Yes, almost every European car manufacturer produces a line of EVs. Several Indian EV manufacturers have started up and now produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles annually, but the market in India is for smaller, far cheaper vehicles that don't all meet US standards. The present administration is also hiking tariffs on all those nations' imports. Most American auto manufacturers produce EVs. The Trump executive orders that allow higher gasoline engine emissions, stop states from offering incentives to EVs and eliminating funding for charging stations affects all EV companies' sales potential.
Global warming - an urgent problem requiring radical solution (no politics or religion)
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Hopefully, the tariff regime will end soon...But this is irrelevant; he exempted the auto industry.
1 day ago
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#31484
Justice-for-Coolidge wrote:
DanishDefence64 wrote:
So, in theory (this is probably unrealistic though), if we paint everything white, the Earth's temperature will lower.
Actually, not the worst idea. If you paint, say, your roof white, now you need the AC slightly less. If everyone painted their roof white, carbon emissions would decrease. Now apply this to cars and other things, perhaps. It's small, but if everyone does it, it's something.
Actually it would not decrease emissions.
Emissions 'don't care' about what colour roofs are.
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Solution: Stop burning coal and natural gas. Replace that. Fast.
Issue: Too many people don't want to do that.
Issue: Money.
That isn't what I was saying. What I was saying is that your house would be cooler, thus you wouldn't need to have the AC on in the first place, which would decrease emissions.
1 day ago
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#31486
Elroch wrote:
I am not talking about comparisons with nearly 40 years ago, but in changes in the recent past.
While per capita emissions have fallen a lot in developed nations with growing GDP per capita this century, even globally, emissions per capita have fallen slightly since the peak in 2012. 4.7 tonnes per capita versus 4.9 according to Our World In Data. So technically, it is the population growth (12% in that period) which has dominated the per capita fall, to lead to a rise in total emissions.
But to dominate the population rise now we only need a per capita fall of 1% per year. Way more has been achieved in many developed nations over recent decades.
Okay.
Looking from 2012 and a 12% increase in population combined with a 4% fall in emissions per capita since then.
I see the relevance.
I think you're saying that if population heads towards levelling off - then that 4% (or whatever) fall in emissions per capita would eventually reduce the total CO2 emissions per year.
And that would eventually lead to the global parts per million of C02 (far over 400) coming back down towards the natural and non-disastrous 280 parts per million.
But that doesn't look good in terms of 'urgent'. That could mean in the next century.
Renewables have to knock carbon fuels out - not just edge them (which they're not doing either yet).
But if startup costs of renewables go down (are they?) and practicality of renewables goes up enough - then there could be a ray of sunshine there. Pun not intended.
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Regarding those who reject climate news and climate science we see many different tactics.
But not many new tactics.
They usually involve misinterpreting regional and global - or confusing the distant past with the present. In other words shifts of time and place.
But the fundamentals behind their rejections have to do with their not liking and not trusting.
Age groups? Some relevancy. But the dislike/distrust thing is primary apparently.
1 day ago
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#31487
Justice-for-Coolidge wrote:
That isn't what I was saying. What I was saying is that your house would be cooler, thus you wouldn't need to have the AC on in the first place, which would decrease emissions.
Okay. It was another person implying 'paint the world white'.
Regarding the AC - having it on less?
Except since the CO2 is increasing then the increasing outdoor temperatures are going to cause the AC to be on more anyway. And more and more.
In hot climates houses are often white anyway.
Solar panels on roofs would be more effective. And solar pv power stations.
And wind turbines. And subsidies to make them happen.
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But many people actually preferring 'bring it on!' of manmade climate change - because of their distrust of those who would want or cause such solutions - those 'bring it on' people will continue to disastrously delay solutions with the worsening consequences that go with that.
In some cases - even to themselves directly. Like in Florida.
That's the situation. However much they dress it up as 'would happen anyway plus its 'good' '
But its not good.
1 day ago
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#31488
Purdue University scientists have developed a white paint that reflects 98.1% of sunlight. A roof covered with this paint will be much cooler than the surrounding air, even well into the evening, and will keep the building considerably cooler than its surroundings, obviating the need for air conditioning. It is now on the market.
However, the inventors calculate that it would be necessary to cover an area the size of the Sahara Desert with this paint to cut down the ground's heat absorption enough to produce cooling sufficient to offset one year's global temperature increase at current warming levels--not a viable solution.
