OK, I don't think there's any question about whether the world can sustain the human population with proper resource management. In fact, a centralized world government with absolute power over natural resources and real estate could probably sustain 10 times the current population in comfort. Unfortunately, our current society would need to be entirely destroyed before such a thing could happen. Civilization would need to be rebuilt from the ground up, and our core values would need to be revised (private property, imminent domain, personal freedoms, etc).

11/19/2011 6:41:18 PM

So the government can more efficiently allocate resources? What words would you use to describe your sociopolitical affiliations?

11/19/2011 7:10:32 PM

I was speaking in the context of this coversation:

Quote :

"I don't see why the two have to be separated. Putting everyone into, say, Brazil leaves the vast majority of the world's arable land and forests available to be harvested, since nobody's building houses on them. Fuel sources and mines are the areas where I am just about certain we'll see technological innovation to keep us running."

[Edited on November 19, 2011 at 7:20 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2011 7:19:40 PM

He didn't actually mean we should move everyone to Brazil. The point was that the housing and engagement of humans in our cities doesn't actually take up much space, leaving the vast majority of it available for everything else we use it for.

One world government would reduce the carrying capacity of the planet, in my opinion.

11/19/2011 7:55:42 PM

OK I definitely missed the broader point. Yes, the space taken up by all of humanity's residences and shopping malls is likely smaller than Brazil.

Studies have already been done to estimate the total of humanity's ecological footprint, and it is currently one and a half earths.

11/19/2011 8:23:37 PM

Quote :

"But no current trend seems to support that assumption. Birth rates are slowing all over the place. We'll peak out and then probably drop some, but it won't be because the world suddenly thinks it can't make any more food."

Its the nature of compounding growth. Even as growth rates slow we are still adding a shit load of people to global populations every year. All of the current trends I've seen have population continuing to grow throughout this century.

Quote :

"I don't see why the two have to be separated. Putting everyone into, say, Brazil leaves the vast majority of the world's arable land and forests available to be harvested, since nobody's building houses on them. Fuel sources and mines are the areas where I am just about certain we'll see technological innovation to keep us running. "

^ thats what Im saying
You HAVE to include the land needed for resources in any density projection of the world. Just because everyone could pack themselves into Brazil and live there doesn't mean they would be able to eat, or more importantly continue living lifestyles that are dependant on wealth generated from natural resources. What about all of the projections that if everyone in the world lived like people in Cary we would need something like 5 earths to sustain the world population? That is to say, people in Cary depend on lower density areas (Eastern NC the midwest?) to produce most of the food they eat and the same goes for all the other resources they consume.

Quote :

"The resources we mine that aren't energy sources (uranium, coal, etc.) haven't disappeared. They may have been used in ways that will make reclaiming them difficult, but it isn't impossible. Aside from a handful of probes sent into outer space, we've got the same amount of iron, gold, and bauxite as ever. "

Two things:

1) Energy is hugely important, since it fuels a majority of our technological innovations which have been so important in increasing the carry capacity of the globe. Without it, or rather without cheap sources of it, many of those innovations are going to become increasingly uneconomical to use (its going to be cheaper to just let people that can't afford it to die unfortunately)

2) Even if you assume we are able to recycle most of our other resources back into the economy (at some point in the future this will be cheaper than mining them) you are still talking about a smaller amount of resources on a per capita basis because population is just going to continue to grow. Resources are what we convert into wealth (after adding labor blah blah blah) so its safe to assume at best a majority of us are going to become increasingly poor. Increased efficiency is going to play a role in helping us sustain our growth for a while but it sorta comes down to your faith in our ability to innovate.

11/19/2011 8:49:21 PM

When energy use becomes a problem, petroleum is the source that will get squeezed and transportation is the service that will get squeezed.

It's probably fortunate for the poor that they have comparatively less direct use of petroleum. It's getting rich while avoiding petroleum-intensive activity that will the the key.

11/19/2011 9:38:15 PM

^I'd agree with the exception that a lot of our food production (at least currently) is also dependant on petroleum for harvesting and pesticide production, I think that will affect the poor pretty heavily.

