2012 Elections in 3-D!

[BassAle]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Doesn't most of it go to agriculture in California?

a lot of it does. If you lettuce in the winter, then you are eating the Colorado River. California is entitled to 4,400,000 acre-feet, Arizona 2,800,000 acre-feet, and Nevada, 300,000 acre-feet from the lower Colorado river. I think Arizona also has a very small allotment from the upper river system, but most of that is split between Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Mexico is guaranteed 1,500,000 acre-feet a year from the river, but I doubt they are getting it.

Building huge cities in the middle of the desert is stupid.

 

[Twitch Boy]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Two things need to happen before people start buying fuel efficient vehicles en masse:
1) Get the sticker price down another $10K or so.
2) Start making vehicles other than "strange looking boring econobox" and "slightly less strange looking boring econobox."

If Ford could make an extended cab F-150 that ran diesel or hybrid and got 30 city/35 highway, THAT would sell like hotcakes. They could market it as the car that could do everything America needed: hold a family, tow, fit stuff in the bed, handle off-road/inclement weather, keep up on the highway, and still get as good or better mileage as most cars we have now. If they could get it down to around $50K, they wouldn't be able to keep them on the lots. And imagine the fleet sales! Small businesses/contractors would be praising the heavens. Heck, 25/30 would be a massive improvement.

I understand something like that is some time away, however. How is the technology coming for vehicles of that size? Hybrid would make sense in theory: the torque curve on an electric motor is maxed at the low end, which would be perfect for a truck/4WD. Diesel probably won't happen until our bass-ackwards emissions laws go away (based on emissions per gallon of fuel burned, not per mile traveled...if you had a hybrid that got 5000 MPG and burned 3 gallons of a fuel in a year, but it gave off too many nasties PER GALLON, it's a no-go.)

Imagine a highway full of those trucks instead of what we have now. Personally, I'm in the camp that believes it's time for diesel in the US. It has come a long way with emissions, and cold weather starting has improved as well.

 

[BassAle]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

You can't explain things to these people. They jeered a US soldier and cheered someone dying for crying out loud.

republicans are seriously insane. democrats are cowards, but at least they aren't evil (most of them)

 

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Cap and trade is the last thing I want. I'd rather see incentives to companies that develop these technologies (working designs), something similar to the DARPA contests. Hell, I wouldn't mind tax incentives to companies that are early adopters of the technologies either. (And yes, I honestly believe there is a difference between imposing a new, across the board tax and an incentive, maybe that's a screwed up way of looking at things, but it's just the way I see it.)

These are all viable as well. there is more than one route to the destination after all.

BTW, we've already had a cap and trade marketplace for around two decades or so regarding emissions from utilities (SO[SUB]2[/SUB] I think? not sure) and it has worked quite well so far; as you noted, economic incentives often work much better than strict mandates!

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

republicans are seriously insane. democrats are cowards, but at least they aren't evil (most of them)

It used to be that Republicans were malevolent but competent while Democrats were benevolent but incompetent. In the 2000's the Republicans demonstrated they were also incompetent. So that's where we are now.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Can someone please explain to the Republicans that oil is a global market, and that we are producing a lot of our own oil but we're shipping it overseas anyway. Just because we drill baby drill doesn't mean we don't sell it to the highest bidder.

Thanks.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

We already have CO[SUB]2[/SUB] capture widely available. They are called "trees" and "bushes." They remove CO[SUB]2[/SUB] from the atmosphere and turn it into a material called "wood."

Then I guess we'd better can get cracking on that natural carbon storage.

Y'know, instead of clearing forests, building out suburbs, slashing and burning rain forests, stuff that gets rid of that reservoir of natural CO2 removal.

(FWIW, I believe the carbon storage models are in substantial agreement that natural storage is not sufficient.)

 

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

I'll say it again, but what is going to happen to this guy when people actually start running ads against him?

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...ary/212493-romney-delivers-clunker-in-detroit

 

[LynahFan]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Then I guess we'd better can get cracking on that natural carbon storage.

Y'know, instead of clearing forests, building out suburbs, slashing and burning rain forests, stuff that gets rid of that reservoir of natural CO2 removal.

(FWIW, I believe the carbon storage models are in substantial agreement that natural storage is not sufficient.)

When did we start building suburbs - 1950s? According to the USDA Forest Service ,the US had 307M hectares of forest in 1907 and 302M in 1997 (latest available).

There was quite a lot of deforestation in the US, but most of it occurred before 1800.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

When did we start building suburbs - 1950s? According to the USDA Forest Service ,the US had 307M hectares of forest in 1907 and 302M in 1997 (latest available).

There was quite a lot of deforestation in the US, but most of it occurred before 1800.

Maybe I'm the only one here, but I find that statistic absolutely fascinating. I would have thought we'd be down at least 25-50 percent.

Doesn't the Taiga (sp?) absolutely dwarf almost everything else in terms of forest area? I thought I remember reading it had something like 40% of the world's trees. /tangent

 

[LynahFan]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Maybe I'm the only one here, but I find that statistic absolutely fascinating. I would have thought we'd be down at least 25-50 percent.

Doesn't the Taiga (sp?) absolutely dwarf almost everything else in terms of forest area? I thought I remember reading it had something like 40% of the world's trees. /tangent

The amount of forest in the Northeast and the South has actually been going up. With the advent of the interstate system and large-scale Midwestern and California corporate farming, the amount of land in the east devoted to agriculture has shrunk dramatically. When I lived in VT, they had a program where you could cut (designated) trees for firewood on state land effectively for free, just because they needed people to cull the trees to keep the forests healthy.

