What are you willing to do to combat global warming?

[David S]

Angus I enjoy your posts and your sense of humor. But lacking smiley faces for clues I'm sometimes a bit puzzled as to your whether you are being serious or not. So just for the sake of argument I'd like to respond to your comment on Libertarians. You said we're plutocrats and gun nuts . As to the "gun nut" thing, well some of us prefer the term enthusiast over "nut", but in essence you're correct. Most Libertarians are gun enthusiasts and second amendment advocates. Speaking for myself I would say that I definitely am and proudly so. For people to believe that only government should have guns is to believe that only government should have power, and no true believer in freedom could believe that.

As to plutocracy, it seems to me that we have that now. Which of our past presidents was poor? Bush?, Clinton? Kennedy? Johnson? FDR? They range anywhere from rich to extraordinarily rich.  Even our first president George Washington was very rich by the standards of the time. If you or Walter voted for W you voted for an extremely rich man. If you voted for Kerry you still voted for an extremely rich man. On the other hand the Libertarian candidate, Badnarik, was dirt poor. I think one of his reasons for running was that he needed a job.  

Our founders realized that the wealthy would be likely to gain power in government. So to prevent abuses they put constitutional limits on  the power of government. But today our government simply ignores those limits. Politicians secure votes by promising benefits to one group of people at the expense of another group. And don't think for a minute that the rich are not among the beneficiaries. Their rewards are just more subtle and less visible.

Libertarians would like to return our government to its constitutional basis and at least minimize the power and control exercised by the wealthy. So in my opinion we are the un-Plutocrats.

[SPC]

As for waht I'm willing to do to combat global warming, I'm willing to listen to what scientists on both sides of the fence have to say.

Also, i concur with what David S just sai in his last post.

[??????????]

Pretty much all I've done is switch to those curly bulbs. They are pretty long lasting, the ones I have in now have been in since November '06. I refuse to run my AC at 80 degrees like the energy company tells me, I run it at 76, Florida is way to hot to be keeping your house at 80, plus considering I have bad allergies. I turn lights off in rooms I don't use, but I've always done that as I was raised that way. That's pretty much it though.

[David S]

Pretty much all I've done is switch to those curly bulbs. They are pretty long lasting, the ones I have in now have been in since November '06. I refuse to run my AC at 80 degrees like the energy company tells me, I run it at 76, Florida is way to hot to be keeping your house at 80, plus considering I have bad allergies. I turn lights off in rooms I don't use, but I've always done that as I was raised that way. That's pretty much it though.

Raat you are.
That's pretty much what we do too. I suspect your motivation is the same as mine; to save money. Although in a way we have a common interest with the environmental crowd. They want to minimize energy use to save the planet. We want to do it to save money. The end result is the same. Admittedly the savings on the energy bill is not huge, but hey the money looks better in our pockets than in the utility company's.

[7,052,770]

so you don't live in Mississippi anymore Angus?  Alas...

[angus]

David, I'm just giving you a hard time.  I do think there is a need for public schools, a standing army and navy, and some degree of public welfare assistance, so I'm not a libertarian myself, but I admire the ideological consistency of the LP and I say it often.  And I almost always vote for Libertarians for AG, when I have lived in states where that's an elected office.  And I'm not entirely opposed to having a libertarian president.  I still like Ron Paul the best among the candidates.  Mostly, I do enjoy propagating the negative stereotypes, gun nut. 

so you don't live in Mississippi anymore Angus?  Alas...

ah, harry.  yeah, we moved away from the Hospitality State about ten days ago.  It was the perfect situation for me when I moved there nearly three years ago.  And from August '04 to June '07 we thoroughly enjoyed the extremely low rent, mild winters, the profusion of liquor stores, lots of time off, and living three blocks from my office so I could always walk to work and always eat lunch with my family.  There aren't many places where three people can live well and save for retirement and take vacations and generally have what one wants on a professor's salary.  Certainly that wasn't going to happen in the San Francisco Bay area, where we'd been living for a while.  But now the boy is weaned and nearly toilet trained and my wife was beginning to experience some ennui due to isolation, or so it seems, being so far from any of our friends and family and being unemployed.  Not that full-time motherhood didn't bring her joy, but I could see that she was beginning to need some fulfilling employment, and I could see the boy needed other playmates besides mama and other activities besides eating, farting, sleeping, and suckling.  I thought it best all around if we started thinking of educational opportunities for my son and employment opportunities for my wife.  And therein lies the downside of the Columbus economy.  For the same reasons that Columbus was so attractive three years ago, it had become somewhat unattractive by the end of last year.  And it was time to move on.