Another thing to consider is that, in America, a pretty large portion of our poor population is actually rural poor, who are pretty dependent on their own transportation -- they have to drive 20 miles each way just to go to the grocery store or to work.

11/19/2011 9:45:15 PM

Quote :

"That is to say, people in Cary depend on lower density areas (Eastern NC the midwest?) to produce most of the food they eat and the same goes for all the other resources they consume."

Just want to point out that the Cary lifestyle is not supported by local resources. Wake County would be a barren wasteland within a week or two if that were the case. The only things we get locally are some vegetables, some pork and some common building materials like gravel. Everything else - wood, oil, fruit, cotton, metal, wheat, sugar, coffee, etc comes from far away.

A lot of American's ecological footprint is in other countries and continents. We are able to have this lifestyle because people in S. America and S.E. Asia have a comparably tiny footprint.

11/19/2011 11:18:24 PM

Incorrect. We import oil. We import various metals. We import various manufactured goods. Meanwhile, we export food, coal, ore, timber, everything else. America is a big free trade zone with lots of resources. Were we to impose self sufficiency upon ourselves our standard of living would drop something like 10%, not a dramatic change. Rather than so must stuff being made using Chinese labor it would be made using American robots.

11/19/2011 11:40:51 PM

Quote :

"Were we to impose self sufficiency upon ourselves our standard of living would drop something like 10%, not a dramatic change."

That's likely true for now, but so much of the growth-oriented economic model today relies on globalization for gains. So while the economic benefit might be relatively small, it's growing a disproportionately fast rate.

There's also the fact that we just don't have the structural capability to undo the globalization we have. The majority of refinery capacity we have is useless without the international petroleum market.

Quote :

"^I'd agree with the exception that a lot of our food production (at least currently) is also dependant on petroleum for harvesting and pesticide production, I think that will affect the poor pretty heavily. "

If you want to get into concepts of resilience, natural gas is more physically important to the production of the farm chemicals. I mean, processes actually use atoms in the NG molecules to put in the fertilizer molecules. It has a role in both delivering energy and playing a chemical role.

But splitting transport and food growing doesn't work anyway. You can't grow and distribute food without transportation. It should be obvious that people will forgo a variety of fungible trips and shipments in order to preserve their supply of food (well, all of them). Not necessarily true for preserving someone else's supply of food.

11/20/2011 12:26:35 AM

Quote :

"Were we to impose self sufficiency upon ourselves our standard of living would drop something like 10%, not a dramatic change. "

You really think we can support 90% of our lifestyle with our own resources? That is ridiculous. Losing just our oil imports would cripple the USA. Tapping every possible domestic well would only last us 5 years. No cheap energy, no plastics, no synthetic fibers, no oil-lubricants (almost all of them), no cheap adhesives (almost all of them), no cheap fasteners, no ink, no paint, no manufactured wood, no batteries, no cheap light bulbs, no packing materials, no asphalt, no circuit boards, no water filtration, no LEDs...these are just a few of the things that use petroleum in their manufacture. Really, you don't need to go past "no plastics" to understand how reliant we are on imports.

Hah. Even in an ideal world where we have the resources to produce 90% of our consumption, its not something that can be turned on like a switch. Do you know how embedded we are in our international supply chain? It would take decades for our industry to fully re-route itself.

11/20/2011 1:11:54 AM

^ We wouldn't do without these things, we would do without 60% of them. Production in the States has already been shown to have very little ability to ramp up in response to more demand. The economy would be more oil efficient. We would also use more coal.

On top of that, if we lost our imports right now would would face catastrophe. Such a statement that trade buys us 10% of GDP only works in a theoretical economic sense, supposing our economy had sufficient time to restructure. Although I might argue it could be upwards of 20%, this isn't precise. Trade only creates value proportional to the difference in prices between two different places, although there's some feedback, go look at macro economic equations.

