Tag: emissions

One-Fifth of Americans are Responsible for Half the Country’s Food-Based Emissions

Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer

Via Popular Science

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There’s no such thing as a truly average American. With more than 300 million people, it’s impossible for one person to perfectly embody the average or median for a set of variables, especially something as personal as what we eat. But usually when you hear about the U.S. diet, you’re hearing about the quintessential meat-eatin’ soda-guzzlin’ ‘Merican as a stand-in for us all.

Until recently, we had no idea how right or wrong that hypothetical average human’s diet might be. We knew that American diets varied a lot, just not how much or in what ways, exactly. That variability matters a lot to some people though—namely, it matters if you want to change how people eat.

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OJ is Free – But Audi Executive is in a Cage

Guest Post by Eric Peters

A barometer of the insanity of our times is that you’ll be hounded to the gates of Hell for “cheating” the government but if you kill someone it is No Big Deal.

Especially if you work for the government.

Rupert Stadler worked for Audi. So he’s going to jail. Stadler was frog-marched out of his home the other day by German government workers over his “role” in the emissions “cheating” business. He is the highest-ranking VW/Audi executive to be persecuted (whoops! prosecuted) by the Authorities to date over the automaker’s horrific crime of building its cars to pass government tests.

As readers of this scurvy site are well-aware, the “cheating” isn’t really why VW/Audi is being hounded. No evidence has been produced that even a single person was harmed by what VW/Audi did – which is the same thing every car company does (viz, design their vehicles to pass the various tests – just like SOLs for kids entombed in government schools).

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And Then They Came For the Big Rigs

Guest Post by Eric Peters

No one appears to have noticed this yet. But they will.

Not on the road – or at the car dealership.

At the supermarket.   

For openers.

Uncle is “proposing” a “program” (the soft-sell language hides the reality of regulations issued by an unelected bureaucracy – EPA – which will be extremely mandatory) in order to “Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Improve Fuel Efficiency (their exact language, in the EPA’s pretentious Federal All Caps Style)  of “Medium, and Heavy Duty Vehicles.”

Cashing Out

Guest Post by Eric Peters

A moment came when Captain Smith knew the Titanic was doomed – and from that moment on, saving the ship was no longer important.VW execs

Surviving the inevitable sinking was.

This seems to be the case with VW. Like Titanic, the company is taking on water.

You can feel the list.

People are looking for the exits.

The trade publication Automotive News reports that about half the roughly half-million owners of diesel-powered Volkswagens fingered by Uncle want cash rather than their cars.

This is understandable, if regrettable.

First, there’s no fixing the “affected” cars. That is not the right word. To make them Uncle-compliant, it will be necessary to break them in some way. Whether it’s a new/reprogrammed ECU – the computer that controls the engine – or something more involved, such as physical modifications to the vehicle – it will not run better afterward.

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Now Harley

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Now Harley’s being nailed to the cross.Harley lead

For “cheating” Uncle’s emissions rigmarole, like VW was accused of doing (and admited to doing).

This being like “cheating” speed traps by using a radar detector.

In each case, there being no evidence of tangible harm caused to anyone. Except, of course, an aggrieved Uncle. And he’s not even real, just shorthand for the collection of apparatchiks who, collectively, comprise this entity called the government.

But if they can’t produce a victim, what’s the evidence of harm? And if there’s no evidence of harm caused, how can there be a crime?

Harley’s “crime” – despite the lack of a victim – is that it sold kits over the counter that owners could use to tune their bikes for better performance and mileage. As in the VW case, the adjustments are claimed to have – and probably did – slightly increase exhaust emissions.

Emphasis on slightly.

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The VW “Scandal”

Guest Post by Eric Peters

This could kill VW – until recently (until last week) the world’s largest car company.VW lead 1

But unlike say the exploding Pinto fiasco this is not a story about defective cars. It is a story about defective public policy.

None of the VW cars now in the crosshairs are unreliable, dangerous or shoddily built. They were simply programmed to give their owners best-case fuel economy and performance. Software embedded within each vehicle’s computer – which monitors and controls the operation of the engine – would furtively adjust those parameters slightly to sneak by emissions tests when the vehicle was plugged in for testing. But once out on the road, the calibrations would revert to optimal – for mileage and performance.

Now, the hysterical media accounts of the above make it seem that the alteration via code of the vehicles’ exhaust emissions was anything but slight. Shrill cries of up to “40 times” the “allowable maximum” echo across the land.

Well, true.

But, misleading. 

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