My wife and I have both found stable, suitable, gainful employment.  And we have found a nice Montessori preschool for the boy, and I understand the public schools hereabouts (as measured by composite 4th and 8th grade reading and mathematics exam scores) are outstanding.  I'm not sure how we'll handle the harsh climate of the Upper Midwest.  After three years in California followed by three years in Mississippi we may have become spoiled.  I did unearth a flat shovel that I packed deep when I moved from Boston to California, thinking that I might need it again someday.  The sight of it gave me a slight shudder, I'll admit.  Ask me again in six months whether I like it here.  This part of the Upper Midwest ain't pretty like the Deep South, I'll grant you.  And we will miss the flowers and misty deep forests and graceful moss.  And birds.  Just about every species of North American bird has a migratory route that takes it through the lower mississippi river valley, so you get to see all of them at one time or another.  Here's it's all corn and soybean and miles and miles of featureless flatness.  I will say I am amazed at the constant influx of politicians to the Hawkeye State.  Just yesterday I heard that Richardson is making a speech about ten minutes from where I live, and on a bicycle ride Tuesday I found an Obama'08 headquarters just down University Avenue from my place.  So I've traded trees, flowers, rivers, and birds for plains, corn, prairies, and politicians.  We'll see how it works out.

[opebo]

I refuse to run my AC at 80 degrees like the energy company tells me, I run it at 76, Florida is way to hot to be keeping your house at 80,

When I return to the Bad Place I set the Aircon at 82.  Anything lower and I feel chilly now that I've been wintering in the tropics for so many years.

[Ban my account ffs!]

hmmm...

Be conscious of everything I do.

Recycle when possible.

Plant lots of trees.  Having shade around your house will keep cooling costs down in the summer, and if the trees are deciduous, the sun can shine through in the winter, reducing heating costs.

Eat less meat. 

Grow lots of vegetables for consumption at home.

Use energy efficient appliances/light bulbs.

Make sure I keep my car tuned up, the tires aired up properly, and drive less.

Donate money to worthwhile organizations like the Arbor Day Foundation so they can plant more trees and promote environmental health.

Things I can do/support on a more "tertiary" level to combat global warming:

Reasonable carbon emissions restrictions and reductions with a pro-active conversion to renewable and more efficient sources of energy.

Proper forest management that allows the right kind of species to grow in the right places for optimum co2 conversion.  (this includes fire and logging as a component to management)

The planting of hybrid poplar tree plantations.  These trees can grow to 100 feet tall and 40 feet wide in 15 years and are extremely efficient and useful for fuel.  They are more environmentally useful (for animals) and have better energy efficiency than corn.  The deep roots and smaller need for fertilizer/nutrients means less erosion and soil depletion.  Plus, they shade the ground, keeping the surface temperature cooler and wetter.

Programs that education the public about energy conservation and efficiency.  These two things are the most important parts of combating all environmental problems.  Consume less, consume smartly, and waste less.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I refuse to run my AC at 80 degrees like the energy company tells me, I run it at 76, Florida is way to hot to be keeping your house at 80,

When I return to the Bad Place I set the Aircon at 82.  Anything lower and I feel chilly now that I've been wintering in the tropics for so many years.

Us Minnesotans come from colder stock.  We start to bitch and moan when the temp rounds the 80*F mark.  But the past few days have been quite cool (highs from 61-70*F), so we've just had the windows open.

[Ebowed]

I walk and use public transportation.

[David S]

I refuse to run my AC at 80 degrees like the energy company tells me, I run it at 76, Florida is way to hot to be keeping your house at 80,

When I return to the Bad Place I set the Aircon at 82.  Anything lower and I feel chilly now that I've been wintering in the tropics for so many years.

In Michigan right now if you wanted the temperature to be 82 you would have to turn the heat on.

[Friz]

I don't own a car and I walk everywhere.  At least for the next three years.

[Likely Voter]

I used to live in Europe and was used to higher taxes and gas taxes. I would pay higher taxes both income and fuel if I could be assured better mass transportation and a reduction of greenhouse gasses. I would also accept higher prices on my goods from China/India to ensure that they also reduce theirs.