11/20/2011 1:33:55 AM

^^ We in America waste oil. If our vehicle fleet was swapped with that of western Europe it would replace most of what we import. Shifting to alternative sources by shipping more by rail and using natural gas instead of oil for industrial and home heating would come close to getting the rest done.

^ Quite right, I should have made that more explicit. Had we imposed self sufficiency upon ourselves since we were almost self sufficient around WW2, assuming today's technology we would have about the same living standard, 10% to 20% loss seems like a reasonable range. Of course, self sufficiency is for saps, as it would have also stunted our technological advancement, which would really have bitten into living standards by now.

The point is not that trade hasn't help us, it clearly has, the point is that it is not international trade that has made us who we are. We are rich because of our regime and they are poor because of their regime. You can argue the trading system helps sustain the bad regime the poor suffer under, but history has shown that embargoes and blockades do not lead to regime change (see USSR, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc).

11/20/2011 3:11:18 PM

I am telling you, right now, that our standard of living is fully dependent on imports. That is the point I made when it seemed like mrfrog was implying otherwise, though it had nothing to do with HIS point. I'm not making any points about a regime. You stated that our lifestyle would change "ten percent" without imports, and though that's very vague, that assumption seemed ridiculously optimistic to me, given the fact that almost everything we use has imported materials. Even products that are "made in America" are not actually completely made in America. The resources come from somewhere else and we simply manufacture them, or add some kind of value.

And no - if "our vehicle fleet was swapped with that of western Europe" it would not save us any gas. Europeans use less vehicle fuel because they travel smaller distances, have fewer emissions regulations, and have heavily subsidized public transport. Their vehicles are not inherently more efficient.

11/20/2011 6:53:33 PM

Quote :

"You stated that our lifestyle would change "ten percent" without imports, and though that's very vague"

As I see it, that's actually a relatively fair characterization.

Quote :

"And no - if "our vehicle fleet was swapped with that of western Europe" it would not save us any gas. Europeans use less vehicle fuel because they travel smaller distances, have fewer emissions regulations, and have heavily subsidized public transport. Their vehicles are not inherently more efficient."

About half of this is half true, and the rest is another subject.

The urban sprawl we are familiar with would not be possible without oil imports, that's true. Development patterns would have had to have been different. But the car efficiency thing is being underestimated in your comments.

After all, look up how much of the barrel goes to cars. Diesel doesn't just improve efficiency, it allows different cuts to go to motor fuels. Other sectors could reduce consumption in order to divert more to transportation, and they would in the scenario we're talking about. People would drive less in addition to driving smaller and more efficient cars.

And you need not look to Europe. The cars driven in the United States have a huge variation in gas mileage.



This historic trend in mpg is pathetic. I mean, really really pathetic. Can you go out and buy a car or truck right now with better than 19.8 mpg? That goes a long way to answering the question.

11/20/2011 7:13:59 PM

Quote :

"The resources come from somewhere else and we simply manufacture them, or add some kind of value. "

And there is nothing to stop any poor country on this planet from doing the same thing we do, as China is demonstrating. Their standard of living is growing dramatically, not because America has opted to embargo their resources but because their regime has changed to allow development.

We are currently experiencing a resource crunch to supply the modernization of China and to a lesser extent India. The whole population of the rest of the third world is smaller than just one of these two mega countries. As such, if every poor country on the planet began modernizing like China, the effect upon resource markets would not be much bigger than it already is. The English speaking world (U.S., Australia, Canada) are already boosting resource production to supply the demand. There is some reason to believe we will be the next Saudi Arabia as Bakken oil gets developed. As such, not only will we provide the food and ores these countries could use to modernize, we'd supply the energy too. If not, the price will rise and we will supply their needs through conservation as we currently are for China.

However, many of them will remain poor. Not because the resources are not there, but because their societies just don't function in such a way that leads to development.

Quote :

"Their vehicles are not inherently more efficient."

I visit Europe from time to time and yes, their vehicle fleet is more efficient than ours due to decades of high fuel taxes. Four cylinder engines, manual transmissions, and hatchbacks instead of SUVs.


