Harpozep

Snoopy, Great gag. You are a fun guy

Yup, we are a gullible people, no doubt. But big business wants to stay big business and it is in their interests to buy up and produce such products or buy up and squelch such products. Since they are not producing any real high MPG products for us all to buy then perhaps they are squelching them? Dunno for sure.

I know someone will again bring up the laws of physics and say one can only get so much energy from a gallon of gas etc. While this is true, it seems our current methods really waste most of the gas's energy by turning it into wasted heat. It'd be nice to see improvements in efficiency no matter where they come from since we waste a lot of energy getting to and fro in style.

I'm not one for giving up my auto for the common good either. Screw that But it made less sense for me to have the Buick Rainier than it does a slightly more fuel efficient and MUCH more useful van. The Buick had its amenities and decent MPG for a V8. My last Buick V8 got 7 MPG
Same overall foot print for both vehicles too. One has to make the best choice for what they need obviously. I like cylinder deactivation on the newer vehicle's too. They finally seem to have that technology working.

But all this new tech comes at a maintenance price too, I'll bet. No conspiracy here, but I'm sure the manufacturers are happy on that end, especially since we all try to get the cars so close to actual cost these days. THAT does get the sales folks mad, I've seen it and done it
But I digress.......

But don't bet on all conspiracies being false, like stereotypes, some are grounded in facts. Its just that it is difficult to back them up and very easy to simply ignore and bash them.

Besides , even if someone HAD proof of say the large companies acting like bullies and putting the small man down who HAD the better invention, no one would believe them. Just ask Preston Tucker.

pg318

I can get 27mpg+ out of my Camaro, that's a 5.7l engine without cylinder deactivation . I don't think there's any good reason to be dictating the manner of achieving gas mileage, just making sure that we do achieve it. Increasing the price of fuel (it's still cheap here compared to Europe) via taxation will soon get most people to select more efficient vehicles, and those who want gas-guzzzlers are still welcome to have them, they just pay the premium to use them. Problem is that trying to do that is political suicide between Big Oil and what's left of the American auto industry's lobbyists.

IgottaWoody

I was following an article from Smokey Yunick ( at the time he was writing for I believe Car Craft ) when it stopped..a few years later he showed up in Circle Track Magazine and somebody asked him what ever happened to the follow up articles..he had taken a 1986 Daytona and with some junkyard parts reverse flowed a turbo to mix and expand the the air mix..added some heater hoses to heat up the mix ( this is just a rough recount)..well anyways he recorded 80 + mpg and doubled the HP with no other mods..not even to the fuel system or timing. Some extra's were some boost ( about 6psi I think ) while that was not intended ,it was a plus. When asked about this he replied..he can't talk about it..its done and gone..while he didn't say who or what..the way he worded it he was forced to cease or otherwise.Shame too..this was something the average mechanic could do using junk car pieces.., another victim of being forced out...May he rest in peace

hunter

Don't you remember in the 70's they were pushing Global Cooling?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
Just a scare... it is a means to control and tax. Nothing more. Al Gore is a fraud.

mynameistaken

Global cooling per wikipedia
"This hypothesis never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to press reports following a better understanding of ice age cycles and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s."

Global warming per wikipedia
"These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries."

Snoopy

Devil's advocate again....

You have read that over the past year,more and more scientific groups and scientific professionals are retreating from the mass hysteria of global warming.

They are not saying it isn't a fact....just that it is not of the proportions that many of the environmental "scholars" have shouted.

For example, the day that Al Gore gave a speech regarding his Nobel Prize, he stated that the NORTH POLAR CAPS ARE RESEDING at some alarming rate. Almost at the same time NASA and their respective "experts" released a statement, based on satellite photos, the North Polar Cap had GROWN by some amazing amount.

I'm not siding with either arguement, I'm just saying that either arguement is nebulous, at this time.

Harpozep

The earth changes on its own. But we can have an impact on it, even if it is just a localized impact lie The Exxon Valdez spill. Or like London during the smog days of the 1880's or LA in the recent past, or Boston Harbor where I swam as a child, but gave up when I was swimming with corn ( Now thanks to efforts, it is safer to swim in again ).

People should simply get off the politicizing of it and be kinder to our environment and lungs. No one should be living Ann Coulter's "God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours. " world. Thing like that should never be said to a gullible public either.

Both sides suck, just like all politics does.
Just use yer noggin and be as responsible as you can with what you are given or worked for. So you don't have to swim with corn!

pg318

Seems I wasn't imagining the odd weather effects on the week of 9/11 -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
http://facstaff.uww.edu/travisd/pdf/...ntresearch.pdf