[angus]

better mass transportation and a reduction of greenhouse gasses.

I used to complain quite a bit about our lack of public transit and dependence on foreign oil a few years ago, and everyone kept shooting my ideas down.  (Mostly the blue and yellow avatar types, as I recall.)  They all said population density wasn't sufficiently high to make it worth our while and that this 2-dollar-a-gallon gas was just a phase.  Nowadays, the gas is 3 bucks a gallon and even in a developing country like china you can take a 200 mph magnetic levitation train from Shanghai to Nanjing.  If we do ever get serious about public transit we'll have to be honest with ourselves and let the Chinese call us a "developing nation" at least during the period that we are developing the infrastructure.  Seems we're not even developing it yet.

We haven't run the air in about a week, I'll admit, because the apartment stays comfortable with just the windows open and a fan or two on.  And we always walk to the supermarket, and I still cycle to the office.  When it starts to get really cold I'll either take the local bus or carpool with my wife.  But we'll continue to take long car trips out of necessity.  I have to go to Chicago in a couple of weeks to the Chinese embassy.  If there were a train I'd take it.  But there's not, so we'll make the 3.5 hour trip in the car.

[angus]

Whoa!  For the last 15 or so minutes my apartment--and my car--have been pelted by little rocks of ice.  Most of them are small, like marbles, but some about the size of my testicles.  And a few are as big as the little black inside of a golfball when you pull of the rubber stringy substance between the core and the outer shell.  I was inside, minding my own business, unpacking, and drinking cheap liquor, and all of the sudden it was all pitter patter on the rooftop, like that song about christmas and "whom should appear but jolly old saint nick and eight tiny reindeer"  So I turned on the Weater Channel and saw that the forecast calls for "a sixty percent chance of thunderstorms accompanied by large hail."  yep.  uh, huh.  Itellyawhat, peggy, that boy ain't right.  BRTD, you're pretty close to here, you getting any of this?  Or what about pbrunsel?  you getting this?  Well, anyway, I've seen this before, when I lived in Fort Worth many years ago.  And these cornfed locals don't seem to care.  I saw one tall, blonde, germanic Iowa yokel walking around with an umbrella in it.  A rainbow-striped ubrella being pelted by little ice stones.  He was just meandering through the handsomely landscaped gardens outside the apartments.  Like it was just a nice English spring rain.  Bizarre.  I guess these Midwesterners are with hailstorms and tornados the way Southerners are with hurricanes.  I remember how Mississippians and Floridians would watch for a hurricane alert, then head out to the beach with their surfboards and kegs of beer.  Just another day on the Southern Coast.  I guess you get used to Hurricanes.  Apparently you get used to hailstorms as well.  Bizarre.

Well, anyway, it's over.  And the car seems unscathed.  Gotta love that nice German paintjob.  But I sure wish I hadn't left the houseplants on the patio this evening.

We're doing AC now.  Windows closed.  screw it.  I'll worry about the planet's climate change tomorrow.  Tonight I'm just glad there's very dry central air and a roof over my head.

[muon2]

Whoa!  For the last 15 or so minutes my apartment--and my car--have been pelted by little rocks of ice.  Most of them are small, like marbles, but some about the size of my testicles.  And a few are as big as the little black inside of a golfball when you pull of the rubber stringy substance between the core and the outer shell.  I was inside, minding my own business, unpacking, and drinking cheap liquor, and all of the sudden it was all pitter patter on the rooftop, like that song about christmas and "whom should appear but jolly old saint nick and eight tiny reindeer"  So I turned on the Weater Channel and saw that the forecast calls for "a sixty percent chance of thunderstorms accompanied by large hail."  yep.  uh, huh.  Itellyawhat, peggy, that boy ain't right.  BRTD, you're pretty close to here, you getting any of this?  Or what about pbrunsel?  you getting this?  Well, anyway, I've seen this before, when I lived in Fort Worth many years ago.  And these cornfed locals don't seem to care.  I saw one tall, blonde, germanic Iowa yokel walking around with an umbrella in it.  A rainbow-striped ubrella being pelted by little ice stones.  He was just meandering through the handsomely landscaped gardens outside the apartments.  Like it was just a nice English spring rain.  Bizarre.  I guess these Midwesterners are with hailstorms and tornados the way Southerners are with hurricanes.  I remember how Mississippians and Floridians would watch for a hurricane alert, then head out to the beach with their surfboards and kegs of beer.  Just another day on the Southern Coast.  I guess you get used to Hurricanes.  Apparently you get used to hailstorms as well.  Bizarre.

