(...) writes:
World Faces Greater Crisis Than WWI and WWII Combined!
So says Sir Charles Branson, founder of Virgin Enterprises. The mega-entreprenuer became concerned when fuel costs for Virgin airlines topped $1 billion dollars a year. His first plan was to build his own refinery, but when he studied the issue, he discovered that this was a band-aid on a head wound -- and not just for Virgin, but for the world.
You see, only 1 in 70 Chinese owns a car ... but they all want one. They aspire to live like Americans, and they're fast building the wealth to do just that. America is the top producer of greenhouse gasses, and plain raw air pollution, mostly from our vehicles. We have 300 million people here. China has 1.6 billion.
Right now, we're telling the rest of the world that we're not going to compromise our "lifestyle" for the sake of anything.
So what, then, will we be able to ask of China when the roles are reversed?
Solution? Branson is rolling $3 billion of his own money into clean fuel R & D, ranging from wind, wave and solar power to ethanol and nuclear. But, he says, we desperately need leadership from Western governments, particularly America.
The trick is going to be to offer China -- and India -- an alternative to fossil fuel-based vehicles. The kicker is that the country that is able to develope them first, and best, is going to make a killing in the market.
And maybe even save ourselves in the process. You think LA and Houston and New Jersey are smoggy today?
Wait till that cloud rolls across the Pacific at the end of China's workday a decade from now.
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V writes:
I think that the earth is overpopulated and things can only get worse. (unless we change our course somehow) The more people born, the more heat is produced from all their cravings and the warmer and more polluted the earth gets and the more energy they all use.
I was told to expect $10 a gallon gas in the future.
When I first took notice of gas prices in the early 70's gas was .23 cents a gallon.
No one would have thought that gas would take a 1360% rise in price in 3 1/2 decades.
But in fairness to gas prices, they have not been as inflationary as California real estate, which on average has gone up about 3000% in that same time.
A small 2 bedroom run own house that sold for $20,000 in a poor area of town in the late sixties sells for $600,000 now. (again...a dumpy area to boot!)
If gas prices maintain this trend it would put it at $42 a gallon in the upcoming decades.
And what about everything that is delivered by truck, air or otherwise pegged to gas prices? Just in the last couple of years I can see prices of common products go up 20% to 30%. (Yet the government claim inflation is next to nil...they must use the same accountants that Enron used!)
I hope we come up with alternative and practical energy sources soon.
Maybe the US will be making a tradeoff with China?
We all will be riding bicycles someday?
(BTW...You left out India which is even worse than China as a future fossil fuel glutton.)
World Faces Greater Crisis Than WWI and WWII Combined!
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