# Carbon footprints and fuel usage



## DET63

I would assume that a "carbon footprint" and fuel consumption per passenger for type of transportation varies depending on how many are traveling at one time. I've heard that, for a trip with 100 or more passengers, a train is more fuel-efficient than a bus. However, for trips with fewer than 100 passengers, is a bus "greener"? Is there a point at which traveling by plane is more fuel-efficient than traveling by either bus or train? And does the carbon footprint of a plane with enough passengers ever get smaller than that of either buses or trains carrying the same number of passengers?

OTOH, with the developing "climategate" scandal coming out (indicating that much of the fear about the effects of carbon emissions on global warming may have been manufactured), does any of this really matter?


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## Ryan

DET63 said:


> OTOH, with the developing "climategate" scandal coming out (indicating that much of the fear about the effects of carbon emissions on global warming may have been manufactured), does any of this really matter?


This is one of the best articles I've read about the topic - essentially "much ado about nothing".

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/1...-on-display.ars


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## the_traveler

I have yet to see a bus driving down the road that carries 200-300 people! And I doubt an A-380 with oddles of passengers can go from Havre, MT to St Cloud, MN!


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## sunchaser

HokieNav said:


> DET63 said:
> 
> 
> 
> OTOH, with the developing "climategate" scandal coming out (indicating that much of the fear about the effects of carbon emissions on global warming may have been manufactured), does any of this really matter?
> 
> 
> 
> This is one of the best articles I've read about the topic - essentially "much ado about nothing".
> 
> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/1...-on-display.ars
Click to expand...

By reading the actual emails, you may notice that-

1. The 'scientists' took the raw information & changed it to reflect their belief in 'global warming'.

2. After changing the info, they planned to delete their emails showing that they had altered the raw data.

3. They were the 'peer review group', & they talked about stopping others who disagreed with their 'findings'.

You may ask why-They may truly believe in global warming-they also were getting paid-very well-to prove global warming.

If you look back through geological history, you will see that there has been periods of the sea levels rising & falling.

Five years ago, it was all the rage to believe in 'global cooling' or the next ice age.

All you have to do is look at Nat Geo programs from 4-5 years ago to see that.


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## Ryan

Actually, you notice no such thing. And even if you believe that the data is somehow tainted and want to throw out all of CRU's data, you can look at the data from dozens of other research organizations that show the same thing.

Another article from today:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/1...-penn-state.ars

Really, this line from the first article tells it all:



> So far, they've acted a bit like a Rorschach test, revealing more about the person reading them than they do about the text's author, with reactions ranging from a collective yawn to hyperbolic claims that they reveal all of climate science as a complete fraud.


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## sunchaser

HokieNav said:


> Actually, you notice no such thing. And even if you believe that the data is somehow tainted and want to throw out all of CRU's data, you can look at the data from dozens of other research organizations that show the same thing.
> Another article from today:
> 
> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/1...-penn-state.ars
> 
> Really, this line from the first article tells it all:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So far, they've acted a bit like a Rorschach test, revealing more about the person reading them than they do about the text's author, with reactions ranging from a collective yawn to hyperbolic claims that they reveal all of climate science as a complete fraud.
Click to expand...

Interesting.

I read the emails.

What is described is altering exsiting raw data to fit global warming by adding to the numbers.(Michael Mann's Hockey Stick)

I would be happy if we all could look at the raw data, but they threw it out.

Or maybe we should take the altered data, unalter it, & go from there.

Please list other research organizations that show the same thing.

I could be wrong, but I thought CRU was the main research group that the others get their data from.

I just want the unaltered info so an intelligent understanding can be made.

Current temp in Salt Lake-25 degrees! BRR!

Also, Al Gore has just cancelled his trip to Copenhagen. Says it's a schedule conflict.


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## Ryan

From the second article linked:



> And, as the CRU points out, it's one of several organizations providing global instrument temperature values; even if you decide to ignore its work, NASA and NOAA produce figures that, statistically speaking, are indistinguishable. Finally, the instrument record itself, as others have eloquently detailed, is just one piece of a large body of evidence about climate change.