Well, anyway, it's over.  And the car seems unscathed.  Gotta love that nice German paintjob.  But I sure wish I hadn't left the houseplants on the patio this evening.

We're doing AC now.  Windows closed.  screw it.  I'll worry about the planet's climate change tomorrow.  Tonight I'm just glad there's very dry central air and a roof over my head.

angus, Are you in NE IA, it looks intense there? I'm sitting in Peoria and waiting to see if that storm comes our way later tonight. BTW, when are you scheduled to get to Chitown?

[angus]

Peoria.  As I recall that's not far away.   About two hours from here.  I drove through there on the way from Cedar Falls to Columbus in May.  Yes, Northeast Iowa.  It was intense.  Well, intense to my wife and to me, but as I say the locals didn't seem to be bothered much.  They were like Southerners in a Hurricane really.  Just ambling along under brightly colored umbrellas, seeming oblivious to the ice god's tears of wrath.

Chicago is on or before July 29.  Date is flexible.  I'm looking forward to it.  You a whitesox fan or a cubs fan?

[muon2]

Peoria.  As I recall that's not far away.   About two hours from here.  I drove through there on the way from Cedar Falls to Columbus in May.  Yes, Northeast Iowa.  It was intense.  Well, intense to my wife and to me, but as I say the locals didn't seem to be bothered much.  They were like Southerners in a Hurricane really.  Just ambling along under brightly colored umbrellas, seeming oblivious to the ice god's tears of wrath.

Chicago is on or before July 29.  Date is flexible.  I'm looking forward to it.  You a whitesox fan or a cubs fan?

I missed your relocation to corn country. Are you teaching there?

I was born on the north side of Chicago, so my allegiances were set at birth. However, I moved out of the city before I entered school, so I have no problem rooting for the Sox on occasion. My daughter is psyched to go to her first MLB game at Wrigley on July 30.

[AkSaber]

I started walking several months ago. I've always turned appliances which are in rooms that are unoccupied.

[angus]

I missed your relocation to corn country. Are you teaching there?

I was born on the north side of Chicago, so my allegiances were set at birth. However, I moved out of the city before I entered school, so I have no problem rooting for the Sox on occasion. My daughter is psyched to go to her first MLB game at Wrigley on July 30.

Guess I have only been through the city on several occasions, but never really had any business there.  Will try to catch either a cubs or sox game while there.  I have a hobby of visiting major league parks, and have been to about half of them now.

I accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Northern Iowa back in January.  Four-year probationary assistant professorship in physical chemistry.  Teaching load is about 60 percent of what I had at MUW, but there's an expectation that I'll involve students in research.  There's some start-up.  About half of what I'd need to actually build what I proposed, but enough to get publish-worthy results after a year or so of building.  I'll do atmospheric gas-phase chemical physics projects initially.  Laser-induced fluorescence on soil fumigants, probably, as it has enviro/agro applications potentially interesting to state and federal agencies.  UNI has about 14000 full-time students (compared to 2200 at MUW) and graduates maybe 20 to 30 BS/BA chemists per year.  It offers four different undergrad degrees in the department, and a masters, but no PhD.  I think it'll be a new experience for me.  Since defending at Boston University, I have worked at national labs, small teaching schools, and as a visiting scholar at some larger universities, but never really had my own lab.  I think it'll be fun.  My wife, also a BU alum, has a one-year adjunct position in the department teaching organic chemistry.  I don't think it'll turn in to a full-time gig for her, but it's her first job in the united states, so it's really a big deal.