[Edited on November 20, 2011 at 8:07 PM. Reason : ,m,.]

11/20/2011 7:56:39 PM

^ why does the US standard matter anyway? they'll just exempt the larger vehicles as being in another "class" anyway.

11/20/2011 8:28:47 PM

I have a question, where do you people get these graphs from?

11/20/2011 10:41:35 PM

The only group of people who have the time to make a graph like the energy flow one are people working for the government.

11/20/2011 11:02:19 PM

If you mean "us" then the answer for me is either searching my RSS feeds for something I saw posted months ago or Google image search like the one above.

Why?

11/20/2011 11:08:26 PM

Quote :

"I visit Europe from time to time and yes, their vehicle fleet is more efficient than ours due to decades of high fuel taxes. Four cylinder engines, manual transmissions, and hatchbacks instead of SUVs. "

Maybe I misunderstood you, because a vehicle is not "more efficient" simply because it has better gas mileage. It seems like you're trying to say that America would adopt a more efficient LIFESTYLE, and thus the car market would favor vehicles with good gas mileage, possibly mirroring Europe's car market. You're not saying "F-150 owners in America would swap with F-150 owners in Europe".

In any case, no amount of vehicle adjustment will account for the way we've built our nation. I've seen no evidence to suggest we can tighten our belts to the point of getting by on our own resources.

11/21/2011 2:31:29 AM

Quote :

"because a vehicle is not "more efficient" simply because it has better gas mileage"

Hu? Yes it does. It will do the same work with less energy, therefore it is by definition "more efficient"

Quote :

"It seems like you're trying to say that America would adopt a more efficient LIFESTYLE"

If gasoline prices had been higher all along then of course they would.

Quote :

"You're not saying "F-150 owners in America would swap with F-150 owners in Europe""

I have been all over Europe, I don't think I've seen a single F-150 anywhere. Hence why Western Europe's vehicle fleet scores such high gas mileage: pickup trucks have been taxed out of the market.

11/21/2011 10:49:45 AM

That's really nice anecdotal evidence but Volvo says otherwise

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-25/volvo-third-quarter-profit-misses-estimates-as-europe-truck-market-shrinks.html#

While slowing of demand is expected in the future, Volvo truck sales in Europe for 2011 were forecasted to exceed those in North America by about 30,000

Granted, that was the forecast, there's probably actual data somewhere now that 2011's coming to a close, but you're going to have to do a little better than "I was in 'Yurp and didn't see no trucks also they gots weird terlets"


[Edited on November 21, 2011 at 11:40 AM. Reason : .]

11/21/2011 11:11:47 AM

Quote :

"Hence why Western Europe's vehicle fleet scores such high gas mileage: pickup trucks have been taxed out of the market."

FWIW, there are a lot of European cars that are extremely fuel efficient (I think I was reading about a 60mpg diesel from VW the other day), but they fail to meet safety standards and EPA standards (it's not how much they put out, it's what they put out that makes them bad for the environment). Point is, there are ways to minimize resources use... for a price.

11/21/2011 11:18:11 AM

Quote :

"Hu? Yes it does. It will do the same work with less energy, therefore it is by definition "more efficient""

God, its like pulling teeth. THEY DO NOT DO THE SAME WORK.

If Americans wanted to live more efficiently, there are already vehicles on the market to accomplish that. That is why "fleet swapping" is a silly, misleading scenario.

11/21/2011 2:50:12 PM

Quote :

"THEY DO NOT DO THE SAME WORK"

I wouldn't quite say that increased tire friction due to more legroom is doing more useful "work", although, technically

WORK = FORCE x DISTANCE

So even if it's not useful, it's still work. But here's a good physics question:

What is the theoretically minimum amount of energy needed to move a mass of 1000 kg from one city at sea level to another city at sea level?

11/21/2011 4:44:33 PM

Nice try Str8Foolish. Trying to take after McDanger I see? I said that I saw no F-150s. I did not. That I saw no F-150s on European roads does not even imply there are no trucks. But gasoline prices above $8 a gallon sure does prevent people from driving a 16mpg pickup truck to work each day.

