>Figuring out lifetime impact (or life cycle assessment, as it's >called in the trade) is quite hard. How do you compare the impact >of twenty years of GHG emissions against the future problems >disposing of hybrid car batteries? Two quite different kinds of >environmental problems. How do you trade off the emissions caused >by running an old polluting vehicle like a Vanagon for three decades >against the energy consumed (and GHGs emitted) by manufacturing a >new car and replacing the old one? > >There's all kinds of arguments one can come up with for why almost >any vehicle is preferable to any other (okay, maybe not SUVs!), but >it's much harder to really tally up all the different possible >impacts. Indeed. people are emotional over these issues... not at all rational. >Except that biking is definitely better for health and the >environment. Unfortunately you can't live in a bike! And it's a >bit slow for many purposes. Depemde on the size of your bike's engine... -- Andrew Grebneff Dunedin New Zealand Fossil preparator <andrew.grebneff@stonebow.otago.ac.nz> Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut HUMANITY: THE ULTIMATE VON NEUMANN MACHINE DEMOCRACY: RULE BY THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR |
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