Different here.  Whiter, wealthier, and way more redneck.  I've seen more John Deere caps than I can count.  And today, in a market, I saw an eight pound bag of frozen pot pie filling.  Swear to god.  I didn't even know such things existed.  No black people here.  What'd they do with all the black people?  Guess that was a shock initially.  Moving to columbus, which is 54% black, took some getting used to.  But after three years in the Deep South, it takes a little getting used to a place that's 96% white.  Very white.  Tall, blonde, germanic folks with names like Schneider and Rammstein and von Buhle on all the mailboxes.  And no mullets!  In columbus, most white males had mullets and facial hair.  Here it's all crew cut and feedstore caps.  Sparse too.  All suburbs and prarie.  No hummingbirds, no colorful flowers, no swamps, no magnolias, no seagulls, and no big white snowy egrets.  Just miles and miles of soya beans and small wildflower patches.  Getting used to the local dialect.  My wife finds it strange, but much easier to understand than the local Boston dialect and the local Columbus dialect.  English is my native language, so I don't find it difficult to understand.  Just difficult on the ears.  Well, I got used to Columbus-speak, so I'm sure I'll get used to Cedar Falls-speak.  I miss the hummingbirds that used to sip from the memosa trees outside our windows.  Don't miss the poverty or humidity, though.  Those ice-rocks falling from the sky are a bit unsettling.

Cycling is great here.  The city has about a hundred miles of asphalt or cement trails within its limits, and three, count 'em, three gen-yu-wine bicycle shops.  One huge one in a shopping mall about two blocks away.  Lots of folks cycling.  There's a nice trail I can access about three blocks away that I can takes me all the way to Wal-Mart and beyond.  I could ride to Wal-Mart every day and never ride on a street or sidewalk!  Nice.

Funny thing, my wife's mother has been to iowa.  She has only been to the USA once, briefly.  And only visited three states:  Massachusetts, New York, and Iowa.  Oddly.  So Iowa was at least a place she'd had some feel for.  You should hear my mother-in-law when we moved from California to Mississippi three years ago.  Well, she doesn't speak my language, and I don't speak hers, but it was pretty clear that she'd never heard of Mississippi and wanted to know more about where her daughter was moving, so she went down to the local DVD store and rented whatever the official movie-censoring police types were letting people rent at the time.  And it was all stuff like Mississippi Burning and Mississippi Marsala.  Needless to say she was rather uneasy about the move to Faulkner Country, and was delighted to hear that we were moving to soybean country for a while.  And yes, soya has overtaken corn as the state's number one agricultural crop, thankyouverymuch.  We consume lots of soya products in the angus household. 

[WalterMitty]

I missed your relocation to corn country. Are you teaching there?

I was born on the north side of Chicago, so my allegiances were set at birth. However, I moved out of the city before I entered school, so I have no problem rooting for the Sox on occasion. My daughter is psyched to go to her first MLB game at Wrigley on July 30.

Guess I have only been through the city on several occasions, but never really had any business there.  Will try to catch either a cubs or sox game while there.  I have a hobby of visiting major league parks, and have been to about half of them now.

it is my goal to visit all the mlb ballparks.  however, due to my lack of financial resources, that goal may take many years.  as of now, ive only been to two...pittsburgh and boston.

angus, are you a serious baseball fan, or a casual fan?

[angus]

well, I played baseball in high school, but not in college.  And I have played casually over the years, and on some casual intramural softball teams and on a city league softball league.  I have always enjoyed playing and watching the sport.  It's a mathematician's game.  It's one of the few all-american sports in which nerds can excel, if they're interested in it and have some hand-eye coordination.  I wouldn't say I follow it avidly, and can't name all the big stars just now, but I too want to eventually visit all the parks.  And, it's more environmentally friendly than skiing, scuba-diving, and off-roading on all-terrain vehicles.  (that last sentence was mostly to justify the post in the thread, but it's accurate.)

[Redefeatbush04]

The two big ones are that I normally drink nothing but tap water (well....and a few moxies here and there). And also that I bike instead of drive when I need something downtown.

[Nym90]

Drive a small economical car, walk whenever possible, recycle, buy energy saving light bulbs, reduce electricity consumption as much as possible. Don't have air conditioning at all in my home (not really needed here for the most part). Turn down the heat in the winter and wear sweaters instead.

[David S]

Many of the local restaurants around here have switched to CFL lights or are in the process of switching. I think that's more an example of free market economics than concern for global warming. No one forced them to do this. They did it because it makes economic sense.  In one restaurant I counted about 50 CFLs. Using a back-of-the-envelope calculation I figured they probably save well over $1000 a year in energy costs. So for an investment of $100 in CFLs they save $1000 a year. That's an investment any good capitalist would make.

I think this is a good thing. When innovators come up with economical ways of reducing energy use it makes sense to do it, and the consumer is usually quite happy to do so.

BTW -Next time you're dining out and you see some nut counting the light bulbs that might be me.