, bleach mixtures for decontamination, vacuums and even bamboo toothbrushes and tweezers for those hard-to-reach spots.
As for the spilled Cheetos, Ward told The Associated Press that could have been avoided because the park doesn’t allow food beyond the confines of the historic underground lunchroom.
After the bag was discovered in July, cave specialists at the park settled on the best way to clean it up. Most of the mess was scooped up, and a toothbrush was used to remove rings of mold and fungi that had spread to nearby cave formations. It was a 20-minute job.
Some jobs can take hours and involve several park employees, Ward said.
Robert Melnick, professor emeritus at the University of Oregon, has been studying the cultural landscape of Carlsbad Caverns, including features like a historic wooden staircase that has become another breeding ground for exotic mold and fungi. He and his team submitted a report to the park this week that details those resources and makes recommendations for how the park can manage them into the future.
The balancing act for park managers at Carlsbad and elsewhere, Melnick said, is meeting the dual mandate of preserving and protecting landscapes while also making them accessible.
“I don’t quite know how you would monitor it except to constantly remind people that the underground, the caves are a very, very sensitive natural environment,” he said.
Pleas to treat the caverns with respect are plastered on signs throughout the park, rangers give orientations to visitors before they go underground, and reminders of the do’s and don’ts are printed on the back of each ticket stub.
But sometimes there is a disconnect between awareness and personal responsibility, said JD Tanner, director of education and training at Leave No Trace.
Many people may be aware of the need to “keep it pristine,” but Tanner said the message doesn’t always translate into action or there is a lack of understanding that small actions — even leaving a piece of trash — can have irreversible damage in a fragile ecosystem.
“If someone doesn’t feel a personal stake in the preservation of these environments, they may not take the rules seriously,” Tanner said.
Diana Northup, a microbiologist who has spent years studying cave environments around the world, once crawled up the main corridor at Carlsbad Caverns to log everything that humans left behind.
“So this is just one thing of very many,” she said of the Cheetos.
As many as 2,000 people cruise through the caverns on any given day during the busy season. With them come hair and skin fragments, and those fragments can have their own microbes on board.
“So it can be really, really bad or it can just be us and all the stuff we’re shedding,” Northup said of human contamination within cave environments. “But here’s the other side of the coin: The only way you can protect caves is for people to be able to see them and experience them.”

“The biggest thing,” she said, “is you have to get people to value and want to preserve the caves and let them know what they can do to have that happen.”

So I guess that we will never agree. And just have to agree to dis-agree.
Instead of trying to force others into a city life.
Maybe we can actually co-operate on things that make a big difference NOW.
You really did take this personally did you :) But I'm not surprised, there's always people that scream "but MY car!" when someone talks about minimizing car use.
But I'm not saying ban cars everywhere, they are great tools when used properly and I personally absolutely LOVE driving them (but I rarely do nowadays), but from my own observations I'd say that 85% of all travels by car is done alone and often in big SUVs, and I doubt very much that they have filled their entire car with things that makes that 2+ ton enormous semi offroad machine actually used to it's fullest potential. In other words, it IS extremely inefficient and therefor the use of them should be way less than what it is today.
And talking about forcing everyone else to do like you, as soon as I open my front door those cars are forced onto me. I have a quite big road (also know as the "big wall" or "wound") around 50m from my house and that constant noise is not nice at all, especially those louder cars and motorcycles can be really distracting. And unless I go out in the forest those cars really are ever present, passing quite close to me in high, deadly and loud speeds even though it might "only" a 50km/h zone.
At nights it gets quiet here though which is nice, but one single car can break that silence for over two minutes, ONE car with often ONE lonely person gets to make that much noise, it's actually quite insane to me. Now multiply that by 20 constantly during the day and the noise levels are so much louder than they really should be even outside the city where I live.
And going into cities it's even worse, their everyyywhere both driving and parked ones, they take up so EXTREMELY much space, both physically and audibly. I don't see the purpose of having them at all in cities when walking, biking and public transportation are better in almost every single way, except that they are more dangerous because at the moment the cities are filled with dangerous polluting cars ;\

And then the whole thing about that so called freedom and that people should be allowed to drive cars however they want to, but I disagree, we as a society and planet do not have the space or resources for that. This place has finite resources which makes it impossible for everyone to have some kind of "right" to have big luxuries cars, homes, things, whatever. If we continue like we are doing now we ARE doomed. And yes I've been talking about cars here, but there are of course many many other things as well that we ned to fix to get anywhere near something we can actually call "green".
But I guess my reason why I'm picking at cars here even though there are other things to talk about is because I do have some kind of personal beef with them. If I go outside they are almost constantly in my face, ears and mind, and seeing only one person in many of them probably going to the gym five minutes away (which in itself is so ironic) bothers me quite a lot. Handymen, busses, ambulances, delivery trucks etc on the other hand is more fine, they are using the tool in the correct way.

