Kyoto Treaty

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

I don't really get it. Why would China do this? In the US, we were settled after the invention of the car, so we built everything far apart because we could. Now we need cars because nothing is close to anything else.

Settled after the invention of the car? The population increased but most of the states and major cities were in place. Most of the land was spoken for and at least sparsely settled.
Sure levittown and commuting came along after the car but that was a chicken/egg deal.

In China, they have been doing just fine with bicycles. I assume things are close together if bikes work OK. Why switch to cars if it ain't broke?

They used bicycles because it beat walking or a Water Buffalo. Being dirt poor, and not much they could do about it under Mao, it was the best they could do. It's hard to move a refrigerator or console TV on a bike, but they didn't have either, for the most part.
Most of China has extremes in weather, from bitter snowy winter to monsoons and tropical downpours. How much fun is that on a bike?
They didn't travel far because there was nothing to travel to, no malls, no Disney World, no resorts for the peasants.
Roads are shit, too. They just started their road overhaul to connect every town and city with decent roads for the first time in history.
You may see their lifestyle as quaint and bucolic, but I'm sure they're damn sick of it.
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm....?

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Settled after the invention of the car? The population increased but most of the states and major cities were in place.

True but what really exploded the cities and urban centers was the National Defense Act of 1954 which funded the construction of the freeway system as a means to rapidly evacuate the city centers in the event of a nuclear attack.

Those freeways unintentionally led to the creation and growth of suburbia and the massive sprawl we see today.

[xoxoxoBruce]

OK, but if we hadn't spread out, where would we put 300 million people?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

OK, but if we hadn't spread out, where would we put 300 million people?

On top of each other... Ask Japan. They've got 40% of our population and 4% of our land.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

On top of each other... Ask Japan. They've got 40% of our population and 4% of our land.

I don't want to live like they do.... ever.

[Ronald Cherrycoke]

Friday, February 13, 1998 Published at 19:25 GMT



Sci/Tech

Scientists blame sun for global warming


The Sun is more active than it has ever been in the last 300 years

Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.

Climatologists and astronomers speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Philadelphia say the present warming may be unusual - but a mini ice age could soon follow.

The sun provides all the energy that drives our climate, but it is not the constant star it might seem.

Careful studies over the last 20 years show that its overall brightness and energy output increases slightly as sunspot activity rises to the peak of its 11-year cycle.

And individual cycles can be more or less active.

The sun is currently at its most active for 300 years.

That, say scientists in Philadelphia, could be a more significant cause of global warming than the emissions of greenhouse gases that are most often blamed.

The researchers point out that much of the half-a-degree rise in global temperature over the last 120 years occurred before 1940 - earlier than the biggest rise in greenhouse gas emissions.


Ancient trees reveal most warm spells are caused by the sun
Using ancient tree rings, they show that 17 out of 19 warm spells in the last 10,000 years coincided with peaks in solar activity.

They have also studied other sun-like stars and found that they spend significant periods without sunspots at all, so perhaps cool spells should be feared more than global warming.

The scientists do not pretend they can explain everything, nor do they say that attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should be abandoned. But they do feel that understanding of our nearest star must be increased if the climate is to be understood.



BBC