or releiving yourself after you walk out of the bar... and then..

walking home, of course.

Did anyone see the 60 minutes special on Canadian Oil sands. Now with an additional supply of oil, my next 4runner should be a V12.

not to mention all the oil in the gulf that we can't drill (can't drill within 200 miles of shoreline) the amount of oil there can make us independent of middle east oil for the next 52 years :-x

Who made Thai KING ! Is he the almighty creator ? This is a good website but come on Thai. Are you just going to delete a good post like this one ? This person put time into this thread. Why even brag about you power to delete just do it. And send a PM to the thread starter

Take a chill pill! There is a tendency for these kind of threads to get out of hand, especially if it involves politics, religion, etc.. Thus, my warning. Keep it civil and to the topic at hand. Like i said, i find this topic very interesting, esp. when i have not read up on it.

There is no debate on this. Please review the forum rules before posting another *****y response. See: http://www.toyota-4runner.org/showth...&threadid=5809

Thanks.

P.S.: and yes, i am the founder and creator of this forum.

I personally am not concerned about global warming.

I could get into a bunch of reasons/beleifs why , but don't want to get into a pissin match .

As far as I'm concerned one of the direction's being taken like the Hybrid Hype is the biggest load of crap. Consumer's are sucking it up like crazy.

nuff said !

I hold 2 degrees in Biology (BS in Ecological Sciences, and a MS in Genetics). I had 2 professors in back to back classes that both had air-tight cases for their theories... First professor stated Global Warming was here and we were making it happen at an alarming rate. The second professor stated Global Cooling was here and we were directly responsible. Who was right? Oddly enough, one of my genetics professors partnered with a Archaelogical professor to perform scans of material from tens of thousands of years ago who showed proof that the earth cycles through warming and cooling periods, some of which were fairly rapid (i.e. over 50-100 years) some of which took longer. While I agree that humans are contributing to the global warming problem, I don't agree that immediately ceasing our current activities will change the climate. Climactic change is gradual and cumulative. If you compare the amount of time humans have been on the earth to the amount of time the earth has been around, you could think about the history of the earth spanning a time table the height of the 20 story Building. The history of humans on that same time table would be the equivalent of the thickness of a single piece of paper on top of that building.

And if you think humans cannot effect an environmental change, think of this... If we exterminated all of the bees in the world, all life on the planet would die within a year.

I think we can more directly affect climactic change by advancing new techologies for cleaner buring combustion and finding ways to restore the balance (instead of listening to the guy who invented the Internet).

I like the earlier analogy. We are "ants on the basketball." Many things we as people do may contribute to the cause of the extinction of the world as we know it. The industrial revolution may hasten the process of global warming. How does all the energy converted in the nuclear arms tests and detonations of the recent past compare to the natural energy expelled by volcanoes or earthquakes over the millenia?
How can I, as a single "ant", possibly delay the warming process? Let's take solar or wind power as examples. The short sighted view is that it is clean enrgy. In fact, it causes as much pollution to create these items (mining materials, steel and plastic manufacturing, fabricating, etc...) as any other turbines and infrastructure. I'm not saving anything or anybody. I may delay it slightly.
The way I see it, we are within natural cycles of ice ages. Guess what? No matter what we do the next one is coming!
If the end is coming, then so be it. In the mean time, you own a T4R so fill up and enjoy the ride.


Off topic,

Thank you VERY much. This forum is very enjoyable.
LONG LIVE THE KING!

Global warming is a long term issue. It is like religon, some people believe one thing, others another. I think it is a problem.

But I'm far more concerend about other environmental problems affecting us now; polluted rivers, streams, oceans, smog, sewage, mecury in fish, over development etc. These things affect me everyday. I'd like to see them addressed first. And I don't think driving my 4Runner at 19 MPG is a big deal.

My 3 cents:

1c: How do I cope with driving a gas-swilling SUV? EASY - I try to ride my road bike to work most days. I have also studied bus routes but none work out right.

2c: A mid-1990s study out of Germany looked at the pollution lifecycle of a "standard sized" car (they generally drive smaller cars then we do). The tailpipe emmisions equated to 1/3 of the total pollution impact. The other 2/3s were roughly equally distributed between manufacturing and the final disposal of the vehicle (which would have been more expensive/higher impact in Europe than here).

3c: I'm not a fan of the hybrid/battery/even zero emmissions cars. WHAT did I just say?!?! yep - even if all cars produced zero emmissions, we have not addressed the impact of the automobile on us. To sum up, our car culture hurts us in quite a few different ways, wether or not we produce emmissoins while "living a car culture". How many people here realize that all the semi-trailers transporting goods are running between 1-5mpg? Again, just not efficient!

And why do I drive a 4Runner? The exclusive reason is to take my entire family to the cottage during the summer season. We used to take the train (a very efficient method of transport) but the service has been discontinued. If I did not have this requirement I'd have a nice fuel sipping wagon or hatchback of some sort. For off-roading, I prefer a mountain bike anyway.


J.

ok -THAT- might be a little extreme

Actually it's true. Without the pollenation effects from the bees, fruit and vegatables would not be produced, most of the vegatation could not reproduce and would not be able to support the amount of life we have on this planet for long periods.

Another interesting fact is that without scavengers (such as flies) we would polute our world with waste and the off-gassing and waste products would make the planet inhabitable within 1-2 years.

But alas, I diverge from the topic...

Hmm let's see....2 stroke snowmobile, boat with no emission control, Vette with straight pipes.....I'd say a 4Runner would be the least of my worries.


Northof49 - environmental jackass that doesn't like bees anyways

Ok...Boston kevin, you're scaring the crap out of me because i like to kill bees around my house! And i hate flies!

Kmvreter, thanks for your support. (your check is in the mail....)

Wow...that is my cool fact for the day, if you could direct me to a web link for this, I would be most appreciative. A quick search gave me tons of non-related stuff.

This is a good topic. I am glad this site allows discussion that strays from site specific contect. I like the thoughts of the people that challenge facts/beliefs/morals, regardless of whether I believe/agree with them.