Quote :

"God, its like pulling teeth. THEY DO NOT DO THE SAME WORK."

Well then, I guess we should all drive these to and from work each day:

After-all, W = F * d, so in your mind using a 300 ton vehicle to move a 200 pound person ten miles is comparably efficient to using a 2 ton vehicle to do the same job.

Quote :

"If Americans wanted to live more efficiently, there are already vehicles on the market to accomplish that."

It takes high prices to make anyone buy them. It is the only reason Europeans buy them.

[Edited on November 21, 2011 at 5:51 PM. Reason : ,.,]

11/21/2011 5:50:50 PM

Quote :

"using a 300 ton vehicle to move a 200 pound person ten miles is comparably efficient to using a 2 ton vehicle to do the same job"

It's called standard of living.

11/21/2011 6:03:43 PM

Quote :

"After-all, W = F * d, so in your mind using a 300 ton vehicle to move a 200 pound person ten miles is comparably efficient to using a 2 ton vehicle to do the same job"

That is wrong. If you compare the 'W' in those two situations, you will find they are not the same. They do not do the same work.

11/21/2011 6:28:08 PM

^^ Sweet.

^ This time I said nothing about work done, merely efficiency. So admit it. In your mind using a 300 ton vehicle is comparably efficient to using a 2 ton vehicle for the task of moving a 200 lb human being ten miles and back.

11/21/2011 7:27:40 PM

Quote :

"W = F * d"

So what does the W stand for? Wieners?

11/21/2011 7:34:58 PM

^^^ Exactly,

W = 300 ton x 200 lb = 3,200 MJ
W = 2 ton x 200 lb = 21 MJ

[Edited on November 21, 2011 at 7:37 PM. Reason : ]

11/21/2011 7:36:07 PM

Well, actually, the work done in both instances is zero. The vehicle moved temporarily. You did accelerate it up to speed, only to slow it down again with negative force over distance. As such, over-all, the total work done was zero in both cases. Of course, the atmosphere was heated, not sure how to calculate that.

11/21/2011 7:55:37 PM

A lot of over-simplifications ITT. The discussion of "efficiency" as it applies to gas mileage assumes you are using your vehicle for it's designed payload on a fairly constant basis. As skeptical as I am about all of the 'Americans are the worst violators of the environment' crap, if you use an F-150 to tow 0.5 tons, but only use it for that purpose 25% of the time you are driving, you are only being, at best 75% of the time at it's optimal running rate.

You also have to consider that automobiles are built to reach maximum efficiency at certain speeds with certain loads. In the US, most cars are designed to reach maximum efficiency (that is, where the gas consumption yields the greatest possible power) at speeds between 40-55mph. In Europe, due to the terrain, they are designed much lower. A good way to see this effect is to take an older model "light" pick-up (like one of those Mazdas with the 4-banger in it) and run it down the interstate at 90mph. Assuming you don't get a ticket, you'll see your car chugging gas.

---

Not necessarily saying anyone is right or wrong; just pointing out that saying "what is more efficient" is really ambiguous and is one reason why when someone says, "Europe has {insert cool, new, eco-friendly vehicle}, so why don't we have it?", their complaint doesn't make a lot of sense.

11/22/2011 8:39:22 AM

Quote :

"Of course, the atmosphere was heated, not sure how to calculate that."

You don't compute that. It's statistically insignificant so you just assume it out of the equation (unless over 5%-10% or whatever you decide 'matters' of your energy was expended producing heat for the atmosphere).

Quote :

"W = 300 ton x 200 lb = 3,200 MJ W = 2 ton x 200 lb = 21 MJ"

Did you just multiply tons (force) times force pounds (force) to produce work? I've looked at your post two or three times assuming you are just trying to do something different here, but it looks like you are multiplying two forces together.

Come on now, this is high-school stuff.

11/22/2011 8:43:28 AM

Quote :

"Did you just multiply tons (force) times force pounds (force) to produce work? I've looked at your post two or three times assuming you are just trying to do something different here, but it looks like you are multiplying two forces together."