That paragraph links to this article that covers the information in far more detail:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4338343.html

As far as the unaltered info, since neither one of us are trained scientists, that's not likely to do us much good.


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## sunchaser

HokieNav said:


> From the second article linked:
> 
> 
> 
> And, as the CRU points out, it's one of several organizations providing global instrument temperature values; even if you decide to ignore its work, NASA and NOAA produce figures that, statistically speaking, are indistinguishable. Finally, the instrument record itself, as others have eloquently detailed, is just one piece of a large body of evidence about climate change.
> 
> 
> 
> That paragraph links to this article that covers the information in far more detail:
> 
> http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4338343.html
> 
> As far as the unaltered info, since neither one of us are trained scientists, that's not likely to do us much good.
Click to expand...

IIRC, NASA & NOAA got their figures from CRU. CRU IIRC, is the main respository of this data.(Now destroyed)

It is unlikely IMHO, that there will be a definitive answer on this subject, since the unaltered data has been disposed of.

I don't think you need to be a scientist to look at a number graph & see if it goes up, down or stays the same.

Even though I am not totally convinced about global warming, that does not mean I do not recycle, conserve energy etc.

Since so much money & policies & our lives will be changed based on this subject, we should all be concerned about whether or not it can be absolutely documented.


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## DET63

the_traveler said:


> I have yet to see a bus driving down the road that carries 200-300 people! And I doubt an A-380 with oddles of passengers can go from Havre, MT to St Cloud, MN!


True, but you can put, say, 40+ people on a bus? It will take 5 buses to carry 200 people, 7 or 8 to carry 300. How much fuel will those buses use? How much of a carbon footprint (assuming that still matters) will they create? How much fuel will a train carrying 200 people use? 300 people? How much of a carbon footprint will the train make?

I believe a bus will get about 4-5 mpg. Assuming it's carrying 40, that's 160-200 passenger-miles/gallon. I don't believe you could get more than that, since more passengers would require the use of more buses. I don't know how many passenger-miles/gallon a train will get, but it would be safe to assume that, as passenger loads get larger, the passenger-miles/gallon will continue to go up, theoretically indefinitely. Obviously, at some point, more engines would have to be added, but not at the rate buses would have to be added. One or two engines will probably be enough to pull any train with 300 or fewer passengers.


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## Ryan

sunchaser said:


> IIRC, NASA & NOAA got their figures from CRU. CRU IIRC, is the main respository of this data.(Now destroyed)It is unlikely IMHO, that there will be a definitive answer on this subject, since the unaltered data has been disposed of.


No, the data comes from a wide variety of sources and is then complied and analyzed independently by many different organizations, of which CRU is just one. Also, it isn't like all the raw data in the universe has been destroyed, on the contrary only a small segment of it held by CRU.


> I don't think you need to be a scientist to look at a number graph & see if it goes up, down or stays the same.


If that's all you're interested in, just read the second Ars Technica article I linked, you can see this graph and see the correlation between CRU's data and Goddard's data:






If you want a completely untainted data set, read this article from the Washington Post that simply compares the number of record high and record low temperatures. It's nowhere near as scientific as the work that CRU/NOAA/Goddard do, but the pattern fits.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalwe...s_warm_rec.html

Freedman also writes several articles that put some perspective on this whole flap that are worth reading.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalwe...climate_change/


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## sunchaser

HokieNav said:


> sunchaser said:
> 
> 
> 
> IIRC, NASA & NOAA got their figures from CRU. CRU IIRC, is the main respository of this data.(Now destroyed)It is unlikely IMHO, that there will be a definitive answer on this subject, since the unaltered data has been disposed of.
> 
> 
> 
> No, the data comes from a wide variety of sources and is then complied and analyzed independently by many different organizations, of which CRU is just one. Also, it isn't like all the raw data in the universe has been destroyed, on the contrary only a small segment of it held by CRU.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think you need to be a scientist to look at a number graph & see if it goes up, down or stays the same.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> If that's all you're interested in, just read the second Ars Technica article I linked, you can see this graph and see the correlation between CRU's data and Goddard's data:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you want a completely untainted data set, read this article from the Washington Post that simply compares the number of record high and record low temperatures. It's nowhere near as scientific as the work that CRU/NOAA/Goddard do, but the pattern fits.
> 
> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalwe...s_warm_rec.html
> 
> Freedman also writes several articles that put some perspective on this whole flap that are worth reading.
> 
> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalwe...climate_change/
Click to expand...

