Here we go again - Cash for "ICE" Clunkers

[Dave Wells]

Colorado offers residents major incentive to give up their gas cars

Colorado is offering residents an extra $6,000 rebate for driving new electric vehicles through the Vehicle Exchange Colorado Program.

The Centennial State began accepting applications on Aug. 31 for EV rebates up to $6,000 for new vehicles and up to $4,000 for used ones, according to Electrek. To qualify for the program, drivers must turn in gas-guzzling cars that are either at least 12 years old or have failed emissions tests. 

 

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/rebates-ev-electric-car-inflation-cost/

 

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[auburnseeker]

They are so good and such a great Idea you have to bribe people to buy them.  

 

Most people that still own a car that's  over 12 years old Can't afford a new car.  

 

Remember the greenest car you will own is the one you already have.  Foot print to recycle your old car and build a new one is never considered in the equation. 

[60FlatTop]

9 hours ago, auburnseeker said:

Remember the greenest car you will own is the one you already have.  

When did they start building fuel efficient cars? I might consider one of those.

[auburnseeker]

Not the fuel they consume but the fuel and materials consumed to build the new one and recycle the old one.  Because it's new and shiny doesn't mean it doesn't already have a huge carbon foot print it has to recover/offset. 

The dirty secret / statistic many don't want to mention. 

 

Kind of like restoring a nice survivor.  Did you gain enough in the end to really justify the energy and materials or would you have been better to continue to use it as is?  We now are realizing that we should have left many of them alone. 

Edited November 10, 2023 by auburnseeker (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

Most of the carbon emissions and greenhouse gases generated during the manufacture of my '60 Electra and '64 Riviera were incinerated while megatons of nuclear test blasts flooded the skies on the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

[Su8overdrive]

All good and true points.  But we've gotta remember, many of those staffing the bureacratice enclaves and cabals behind such plans are themselves 20- and 30-somethings often still living with parents, saddled with student debt, the average American's net worth down the past 45 years thanks to inflation, and so unable to buy a new or nicer late model used car.  So they're going to hate cars,  use them as convenient whipping boys.  My gal and i note every fourth stroller on the jogging/bike path a tandem, often with both barrels loaded, these aging young folk so desperately trying to reenact the having-it-all of their flusher parents,  taking fertility drugs on a planet collapsing from 8.1 billion people,  a nation with 350 babies onboard.

 

 Dislike sounding like a broken record, but until we stop whining about silly programs like the above, playing us/them, or dismissing everything we don't agree with as "politics,"  until we curb overpopulation and get evermore people on a plant-based vegan repast, we can bank on future required permits and fees to drive even our 78-110-year-old dragons once in a blue moon.  UN and other vetted studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships  combined.  Every study not overtly or covertly funded by meat, dairy,  egg industry concludes that a vegan diet the single best way to prevent heart disease, cardiovascular woes, hypertension, high blood pressure, inflammation, diabetes, cancer, macular degeneration, dementia (now termed type 3 diabetes), Alzheimer's.   Hasn't slowed the world's leading Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton.   And until people control what they ingest, health insurance publc or private will never be affordable.

 

   I'd prefer my taxes not go toward underwriting breeding, cattlemen, dairy, agbiz, wholly preventable disease, banning my old i.c. car, ignorance.   

 

  Every poll of scientists, one of 2,000 UN, another in the Bloomberg News of 11,000, shows them in overwhelming agreement that our biggest by far problem is overpopulation, their words, "bigger than climate."

So our focus, if we're serious and not devolving to buckpassing, lame jokes, citing old stories,  and bar room rants, should be pressuring Congress to revise our antiquated, agrarian tax code from when more babies meant more hands to work the family farm, half of all children not surviving beyond age four, to instead encourage --- not mandate -- encourage having "one or none," and adopting;

  and evolving to a plant-based, vegan cuisine.  This former omnivore assures you you're not going to miss a thing,  quite the contrary.  Using Kendall full synthetic motor oil, DOT 5 silicone brake fluid, fuel injection hose (instead of the usual sort) in my ancient barouche, and would like to remain  physically and mentally fit to reap their benefits.