Oh my god, it's called humor.

I considered making it units of "bunnies" but then thought that would be too obvious.

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 8:51 AM. Reason : ]

11/22/2011 8:50:19 AM

I'll have to take your word for it, I guess...

11/22/2011 9:00:42 AM

Lmao oh okay so there's plenty of trucks in Europe, but not F-150's, and you're upset about that. Thanks for clarifying.


PS: Still waiting for you to provide anything resembling data to back up your riveting story of being in Europe and not seeing F-150's.

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 11:37 AM. Reason : .]

11/22/2011 11:36:50 AM

What the hell do you want? Proof I went to Europe? All the pictures I took? I didn't say there were no F-150s, I'm sure some American moved to Europe and took his truck. All I said was that I didn't see any. Stop wasting people's time. I provided evidence that Europe's vehicle fleet is more efficient than ours. If you want to challenge something, challenge that.

11/22/2011 12:03:54 PM

Quote :

"If you want to challenge something, challenge that."

Alright. First of all, gas mileage does not necessarily mean the vehicle is being used more efficiently. I already explained this a few posts up so I won't repeat it here. Second of all, efficiency does not equate a solution, though it is part of it. When discussing over-population (see OP), you have to consider the impact the populus has on not just the quantity of natural resources, but also the environment as a whole. There are more fuel efficient vehicles in Europe, but even if we assume they are being used efficiently (again, see post a few up from this), they are much more densely contained within their locales. The environment, locally, must withstand a much stronger onslaught of toxins from the population due to the number of pollution sources, even though each source is "more efficient".

Thirdly, you got that plot from a site run by the Environmental Information Coalition, an organization that allows "open source" authors to come in and edit their content, similar to a Wikipedia, but without as much oversight. I'm not saying this means the graph is wrong, but I would question the inpartiality of the source. Does the EPA have a similar study (not that those can't be skewed, too, but at least it's "supposedly" unbias)?

11/22/2011 1:11:39 PM

Quote :

"What the hell do you want? Proof I went to Europe? All the pictures I took? I didn't say there were no F-150s, I'm sure some American moved to Europe and took his truck. All I said was that I didn't see any. "

No, you said:

Quote :

"I have been all over Europe, I don't think I've seen a single F-150 anywhere. Hence why Western Europe's vehicle fleet scores such high gas mileage: pickup trucks have been taxed out of the market."

Either:

A) You took your personal experience of not seeing F-150's in Europe and extrapolated that "pickup trucks have been taxed out of the market" there.

or

B) You don't know what "hence" means but insist on using the word anyway


edit: I'm asking you for evidence of that assertion A) beyond your anecdote, to convince me that the taxes are a bigger factor than, say, the near-impossibility of maneuvering a pickup truck in your average dense European city

Here's one perspective http://etherealland.com/apeman/2007/02/10/why-dont-european-tradesmen-use-pickup-trucks/

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 1:29 PM. Reason : .]

11/22/2011 1:24:25 PM

^^Is there any reason to conclude vehicles in Europe are being used less efficiently? Europeans are not driving more miles than Americans are, yet presumably they are accomplishing the same task (take me wherever I decide to go), so I suspect we can discount your position.

Quote :

"The environment, locally, must withstand a much stronger onslaught of toxins from the population due to the number of pollution sources, even though each source is "more efficient"."

Is there any evidence the European environment is on the verge of ecological collapse due to the marginal loss of air quality?

That said, the poor air quality of Europe has little to do with vehicle density and more to do with the prevalence of diesel vehicles rather than gasoline vehicles.

^ I'm confused, what's your point again? Merely that high fuel taxes aren't the whole story? I'll concede that happily. It is also cultural. pickup trucks are more common in the southern US than in the Northern although gasoline taxes aren't dramatically different. So, let me rank the causes in order of importance:
A) cultural - Europeans just don't have a strong pickup-truck culture, opting for hatchbacks instead
B) high fuel costs - trucks are bad at fuel economy
C) trucks are less useful in Europe, as hauling around rednecks in the back is illegal
D) trucks are difficult to maneuver in urban areas - although I must protest if anyone wanted one a truck could be designed for maneuverability in tight spaces
E) Petty theft is more of a problem in Europe, making pickups unsafe relative to vans

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 1:46 PM. Reason : .,.]