From the very same article, an opposing view here.

And on it goes.......

The bottom line is, sift through all the info you can get your hands on then decide what you believe. That's what I try to do. I read-a lot. I watch a lot of science, history & nat geo & news programs. Then with all the info, I make a decision. We may be affecting the climate, but the question is how much. Some say very much. Others say not as much.

It stilll does not answer the other question: it is normal or not. Is it a normal cycle, that we may not have been aware of?


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## Ryan

I completely agree that the "Why?" is very much in question, my biggest challenge to your original point was that these leaked emails proved anything. The fact that the planet has tended to get warmer over the last 30 years was secondary.



sunchaser said:


> From the very same article, an opposing view here.


Except for the fact that if you look at the graphs, you can draw the same conclusion (despite his cherry picking of data and only looking at record highs for 3 months and record lows for 3 months). One would expect the number of temperature records set to slowly decrease over time as the records are pushed farther and farther from the norms. However, if you look at the rate of decrease of the record lows (roughly 14 to 8) compared to the rate of decrease for record highs (roughly 12-10) you draw the same conclusion that the ratio of highs to lows is skewing towards the highs (the fact that the scales for the two graphs are wildly different make it hard to compare).
Edit to add: Thanks for the polite and reasoned debate on this, it's a topic that's extremely difficult to discuss logically, as many people are pretty set on their viewpoint and aren't interested in listening to things that challenge their position.


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## rrdude

DET63 said:


> OTOH, with the developing "climategate" scandal coming out (indicating that much of the fear about the effects of carbon emissions on global warming may have been manufactured), does any of this really matter?


Personally, I think this whole "global warming thing" is a bunch of hogwash. (not that it's NOT getting warmer, just that it's part of a natural cycle and we can't do SQUAT about it......)

HOWEVER, I think it DOES matter that we all recycle, pollute less, limit emissions, yada, yada, yada, and choosing a low-carbon footprint, by traveling via train, helps in some small way.

Currently we have one little home, called "Earth" and we have messed with it pretty bad the last 150 years...


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## the_traveler

The charts shown only go back to 1880. Why not list a chart going back thousands or millions of years. You'll probably see a series of "global warming" and "global cooling" every so many years!

Yes, I agree that we are adding much stuff to the air now, but here's something to think about. The forecast is for *snow* - in *Houston, TX* and *New Orleans, LA*! I'm almost certain many people in those cities are complaining about the "Global Warming"!


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## sunchaser

HokieNav said:


> I completely agree that the "Why?" is very much in question, my biggest challenge to your original point was that these leaked emails proved anything. The fact that the planet has tended to get warmer over the last 30 years was secondary.
> 
> 
> sunchaser said:
> 
> 
> 
> From the very same article, an opposing view here.
> 
> 
> 
> Except for the fact that if you look at the graphs, you can draw the same conclusion (despite his cherry picking of data and only looking at record highs for 3 months and record lows for 3 months). One would expect the number of temperature records set to slowly decrease over time as the records are pushed farther and farther from the norms. However, if you look at the rate of decrease of the record lows (roughly 14 to 8) compared to the rate of decrease for record highs (roughly 12-10) you draw the same conclusion that the ratio of highs to lows is skewing towards the highs (the fact that the scales for the two graphs are wildly different make it hard to compare).
> Edit to add: Thanks for the polite and reasoned debate on this, it's a topic that's extremely difficult to discuss logically, as many people are pretty set on their viewpoint and aren't interested in listening to things that challenge their position.
Click to expand...

I was hesistant to engage on this subject for that very reason. I realize that many here have very strong beliefs in many areas. I'm hoping that intelligent, calm discussion will prevail. We all could easily choose to rant & rave, but I would rather try to talk calmly-and try to reason it all out if possible.

