http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/funonwheels/06/17/car_smog_pay/index.html

Yeah um... this is interesting. That's all I have to say about that.

It's an interesting idea... but seems like it'd just be too hard to actually put to work, but I dont know...


It is definitely interesting.

Interesting indeed.

Why don't they make it so you pay more, and they reduce emissions past the level of the car?

Or, maybe people could take responsibility for their own choices instead of buying their way out of guilt. :p

*Buys 3 H2's and runs them constantly at idle just to counter-act this*

it's the stupidest thing i've ever heard of.
i can pay $160 to pass the responsibility onto someone else. that someone probably produces 50 tonnes of NOx's per year. there is no way, no way, to measure the net difference equivalent of an H2's exhaust coming from a coal burning electicity generator.
money grab!!!

But it will make people feel better, and that's what it's all about, isn't it?

Hmm. I just hope the money and effort is really going to the right places.

I didn't know Arnold doesn't have a car. Interesting little fact.

Um that's a different arnold.

Idiotic. As if new vehicle emissions in the US are a problem anyway.

Wow. I must have misread.

You may as well have dropped a bee hive in the democratic party's HQ

Why would I do something so cruel to bees?

Now that, sir, was simply uncalled for!

But still funny.

ha ha ha ha

I don't understand how paying companies that produce pollution helps to.. reduce.. pollution?

Exactly. I can see letting companies buy pollution credits, but letting them sell is just stupid. Who decides how much pollution a company would have produced had it not auctioned off its excess capacity?

Wookie: With China's stunning industrialization upon us, any emissions are too many, both in the enviromental and business sense.

Man, you two could have your own late-night comedy show.

oh snap!

Gah, I don't see why this whole system of reducing carbon dioxide emissions has to be so over-complicated.

Just give every individual a set quota of how much carbon dioxide they can emit per year, slowly reducing that quota over time. It would obviously be up to the individual governments to enforce this probably through taxation or fines, but it would allow countries with large populations, like the US or China, to have higher total carbon dioxide emission than smaller countries - which makes sense. It also wouldn't hit developing countries too hard in that they're not emitting that much carbon dioxide per individual as it is.
The whole 'carbon credits' only delays the inevitable, in that the individuals must cut their carbon dioxide emissions eventually. It just means that some people will be doing it a lot sooner than others.


Oh, also, this thing appears to be aimed at cutting pollution, which is odd because we've actually been pretty good at cutting down pollution over the last 20 years, it's carbon dioxide emissions that need attention.

Do you have any idea how difficult and expensive it would be to track that information? And do you really want to pay more taxes so they could do so? And do we really need yet another governmental agency out there?

Well, it could target main areas of carbon dioxide emission, such as higher taxation for fuel inefficient cars. I don't have a problem with "another governmental agency" as long as it gets the job done, and I don't have any problem with "higher taxes!!" either. It's pushing people towards less carbon dioxide emission, and once that's the norm then it won't be a problem. We just need a big push to get it started, and then it can gradually increase to help curve the problem over time.
What we really need is an inter-governmental agency, like the IPCC.

I'm sure there are other ways of dealing with it, but taxation seems like the easiest and the fairest way of doing it.

Hydrogen fixes all our problems. It can even be created on site with electrolysis using cheap, high powered solar panels (those fancy flexible ones you can punch holes in and they still work). Unfortunately we're all big oil's b****.

"You can pay us to reduce emmisions that we should be reducing already. After all, you're the one's with the moral qualm over it."

Would it be possible to install these panels on the top of a vehicle and simply fill up your gas tank with water? Kinda bypassing the whole gas station mentality? I am not familiar with the equipment used for electrolysis, is it feasible to have in a car?

and when was the last time a us government agency got the job done well? meh

But then we'll have to invade Iceland. :p

just this week the premier of ontario with the governors of new york, michigan et al., met at the shared air summit. US and Canadian studies show that 60% of the smog in ontario comes from the US. ontariio has started the shut down of all it's coal burning electricity generators. when they're all shut down by 2009, the percentage of smog identified as from the US will increase dramatically.
at the shared air meetings, david suzuki actually asked premier mcguinty to ban SUV's in ontario as they are one of, if not the number one preventable contributer to smog in urban ontario. the premier said "no." although he will be trading in his government supplied SUV for a hybrid SUV that will burn 85% ethanol when it runs on gas.

it's all of our responsibility to stop polluting. everyone can take the one tonne challenge. you don't have to be canadian. :p

Perhaps that's why intergovernmental agencies work better. Something like... Kyoto.

Not quite.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/generaltech/article/0,20967,927469,00.html

Yeah, but you just know a bunch of retarded politicians will make some stupid blanket law about Hydrogen in the next few year just to get more votes. Of course, they won't do any research and won't care if it hurts us as long as it gets votes.

Really, smog is only a problem over cities. If retarded people would stop buying SUV to go to commute to work it'd be less of a problem. But no, the never ending ego inflation must go on. For the short term, it would probably be better to focus on building extremely fuel efficient gasoline cars.