What causes many vehicles to sit in traffic? Cities.
Uhm lol? It's cars and cars alone that causes many vehicles to sit in traffic.
But yeah I agree, cities has it's own problems as well which I did hint at in my post as well, their essentially big deserts, often very little vegetation and life, except for some humans, rats and some birds.
 
But let the natural market sort it out. Innovations have already happened to solar in efficiencies that got much better. That did not happen by government subsidies, that happened by the people who had it and other people who where interested in it demanding that it increase it's efficiencies if it wanted to be a bigger part of the mix. Government forcing people to use something has a tendency to stifle innovation. With things like "KickStarter" we are seeing a lot of innovations occur without any government input but making a lot of changes for the better.
Yes, yes but that is a government for the people and by the people but with all the consolidation, anti-competitive practices, data mining, lobbying much of it is for the corporations by the corporations. Many places outside out class the US with national energy, transportation,, health and education, also have far less poor people per capita. Don't me wrong our free enterprise system is model for the rest of the world and works for a more diverse population but some basic systems work better with common not for profit coordinated regulated structure and that is supported by facts of standard of living, health and education in many other countries.
 
Yes, yes but that is a government for the people and by the people but with all the consolidation, anti-competitive practices, data mining, lobbying much of it is for the corporations by the corporations. Many places outside out class the US with national energy, transportation,, health and education, also have far less poor people per capita. Don't me wrong our free enterprise system is model for the rest of the world and works for a more diverse population but some basic systems work better with common not for profit coordinated regulated structure and that is supported by facts of standard of living, health and education in many other countries.
Don’t be shy. Name the countries.

Are there people standing in line to get in?
 
Some of our cultural values need to change. And in some instances, these values are relatively recent inventions concocted by advertising agencies.

Examples:
de Beers: "A diamond is forever"
General Motors: "It's not just a car, it's your freedom"
Edward Bernays on behalf of Beech-Nut Corp: Breakfast as the most important meal of the day

As long as costly, blingy things (including residences, sometimes plural) and powerful automobiles signal higher status, folks will continue to crave them.

Else, why don't more folks resent "needing" a car in order to convey themselves to/from places of employment and for conducting day to day tasks? If a car's highest-value purpose is work-related, why is the expense typically borne by the employee? And how affordable is an "affordable" home if a dearth of transit options or walkability requires all adults to have their own vehicles? Our so-called leaders and educators don't encourage such critical thinking, because they want us working and consuming as much, and for as long, as possible.
 
What sedans did you have with rear wipers? Just curious.

Define sedan. I say that because a lot of people consider a sedan as anything with 4 doors, but that's not the classical definition.

Cars that have them would be hatchbacks and station wagon type cars. For example mini cooper, Mazda 3 hatchback, Mazda 6 hatchback, just about every Subaru, etc, etc.


In the past even some classical sedans had them.

edit: for example:
escort.jpg
 
You really did take this personally did you :) But I'm not surprised, there's always people that scream "but MY car!" when someone talks about minimizing car use.
But I'm not saying ban cars everywhere, they are great tools when used properly and I personally absolutely LOVE driving them (but I rarely do nowadays), but from my own observations I'd say that 85% of all travels by car is done alone and often in big SUVs, and I doubt very much that they have filled their entire car with things that makes that 2+ ton enormous semi offroad machine actually used to it's fullest potential. In other words, it IS extremely inefficient and therefor the use of them should be way less than what it is today.
And talking about forcing everyone else to do like you, as soon as I open my front door those cars are forced onto me. I have a quite big road (also know as the "big wall" or "wound") around 50m from my house and that constant noise is not nice at all, especially those louder cars and motorcycles can be really distracting. And unless I go out in the forest those cars really are ever present, passing quite close to me in high, deadly and loud speeds even though it might "only" a 50km/h zone.
At nights it gets quiet here though which is nice, but one single car can break that silence for over two minutes, ONE car with often ONE lonely person gets to make that much noise, it's actually quite insane to me. Now multiply that by 20 constantly during the day and the noise levels are so much louder than they really should be even outside the city where I live.
And going into cities it's even worse, their everyyywhere both driving and parked ones, they take up so EXTREMELY much space, both physically and audibly. I don't see the purpose of having them at all in cities when walking, biking and public transportation are better in almost every single way, except that they are more dangerous because at the moment the cities are filled with dangerous polluting cars ;\

And then the whole thing about that so called freedom and that people should be allowed to drive cars however they want to, but I disagree, we as a society and planet do not have the space or resources for that. This place has finite resources which makes it impossible for everyone to have some kind of "right" to have big luxuries cars, homes, things, whatever. If we continue like we are doing now we ARE doomed. And yes I've been talking about cars here, but there are of course many many other things as well that we ned to fix to get anywhere near something we can actually call "green".
But I guess my reason why I'm picking at cars here even though there are other things to talk about is because I do have some kind of personal beef with them. If I go outside they are almost constantly in my face, ears and mind, and seeing only one person in many of them probably going to the gym five minutes away (which in itself is so ironic) bothers me quite a lot. Handymen, busses, ambulances, delivery trucks etc on the other hand is more fine, they are using the tool in the correct way.