Edit: found a link which indicates that Vermont now has 24% more acres of forest than it did in 1948.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Back on the actual campaign trail...

The former Massachusetts governor, when talking about the threat from Iran, mentioned Syria, which he said was Iran’s ” “only ally” in the Arab world. Well, maybe not-- Iran and Iraq have been pretty chummy of late. But let’s give that a pass.

Then Romney, in highlighting the ties between the two countries, claimed that Syria “is also their route to the sea.”

Um... that seems unlikely, unless the Iranians are taking a pretty convoluted path. In fact, Iran has direct access to waterways, thank you very much, with some 1,520 miles of coastline along the Arabian Sea. It doesn’t even share a border with Syria, so this “route to the sea” that Romney spoke of would involve cutting through Iraq (rugged terrain!) before cutting through Syria to get to the sea. The journey from Tehran to Damascus is about 1,000 miles.

Not an easy jaunt. Or a terribly rewarding one--Syria has a measly 119 miles of coastline fronting the Mediterranean Sea.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

When did we start building suburbs - 1950s? According to the USDA Forest Service ,the US had 307M hectares of forest in 1907 and 302M in 1997 (latest available).

There was quite a lot of deforestation in the US, but most of it occurred before 1800.

What is even more remarkable about your statistic (THANK YOU!) is the amount of lumber that has been harvested between 1907 and 1997. Trees do a great job of extracting CO[SUB]2[/SUB] from the atmosphere especially when the wood remains as wood (instead of being burned or turned into termite farts).

Timberland is a very attractive investment to life insurance companies, because of their long-term time horizon. If lumber prices are high, you harvest and re-plant; if lumber prices are low, you refrain from harvesting until prices go back up again. With so many "investors" taking a shorter- and shorter-term view, it is harder for insurance companies to engage in proper durational matching of assets and liabilities.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Santorum has to be the world's greatest stand-up comedian to come up with this parody of conservative "thinking."

 

[huskyfan]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Then maybe you should move closer to civilization

with all you strange people around. no thanks, I'd rather keep hanging out with the bears and wolves. and the squirrels!!

 

[bronconick]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

Well, Jeb's not getting drafted to pull the GOP out of the fire this summer.

"I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I'm wondering, I don't think I've changed, but it's a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that's kind of where we are," said the former Florida governor

 

[Foxton]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

agree.

LOL, you have no clue about Keweenaw winters. Foxton, I've been driving in snow since before you were born. and you live in town, in Marquette, where you don't get half the snow we do. we don't always drive the truck to hockey but we do need a four wheel drive. its not unusual to come home to 12 or more inches with 40 mph winds whipping off Lake Superior and the plows have not been out. then its half a mile through the woods to reach the house. just the thought of it makes me homesick!!

You're funny. I was using that car while I was in Houghton where I was unimpressed by Keweenaw winters. And I feel no pity for your poor judgement in moving to a remote snow hellhole.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

You're funny. I was using that car while I was in Houghton where I was unimpressed by Keweenaw winters. And I feel no pity for your poor judgement in moving to a remote snow hellhole.

beats moving to a Del Webb community in Florida

 

[Rover]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

This is a fascinating look at state by state voting for the last 5 Presidential elections:

http://cookpolitical.com/sites/default/files/1992-2008 Presidential Voting by State_0.pdf

Why I find it interesting is there's a strong need amongst political pundits to cast every race as 50/50. So for example even though Romney has endured a brutal start to the year, he's inexplicably tied in probable electoral votes by some pundits due to odd projections such as him winning in NH (where he's down 10% to the O as of now) or Michigan being a toss up (even though he's struggling to win the primary there).

What this chart shows is that if you add up the states Dems have won in 4 of the last 5 elections, you get a whopping 257! electoral votes. Now obviously past results are no guarantee of future performance, but still something to ponder. Where does Mittens or Sanitarium reverse the strong current trend in these states?

Looking at the GOP, 4 out of 5 gives you 171 electoral votes, including IN, VA, and NC which voted Dem last time but lets assign to the GOP candidate now. Well, what do we make of the 2/5-3/5 states? Obviously the states that were part of the Clinton coalition (Ark, Tenn, LA, MO, and WV) aren't coming back to the Dems, so +48 to the GOP candidate. Great, but that only gives 219 votes.

Flipping back to the Dems, simply winning the two states that they've won 3 out of the last 5 times gives them the election. Furthermore, losing one of those states (Ohio) but winning a state trending their way (CO) gives them the election. Winning either CO or FL gives them the election. The point being, there's a lot of paths to victory. On the other hand, the GOP basically needs to win every state that hasn't voted Dem 4 out of the last 5 elections. That's a tall order as things stand now, considering that they'd be flipping an amazing 7 states from the 2008 election including several (FL, IA, NV) where they've had luckluster turnout in their own primaries.

 

[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections in 3-D!

This is a fascinating look at state by state voting for the last 5 Presidential elections

It is good as another view, but it leaves out trending which is vital information. For instance, it lists AR, KY, and TN as Dem 2/5. Those states aren't going Dem again for a long, long time; they might as well be in the far right column.

The key to future electoral success for the GOP lies through the rust belt (PA, OH, MI) and the far west (WA, OR, AZ, NM, NV). They need the poor, white, rural populations in those states to be evangelized against liberalism the way their southern cousins have been.