Not to mention that to achieve any positive result people around the globe would have to be willing to invest the effort and expense of applying this paint, and we can see that most people seem reluctant to suffer the inconveniences that more efficient measures, such as curbing fossil fuel use, would require.
1 day ago
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#31489
mpaetz wrote:
Purdue University scientists have developed a white paint that reflects 98.1% of sunlight. A roof covered with this paint will be much cooler than the surrounding air, even well into the evening, and will keep the building considerably cooler than its surroundings, obviating the need for air conditioning. It is now on the market.
However, the inventors calculate that it would be necessary to cover an area the size of the Sahara Desert with this paint to cut down the ground's heat absorption enough to produce cooling sufficient to offset one year's global temperature increase at current warming levels--not a viable solution.
Not to mention that to achieve any positive result people around the globe would have to be willing to invest the effort and expense of applying this paint, and we can see that most people seem reluctant to suffer the inconveniences that more efficient measures, such as curbing fossil fuel use, would require.
The heat that paint reflects is still going back into the air.
And the excess CO2 parts per million is still trapping that heat.
And that excess is increasing. Disastrously.
And the rate of increase is increasing too. Even worse.
Those disagreeing with climate news and climate science 'stop being gloomy!' ...
what do they do when a weather announcer forecasts bad weather in the five-day?
'Turn that off!'. 'Those guys are paid too much!!'
1 day ago
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#31490
Albedo does affect the equilibrium.
To see this consider the simpler situation of a sphere hanging in a vaccum with emissivity 1.0 at longwave frequencies (those associated with heat radiation) and albedo α for solar radiation.
The energy radiated is proportional to T^4 where T is the temperature.
The energy absorbed is proportional to (1-α) where α is the albedo for the solar radiation faling on it.
Thus to make these two balance, the temperature has to be proportional to (1-α) ^(1/4).
It seems reasonable (and is correct) that the direction of the relationship is the same for the more complex situation of the Earth, where there is further absorption and re-radiation in the atmosphere. Bottom line, if the albedo of the Earth goes up in a region, that region tends to get warmer.
There is an extreme example of the opposite on Earth. Global warming has been enough to greatly reduce ice cover near the North Pole. This means the albedo is a lot lower in summer than previously. The lower albedo means higher temperatures - in fact around 4 degrees higher, the greatest warming anywhere in the world. Of course this copntributes to the increase in the global mean surface temperature.
This also hints why painting the Sahara white (regardless of practicality) wouldn't be much use. It would cool the region, but the cooling might not propagate much more widely - this guess is based on what actually happens around the Arctic, where the warming is concentrated in that region.
But the example of the Arctic does show how powerful the effect of largescale (a million square miles or more) albedo is.
1 day ago
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#31491
Regarding this painting white idea, one of the most striking things I noticed when in Greece was the whiteness of the houses. They know how useful it is to reflect the solar radiation from the walls and roof ather than absorbing it!
Elroch wrote:
Regarding this painting white idea, one of the most striking things I noticed when in Greece was the whiteness of the houses. They know how useful it is to reflect the solar radiation from the walls and roof ather than absorbing it!
Especially buildings made of masonry which holds heat longer than wood
Regarding planetary albedo:
Since 71% of the earth's surface is water, which absorbs heat, coloring the land is clearly useless in addition to nonsensical.
1 day ago
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#31495
Impractical it is. But if you could make all the land white that would have a HUGE effect. Many degrees.
More relevant are considerations about how land use changes albedo. Agriculture is the main one, because the area of most other developments are not very big.
People that want to entirely solve global warming using albedo can add this white covering to increase their own personal reflection index:
DiogenesDue wrote:
People that want to entirely solve global warming using albedo can add this white covering to increase their own personal reflection index:
Thanks. I think my local Klan HQ may have some in the back.
1 day ago
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#31498
Zero-emission hydrogen-based steel-making commences in Hamburg!
I guess it's not all about electricity. 
Justice-for-Coolidge wrote:
DiogenesDue wrote:
People that want to entirely solve global warming using albedo can add this white covering to increase their own personal reflection index:
Thanks. I think my local Klan HQ may have some in the back.
Did you copy the image to the quote reply? Are you using browser or app? Did Chess.com actually work on improving the forums...? No, what am I saying...that's not possible.
Maybe they should make Teslas cheaper
There are electric vehicles that are less expensive. China produces a variety of such cars. You don't realize this because the present US President is doing everything he can to keep them out of the American market, and eliminating creation of EV charging stations.
Well, China is a geopolitical opponent of the US. Are there any produced in India or other more west-friendly countries?