 

   Bring on the snarky comments about steak, hamburgers and fried chicken, those of you unable to wean yourselves from milk for baby cows.  Or "good thing your parents didn't feel that way."  But neither you nor I, the Pope, nor MIT knows if not born in 2025, might not be born in 2825, 6825, 16825.  And not all of us gearheads live in bucolic New England, East Jesus, Kansas, Broken Wheel, South Dakota, nor see running away to such places as panacea.

 

        Onward, upward.

 

Edited November 21, 2023 by Su8overdrive (see edit history)

[Angelfish]

 

[Angelfish]

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

[Su8overdrive]

A-fish, you've gotta be kidding.  Some client-denying kid shilling for the oil companies?   More us/them divisiveness won't ensure a future in which we can still drive our old i.c. cars.    We'll stick with the scientists not overtly or covertly funded by the carbon companies,  and every vetted medical study not overtly or covertly funded by meat, dairy, egg industry.   Bashing environmentalists, quoting Charles Koch-funded Cato Institute may appeal to the Fox "News" set,  works for insular silver spooners wishing it was still 1960.   

 

Terry Ehrich, the late publisher of Hemmings Motor News, formerly with the New York Times Review of Books,  owner of a '40 Buick Roadmaster and several other old cars and trucks, was a lifelong arboritst, Vermont's first Prius owner, an ardent environmentalist, as were car guys Paul Newman, James Garner, Dave Garroway, Steve Allen (co-owner of an LA motorcycle shop), Johnny Carson, Doc Severinsen ('30 or 31 Lincoln),  Indy race team co-owner Dave Letterman, and dozens of other educated buffs able to see the big picture.  The Union Pacific Railroad, still operating three massive steam locomotives of the '40s on frequent fan trips and excursions, just issued $600 million in green bond funds.

 

 We pull together, or spin our wheels per yours above.  Some things, Angel, are simple, if not EZ.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Su8overdrive (see edit history)

[auburnseeker]

Well you can believe studies funded by green energy companies or people saying they can prevent climate change by giving them unending funding while they fly to meetings around the word in their private jet on how to reduce the carbon footprint of the average Joe.  

 

There is a study by all types on both sides and each one will say exactly what you want it to say.  Just follow the funding to see which way it might lean. 

[Su8overdrive]

Again, every poll of   s c i e n t i s t s has them agreeing overpopulation by far our biggest problem, their words, "bigger than climate,"  including a 2013 poll  of 2,000 UN scientists in 2013, another of 11,000 scientists in the 11/5/19 Bloomberg News.  UN and other vetted studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined.

 

 S c i e n t i s t s,  d o c t o r s,  m e d i c a l  r e s e a r c h e r s   not overtly or covertly funded by carbon companies, meat, dairy, egg industry.   

 

We're not talking about "beliefs,"  "green energy companies" or "unending funding"  or "private jets to meetings"  or "average  Joes."    If you want to disregard the above pair of sentences and play "the dog ate my homework," have at it.  The rest of us rationalists are focusing on the overarching problems, shifting attention to them, and away from making our old i.c. cars convenient whipping boys.  

 

 8.1 billion people all burning some form of carbon on a planet so small the towers of suspension bridges out of parallel to reflect the earth's curvature.  350 million babies onboard the US.   These are staggering problems and the reason our cars are convenient whipping boys.    Some of us have  a lot of time, effort, money in our vintage cars and do not want to have to pay fees for limited use, require special permits, for their occasional enjoyment,  which is where we're headed unless we  turn focus on the causes: too many people eating the largest producer of greenhouse gas.   Which is why this is simple,  but not EZ.

 

   We do not see  salvation in tawk radio, what we want to hear, what we wish were so,  whining,  playing us/them just because this will be tremendously difficult.  So was rebuilding our old cars.  

Edited November 21, 2023 by Su8overdrive (see edit history)

[auburnseeker]

Liking your own post tells me all I need to know.  

[Lee H]

On 11/20/2023 at 10:36 AM, Angelfish said:

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/

Thanks for that. Every generation seems to have those who believe themselves contemporary Cassandras. It’s impossible to dissuade a true believer.