I will admit, sometimes it is hard to keep from getting too passionate about a subject & then expressing an opinion in a way that may be mistaken for anger. I do try to avoid that. It can be difficult to read the actual intent of comments since you are not hearing someone's voice.

I suggest, if you have the time, check out some Nat Geo on global cooling.

I have also seen many programs on Archeology showing harbors filled in with silt in several locations worldwide, which leads me to think that the sea levels were higher in the past-around 1800 years or more ago. Before industrialization.

Thank you for being calm too, I really appreciate it!


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## DET63

First of all, I don't trust much data regarding temperature and climate change. For one thing, temperature records should be more accurate for recent decades than they are for the remote past, since we have more temperature-recording locations now than we used to. Further, those locations are more likely to be in cities or in areas that are a bit warmer than the average spot on the globe. So the quality of data may affect the readings. Changes that have occurred over a few decades may reflect man's impact on the environment, or they may reflect long-term cycles that we cannot affect, but which we are able to observe more closely nowadays. Even if there were no falsification of data, then, the temperatures changes that we've seen might or might not mean anything.

For purposes of this discussion, however, I'm willing to concede that I might be wrong and that the choice of whether to travel to by train, bus, or plane may have a measurable impact on the environment, roughly proportional to the fuel consumed and the carbon "generated" by each mode.


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## Ryan

Accounting for the "heat island" effect and normalizing the data is a standard scientific procedure that's been misinterpreted as falsifying the data in this whole stupid debate. The temperature changes are undeniable and real, although I agree that we have no way of knowing what (if any) of it are human-induced.


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## sunchaser

Not to drag this thing out, but I stumbled across yet another website with facts & figures that I thought was interesting.

You can find it  here.

I admit I do not go out & dilligently search on this subject either pro or con, I probably should. I just seem to run across a few here & there.

I still think the temperature variants, if any may be cyclical. I also think it's not wise to base an opinion on other peoples' opinion, rather than checking it out. Especially since these 'opinions' are being used to change laws & behavior in so many areas/countries.

Many times I hear comments about people who question global warming as flat earthers. It used to irritate me, but now the opposite is true. The 'flat earthers' were a majority of people world wide. They were wrong. Now we are supposed to believe 2500 people? What's to say they are not wrong? There is no guarantee they are right because they say there is a consensus. That means very little to me.

Saturday, I had to take down the Hummingbird Feeder. It was frozen solid. I have never seen it freeze like that before.

The am temps here have been around 19 degrees-very cold even for here.

Edited to add another site -http://climate.arm.ac.uk/averages.html


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## DET63

What is the carbon footprint for a typical airline, such as an A380 or B747?

Airbus A380 Could Have Jumbo-Sized Carbon Footprint



> Airbus says that its new A380 superjumbo is one of the most environmentally friendly ever built, with carbon emissions of just 75g per passenger per km – 17 percent less than is emitted by the Boeing 747 – but the plane may end up having a bigger carbon footprint than its makers claim, thanks to the way airlines are fitting it out, The Telegraph *reports.*


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## Green Maned Lion

Global warming is a reality, whether or not it is caused by carbon emissions (which is actually a retarded concept). We should be doing our utmost to do everything we can to reduce global warming.

Global warming is not the direct result of carbon emissions. This is like attributing a plane crash to the fact that the vehicle stopped flying properly (duh!).

Global warming is a result of a great many factors, among them carbon emissions is certainly one. A thousand years ago, there were maybe 50 million people on earth. Now we are well upwards of 5 billion. People generate heat. People generate carbon emissions of a considerable sort- we call it breathing. More people breathing, more carbon emissions. Want to reduce your carbon footprint to close to zero? Kill yourself. You'll emit carbon in decomposing vapors for a while afterward, but your emissions will be reduced considerably.

Want to reduce the increase in carbon in the atmosphere? Stop chopping down trees. While the population has gone up exponentially, forrestation has reduced the number of trees by a similarly exponential number. Remember trees take carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen.

And we're just talking about carbon. Lets talk about other things. Oxides of nitrogen, for instance. Or how about amonia? We call it urine, which is not a good thing to have in increasing supply in the enviroment. Keep in mind that humans are unusually inefficent with processing liquids- we pee a lot, especially for our size.

