Can you dig it?

I saw this ad on tv, seemed a bit tacky, but I'm betting the US gets more involved this time than with Kyoto. And here is a story I came across when googling the word Kyoto to make sure I spelled it right.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32757&Cr=climate+change&Cr1=

Quote :

"All aboard the UN Kyoto-Copenhagen express for climate change 28 October 2009 – A one-time train link between Kyoto and Copenhagen opens up next week – a United Nations-sponsored one-month, 9,000-kilometre journey symbolically joining the site of the last global warming pact with what is hoped to be the birthplace of the next major, and stricter, treaty to combat climate change. Launched by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the global conservation organization WWF, the Train to Copenhagen – in fact a carriage – will roll across the globe through the vast wilds of Russian Siberia and into Europe as part of the UN Seal the Deal! campaign to galvanize political will and public support for reaching a comprehensive global climate agreement in December. Train operators from around the world will participate in the Train to Copenhagen, raising awareness of the impact of the transport sector, which already accounts for over one fifth of global CO2 greenhouse emissions. These emissions are projected to double within only 40 years and railways are crucial in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing sustainable transport systems. “We are on the road to nowhere if existing policies and economic models prevail with their over-emphasis on private cars and on shifting shipments of goods to the roads,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said. “The Train to Copenhagen project is a showcase of sustainable transport solutions that will be part and parcel of a resource-efficient, low-carbon Green Economy of the 21st Century. “By Sealing the Deal on an ambitious climate agreement in Copenhagen, governments will get into gear to propel the world to a low-carbon future so that societies may also finally embark on a journey to more sustainable transport.” During the journey, environmental experts and climate change campaigners will send eye-witness accounts of global warming signs under way. Siberia is a global climate change hotspot, where thawing permafrost and melting peat bogs could slowly release billions of tons of methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over coming years. The Train will roll out of Kyoto station on 5 November – leaving behind the Japanese city where the Kyoto Protocol that sets binding greenhouse gas reduction targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European Union (EU) was adopted on 11 December 1997 – and make its way by ferry to Daejeon, Republic of Korea (ROK). There it will board another ferry for Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East for that vast transcontinental journey to drum up support for a new compact with much stronger cuts to replace the Protocol on the expiration of the first commitment period at the end of 2012. Rumbling across Siberia, it will be hauled along the famous Trans-Siberian Railway and go by ferry across Lake Baikal, the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world, and stop in Moscow, the Polish city of Poznan and then Berlin before arriving on 5 December in Brussels, where it will join the Climate Express, which will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy. This Express will take on board more than 400 climate change negotiators, campaigners and other high-profile personalities going to Copenhagen, for a 12-hour on-track conference focusing on how to solve the challenges posed by the transport sector with regard to global warming. On arrival, the Climate Express will remain at Copenhagen Central Station throughout the two-week conference, serving as a mobile exhibition open to the public about low-carbon transport solutions. “It is clear that business as usual is not an option if we want to reverse current trends and prevent catastrophic climate change,” UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said. “If we can really integrate the costs of pollution into the price of transportation, rail will be a big winner.”"

12/9/2009 12:00:02 PM

I saw that video somewhere else, either on the internet or tv and started rolling once i realized it wasn't a parody.

12/9/2009 12:10:20 PM

Every time I see and hear that commercial on TV, it makes me cringe. Why do the global warming alarmists appeal incessantly to people's emotions with plaintively wailing vocal styling and scared little children running from the impending "doom"?

Oh, maybe this is why:

Fewer Americans believe in global warming, poll shows
November 25, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/24/AR2009112402989.html

12/9/2009 12:21:14 PM

Quote :

"I'm betting the US gets more involved this time than with Kyoto"

And you'll lose that bet.

As long as China and India are not on board, neither are we, and with good reason.

12/9/2009 12:24:58 PM

Seriously though. Fuck everyone at that conference. They're all a bunch of self-righteous blow-hards.

It would be really really really fucking god damned simple to get people off coil and oil in under a decade if the fed wasn't so goddamned insistant on getting involved at every step. Encourage production of large and small scale nuclear reactors. Grant tax credits for wind and solar good for 150% of capacity to both businesses and individuals.

During the day you'd have businesses and individuals pumping excess power on to the grid, and during the night or days you cant generate power you'd run off nukes.

it really is that fucking simple.

But it wont ever happen because these faggots have to have their conferences and the press events and all this shit to make us think like they're using our money wisely. Fuck them. Fuck hopenhagen. I hope they all fucking die in horrible transportation accidents.

12/9/2009 12:40:17 PM

^lol. Agreed (to a degree)

^^I wonder if he realizes that we signed the Kyoto Protocol last time around

12/9/2009 1:19:55 PM

Quote :

"Encourage production of large and small scale nuclear reactors"

Environmental windbags would not be happy with this either. They think the world can be run on flowers and rainbows.

12/9/2009 1:38:20 PM

^^ I wonder if he realizes that the Senate must ratify treaties.

12/9/2009 1:40:25 PM

Quote :

"During the day you'd have businesses and individuals pumping excess power on to the grid, and during the night or days you cant generate power you'd run off nukes."

if you're running off nuke power at night, why even bother with unsightly wind and solar power? People don't understand that a fluctuating power supply is completely useless. You can't store power so unless the demand is perfectly in sync with the supply ([no]), then all of that green power is usually just thrown out

[Edited on December 9, 2009 at 1:43 PM. Reason : s]

12/9/2009 1:42:29 PM

The nukes would handle the standard load and wind/solar would handle peak loads + push down prices. Small scale power storage is also not that big of a deal. You can do small scale battery storage in home, or hyrdrogen fuel cells in vehicles.

12/9/2009 1:51:32 PM

Quote :

"I wonder if he realizes that the Senate must ratify treaties."

beats me. maybe he'll reply

12/9/2009 2:28:55 PM

I think we'll be more involved this time because the President needs a win with progressives after war escalation and dropping the public option.

12/9/2009 2:45:51 PM

Shaggy wins this thread. Bravo sir.

12/9/2009 4:10:37 PM

Well, if we build an electric future, then base-load is nuclear and cars are charged primarily at night, with peaking being provided by switching on and off the charging of vehicles.

12/9/2009 4:49:15 PM

Quote :

"wind/solar would handle peak loads"

only it wouldn't

12/9/2009 5:10:15 PM

^i lol'd at that.

but honestly it would be nice if it could.

[Edited on December 9, 2009 at 5:32 PM. Reason : a]

12/9/2009 5:32:21 PM

speaking of curbing pollution:

want:

acceleration: 0-60 in 3.7
top speed: 125 mph
range: 244 miles
full charge time: 3.5 hours
battery life: 100k miles

12/9/2009 5:35:42 PM

Thread broken. Good work.

12/9/2009 6:13:36 PM

^^Great car, there was one at a weekend track event I went to a few months back (probably one of those things I won't be able to afford in the future if we have carbon taxing) and there was a yellow one there. But if you drive it in aggression good luck getting 100 miles out of a charge. The guy that brought it to the track trailered it there, b/c otherwise he'd be stranded there waiting for a recharge.

12/9/2009 10:47:39 PM

^yeh it's still a 'commuter vehicle' or short/mid range.

i wouldn't plan on taking it to the beach that's for sure.

but man, for a 1 day commute+other activities this thing is perfect.

12/10/2009 9:28:50 AM