[Su8overdrive]

Only seeing expected head in the sand, troll snarkiness.   What are your plans, gentlemen,  to  shift attention to the causes of our  i.c. cars being convenient whipping boys,  other than dredging a half century of old newspaper clippings, living in the past?   The nation's and world's scientists concur.   You know better?  We're here now, 2023.  New I.C. cars are already being phased out in Norway in two years, 2025, in Britain and halfway US 2030, the EU 2035.    You imagine a relative handful of old car owners will long be immune from fees for limited use, requiring special permits?   Are you really that insular, unable to grasp the big picture,  see beyond your own hood ornaments?

Edited November 22, 2023 by Su8overdrive (see edit history)

[auburnseeker]

The greenest car is the one you already own.  Carbon Footprint of the EV hot mess,  is often hidden in the mix to make it look all rosy for the general public.  Lets be realistic in talking about the changeover and the reality of how to make it happen without destroying the economy and possibly the environment in the process.

[Su8overdrive]

Cailyn, AuburnSeeker above makes strong points, just as it often proved safer to leave asbestos behind old walls alone.  EVs are no panacea.  The overarching threat to our i.c. cars, and the planet, are simply too many people, and as Sir David Attenborough points out, "The planet cannot handle millions of meat eaters."  I refer you to my above posts. 

 

 Meanwhile, gasoline is a terrific fuel, higher BTUs than alcohol, the latter a net energy consumer, unless produced entirely from agwaste as in Brazil, not corn as in the US.  Agwaste ethanol is what Henry Ford wanted to power his Model T and Fordson tractor, which comprised fully half the vehicles on the world's roads and fields by 1920.  But with J.D. Rockefeller controlling over 85% of all bulk oil shipping, gasoline as low as a 12 cents a gallon, Ford went along with the program.  Otherwise, Maxwell, Hudson, Reo, the Dodge brothers, Auburn,  Marmon, Studebaker, Chandler, Jordan, Hupp, Willys, Nash, GM, Packard, Pierce, and others would've likely followed suit. 

 

 There are not enough raw materials for the world to swap all i.c. (internal combustion) cars for EVs.  EVs run on petroleum tires, producing most of the dust in urban areas, and use six (6) times as many minerals as i.c. cars, including cobalt, lithium, nickel, copper, manganese, graphite, thallium, titanium, zinc,  rare earths like neodymium and dysprosium, the latters' extraction requiring huge amounts of carcinogens like ammonia, hydrochloric acid, sulphates.  Much of these minerals are imported from politically unstable regions.

 

   Do you expect cabals of young bureaucrats, narrowly educated strangers to technology, buried in student debt, perhaps still living with parents and so hating cars because they cannot afford a decent one,  to connect  thallium as a common ingredient in rat poison?  That it's tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless?  While those who tested positive hadn't consumed poisonous levels of the metal, it was enough to cause fatigue, heart arrhythmia, nausea, digestive trouble, neurological problems, and hair loss. The scariest part is that even after patients completed detoxification regiments, thallium continued to show up in their systems. 

 

"We now know that heavy metals are additive and synergistic," says David Quid, the lead scientist at Doctors Data,  PhD in nutritional biochemistry. "If you get a little thallium, and a little lead, and a little cadmium in your system, you've got one plus one plus one equals five or six, not just three." In other words, these metals do more damage when they're combined.

"This stuff bioaccumulates," he added. "Down the road, it's going to kick you in the ass one way or another."

 

  Soichiro Honda produced an internal combustion auto engine the exhaust of which cleaner than the ambient Tokyo air.  A Swiss engineer, Michael May, did the same at Jaguar 30 years ago.

 

 UN studies show animals raised for meat and dairy produce more greenhouse gas than all the world's cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, ships combined.  Meat eaters still coo over pets no more or as sentient, social, intelligent as the creatures facing a million daily Dachaus and Auschwitzes. 

 

    And so, being vegan, having only "one or none," adopting, or being child-free, are our only hope.   But it's easier to make i.c. cars the whipping boy, to "round up the usual suspects."

Edited January 11 by Su8overdrive (see edit history)