Oh, what about methane? Humans explosively emit methane even though we try hard to ignore it or talk about it. And we eat beef. Cows emit methane in the natural process of living, and in much greater quantity then us humans do. How many cows more exist in the world today to fuel our exploding populations demand for beef? How many less would exist if we were a population of 50 million?

Are we affecting the enviroment? It would be childish to suggest we aren't. How many species have we single handedly killed off? The Dodo comes to mind. Do you think the loss of an animal from an ecosystem doesn't effect the enviroment much? You must be joking. Its a chain. Remove too many links from it, and the thing falls apart.

Now the question a lot of people have is what can we do to stop it?

Answer? Go back about a hundred years, release a plague designed to kill about 95% of the humans on earth, while simultaneously exploding a bunch of EMP devices around the world. Oh. You want to know how we stop it now?

We can't. We passed the point of no return so far back, nobody knows what it looked like when we passed it.

How long do we have? I dunno. I'd guess somewhere between 200 and 500 years before our atmosphere becomes essentially unbreathable, a lot less than that before our climate becomes unlivable. 20 or 30 years before it becomes unpleasant.

Lets do something? Why waste our time? Unless humanity gets a sense of group survival over individual worth and starts killing off millions of people at a time, we can't stop it. We can't stop breathing or eating! Will that happen? I both doubt it and hope not. It would be nice if humanity could last with some of its dignity intact.


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## Bob Dylan

Normally I wouldn't dream of commenting on something controversial, :lol: however it's a fact that the climate is changing,

resources are getting scarce and species are disappearing! The main cause is that there are too many people in the world, period! And the problem is accelerating as more and more of the not so good things happen faster and faster!

Denial and delay is not an answer, in the short term it hurts us all, in the long term it kills the world!Most denyers will be dead before the worst effects happen, let's not pass on this disaster to our children and grandchildren!The old saying about think globally, act locally is true!

Let's all realize that worrying about bubbleheaded singers and movie stars, and transgressions by athelets that do what most of us have done is not productive, it's insane and plays right into the hands of the greedheads that are profiting from this man made disaster!


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## the_traveler

I really don't put all that much faith into the "global warming" theory. Yes, I agree that there may be higher temperatures now then in the past. But there always are, and will always be, temperature variations. I remember about 30-40 years ago, many of the "respected scientist" were concerned about "Global *Cooling*" that was going on. So they started keeping records.

Now that a request was put in to see those records, it was reported that they were "accidently deleted and lost"!

So how is it that the *same* group that 30-40 years ago was talking about "Global Cooling" is now talking about "Global Warming" only? :huh:


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## DET63

Here's something I don't really understand: every year, we're told, _x_ number of species or subspecies of life go extinct due either to our use of fossil fuels or to other environmental damage. We are told that high-speed rail, for example, would help to reduce the number of species that go extinct due to damage to the environment. People would ride environmentally friendly trains rather than polluting and thus environmentally destructive jets. Yet before we can turn over one clod of dirt to start work on a new high-speed rail line, we have to go through extensive studies and environmental impact statements to make sure the high-speed rail lines don't threaten some subspecies of bird, reptile, insect, plant, or whatever. Doesn't the time that is spent on environmental impact reports to save one or more species or subspecies simply mean that an equal or greater number of species or subspecies will go extinct somewhere else?


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## Green Maned Lion

DET63 said:


> Here's something I don't really understand: every year, we're told, _x_ number of species or subspecies of life go extinct due either to our use of fossil fuels or to other environmental damage. We are told that high-speed rail, for example, would help to reduce the number of species that go extinct due to damage to the environment. People would ride environmentally friendly trains rather than polluting and thus environmentally destructive jets. Yet before we can turn over one clod of dirt to start work on a new high-speed rail line, we have to go through extensive studies and environmental impact statements to make sure the high-speed rail lines don't threaten some subspecies of bird, reptile, insect, plant, or whatever. Doesn't the time that is spent on environmental impact reports to save one or more species or subspecies simply mean that an equal or greater number of species or subspecies will go extinct somewhere else?