11/22/2011 1:33:21 PM

Quote :

"Is there any evidence the European environment is on the verge of ecological collapse due to the marginal loss of air quality?"

I don't know and frankly I don't care. My only point is that wildly shouting "efficiency, efficiency!" is completely ignoring the multi-facetted problem of emissions due to over population.

I have a similar response for the diesel comment, but the long and short of it is a mixture of "you're right" and "I don't care, that's not my point". My only goal is to point out that looking at the fuel efficiencies of cars outside of the US and stating that it provides us with definitive proof of anything other than 'if you own that car, you get better gas mileage if you use it as designed' is complete speculation. You can't say definitively that they are truly living more eco-friendly and actually doing less damage to their environment which is what it appears some are trying to claim.

-----

I just saw this edit: "^ I'm confused, what's your point again?"

I agree, you are confused at what my point is. If you look back at the post I referenced in my last response, I am trying to be pretty blunt that I am questioning the use of 'fuel efficiency' as a measure for anything when it comes to over-population. It seems like it's being used as some magic bullet to make a point regarding US resource consumption vs European resource consumption. That is completely missing the point of what over-population does, especially if you leave off the emission aspect. As you pointed out, many European cars use diesel. So why don't we build these in the US? Simple: they don't pass safety and emissions standards...

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 1:53 PM. Reason : Just saw your edit]

11/22/2011 1:50:32 PM

I apologize for the multi-post in advanced, but I missed this part.

Quote :

"Europeans are not driving more miles than Americans are, yet presumably they are accomplishing the same task (take me wherever I decide to go), so I suspect we can discount your position. "

Maybe you're not an engineer (or are still in classes), but I don't think you caught what "using a vehicle efficiently" means. Almost any mass-produced item under the sun has design specifications. Those specifications drive where a system will be optimized for...

(...let me stop for a moment and state [again] that I pretty much already explained this. I mentioned it a few times so if you missed it again, I have to assume it needs to be posted again for you to read it. Anyway...)

In the United States, the auto-industry assumes that for a particular model vehicle, certain trends exist. For example, for a standard mid-sized sedan, if I recall correctly they assume somewhere between 15-20 miles a day driving at an average of 40-55 mph, at a certain duty-cycle (in other words, you are idling some of the time and moving others). The objective is to produce a vehicle that is optimized for what an American consumer wants/needs. No denying that Americans have bigger vehicles, but we also spend more time in them and need them for different things. It's a cultural difference.

The problem comes in when you attempt to use a vehicle for a non-optimized purpose. Previously I mentioned the example of the Mazda 4-banger pick-up. Meant for small jobs in-and-around town, if you take it on the highway it will chug gas because it is not optimized for what you are using it for. Some vehicles behave better than others to be used in circumstances other than what they were designed, but combustion engines, by definition, have efficiency curves and as an engineering organization, the manufacturers must attempt to gage what their consumers are using the vehicles for in order to create the best possible vehicle.

I am not going to pretend to know what the specifications are for any average vehicle in Europe, but it's a completely different environment. The question then becomes for us to do what we do, would a European vehicle suffice? Of course not because the European vehicle is not designed for what we use cars for. It would have to be re-engineered. The interesting question then becomes 'if we re-engineered a European car to be optimized for what we use it for here in the US, what would it's gas mileage be then?'

Again... the only point being that trying to make any kind of statement regarding "fuel efficiency" of one location over another is bunk. Way more factors to the whole vehicle debate than how many MPG you get.

[Edited on November 22, 2011 at 2:07 PM. Reason : Owned by spelling.]

11/22/2011 2:01:36 PM

Increase tire pressure.

More efficiency.

Less safety.

Problem solved?

11/22/2011 6:34:09 PM