Uhm lol? It's cars and cars alone that causes many vehicles to sit in traffic.
But yeah I agree, cities has it's own problems as well which I did hint at in my post as well, their essentially big deserts, often very little vegetation and life, except for some humans, rats and some birds.
I think many things, probably most things, are chosen for their need at the 5% of the time end of the spectrum. And not getting that 5% can be highly inconvenient often enough to be quite bothersome. Society has never been about optimum efficiency either. It is about enough efficiency. Some even complain that capitalism narrows your options to only what is economically most efficient. Limiting your choices in other ways as a consequence.

If I walked to work 7 miles each way, I have to eat extra food. The extra energy in that food, which won't include growing it getting it to me etc. will be around 50% more energy than I would use driving an electric car to work which also doesn't include ancillary costs. The savings would be several times that if I went at a slow speed equivalent to walking in the EV. It might get closer if I bike to work. It will be even more in favor of the EV car if I get a couple neighbors who work in the same place to car pool with me. Which one should be chosen? If I walk rather use an EV probably some workers don't have good paying jobs.

These things get ridiculous. The market of letting people choose their preference usually works better than someone trying to plan it out for everyone else. Civilizations usually fail when they reach a level of complexity such that the costs of keeping it going exceed the benefits that accrue. A more or less free market letting each person make the best choices they can for themselves is one of the more efficient ways to make decisions vs top down planning almost all the time. Trying to regulate your way out of this will only increase the complexity much faster than any benefits from doing so.
 
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Else, why don't more folks resent "needing" a car in order to convey themselves to/from places of employment and for conducting day to day tasks? If a car's highest-value purpose is work-related, why is the expense typically borne by the employee? And how affordable is an "affordable" home if a dearth of transit options or walkability requires all adults to have their own vehicles? Our so-called leaders and educators don't encourage such critical thinking, because they want us working and consuming as much, and for as long, as possible.

1) because some people don't want to live wear they work. I for example I live on the edge of a small city, but where I work is in the middle of the city. It's about 8 miles each way.
2) Because the employee chooses where they live. The only time it's not on the employee, is when driving is part of the job. For example my father is in sales and is responsible for an area that covers several states. Thus, he gets a car allowance on top of his actual salary!
 
The biggest EV manufacturers in the world (BYD, Tesla,) don't see a need for rear window wipers on sedans and even some hatchbacks. Sedans are no less safe because they don't have a wiper and just adds unnecessary cost, increased wind drag and noise. That is their opinion, not mine.

What sedans did you have with rear wipers? Just curious.
Two Honda Accords and an Acura. Hatchbacks actually. Though I've seen a few sedans with them. I wouldn't claim any huge danger without them. In the case of the first Accord it had them for the same reason the SUVs do. The airflow around the rear window causes dust to collect. Enough a drive down a dusty road can obscure the rear view. Having a wiper lets you clear it away along with washer fluid. That also means the wiper is in an area it has no real effect on the drag.

The second Accord and Acura were both very aerodynamic cars. The rear wipers in the rest position were near vertical in a position exactly in line with the airflow across the car. They also contributed an increase in drag that likely is so small as to be nearly impossible to measure. Probably smaller than the difference in a freshly cleaned and waxed car vs a dirty one.
 
1) because some people don't want to live wear they work. I for example live on the edge of a small city, but where I work is in the middle of the city. It's about 8 miles each way.
2) Because the employee chooses where they live. The only time it's not on the employee, is when driving is part of the job. For example my father is in sales and is responsible for an area that covers several states. Thus, he gets a car allowance on top of his actual salary!
Or you get moved around by your employer. Even if done only every few years the cost of relocating is much greater than just having a car.
 
Yet another political topic, which I had been warned was forbidden and which therefore cannot lead to anything.
 
What's all this stuff about rear wipers have to do with transition to a greener economy?
I made a statement that new extreme manufacturing criteria by BYD and Tesla even eliminated the rear window wiper to conserve labor and parts since it really isn't very important to begin with.
 
Don’t be shy. Name the countries.

Are there people standing in line to get in?
Most are in Northern Europe and most have gluts of immigrants overloading their systems because of turmoil in north Africa and the Middle East where governments are far less participatory than the US and Europe.
 
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