Yes. This is not due to eniviromental concerns. these are due to the concerns of NIMBY's (Not In My BackYard) and BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)


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## Joel N. Weber II

DET63 said:


> I would assume that a "carbon footprint" and fuel consumption per passenger for type of transportation varies depending on how many are traveling at one time. I've heard that, for a trip with 100 or more passengers, a train is more fuel-efficient than a bus. However, for trips with fewer than 100 passengers, is a bus "greener"? Is there a point at which traveling by plane is more fuel-efficient than traveling by either bus or train? And does the carbon footprint of a plane with enough passengers ever get smaller than that of either buses or trains carrying the same number of passengers?


The carbon footprint of a plane will probably never be 0.

In theory, it is possible to use some combination of wind power, solar power, geothermal power, and even nuclear power with some combination of batteries and/or overhead wires to have both buses and trains with zero carbon footprint.

It might be the case that small numbers of passengers on a locomotive hauled train get inefficient at some point. However, if that's the case, you should make sure you also look at figures for DMUs and EMUs, which may be more energy efficient than locomotive hauled trains when there are few passengers.

Also consider that you may need to compare train vs bus + single occupancy automobiles, since there may be some people whose first choice will be train, second choice single occupancy vehicle, third choice bus, and if you replace the train with a bus to be ``more efficient'' and some passengers switch to single occupancy vehicles instead, that may not be a win.

Newer modes of transportation tend to move towards being able to cope with steeper and steeper grades, which I suspect at least partially explains increasing energy consumption. On the other hand, once a jet has absorbed the energy penalty of climbing several miles, it encounters less wind resistance than a train near sea level. On the gripping hand, I believe planes still need to put considerable energy into pushing themselves upwards.


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## Joel N. Weber II

DET63 said:


> OTOH, with the developing "climategate" scandal coming out (indicating that much of the fear about the effects of carbon emissions on global warming may have been manufactured), does any of this really matter?


Figuring out the relative importance of global vs local harm is very important to making sound environmental decisions. For example, diesel commuter rail locomotives probably aren't all that bad in terms of global pollution relative to everything else we have in 2010, but buying new diesel locomotives today and running them for 30 years thorough 2040 may make them look terrible in terms of local pollution in 2030 if Tesla Motors ends up being wildly successful. Meanwhile, large ships using relatively dirty fuel, mostly while they're far from land, is mostly a problem in terms of global pollution and not local pollution.


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## George Harris

When looking at these wonderful temperature graphs, note the scale. we are talking about swings of l*less than one degree here.* Given the normal variations in measurements due to instrument internal error, reading, plotting, etc., etc. thes variations probably have enough potential error in measuring, averaging, etc to make the results meaningless.


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## Ryan

Actually, one degree can make a difference.

http://www.brighthub.com/environment/scien...icles/7414.aspx

If the variations were attributable to "instrument error, reading, plotting, etc, etc" then the errors would be random and not show the trends that are evident.


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## George Harris

Ryan said:


> Actually, one degree can make a difference.
> http://www.brighthub.com/environment/scien...icles/7414.aspx
> 
> If the variations were attributable to "instrument error, reading, plotting, etc, etc" then the errors would be random and not show the trends that are evident.


Are you forgetting that one of the main factors in "global warming" is the hot air emanating from those that are warping the data to prove that such a thing really exists?

Oh, I forgot. Unbelief in Global Warming is currently consindered a form of Heresy. Therefore, I will say no more on the subject so as not to insult this particular set of gods.


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## Ryan

It's disappointing that when confronted with facts that you're unable to rebut, the best you can do is throw out insults and claim that the discussion is over.


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## George Harris

Ryan said:


> It's disappointing that when confronted with facts that you're unable to rebut, the best you can do is throw out insults and claim that the discussion is over.


What facts?


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## DET63

Ryan said:


> It's disappointing that when confronted with facts that you're unable to rebut, the best you can do is throw out insults and claim that the discussion is over.


Actually, I think it's the side that argues that global warming is really happening that's been doing that. IAC, I'm willing to put this argument aside unless and until it becomes a meaningful point in discussing the relative carbon footprint of trains, plains, buses, automobiles, and other forms of transportation.


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