Ah, you knew it had to happen. Taking a page from the “smoking kills” campaigns, the McKibbenites are petitioning the land of fruits and nuts to put new warning labels on gas pumps warning buyers about the evils of gasoline use as it pertains to global warming.
And, given that California’s governor Jerry brown was recently scared shitless at AGU by a hyped up presentation by Penn State’s Dr. Richard Alley, he’ll probably help these folks get it into law. I wrote then:
I shudder to think what sort of influence Alley’s rantings might have on the people of California via Brown.
Here’s the proposed label:
My view is that it will probably get about as much attention from consumers as the idiotic Global Warming Labels for cars in California, that are even required on electric cars (which is why I gave up on trying to sell them in 2008, but that’s another story) because apparently consumers are too stupid to figure out that electric motors don’t directly emit gases.
Does anyone except the most zealotous of buyers really care? Generally not, looks, features, color, price, performance, and mileage are still the biggest factors in determining an automobile purchase.
So, even if the McKibbenites manage to get this into law, it will likely have about as much impact as this sticker already slapped onto new car doors and the side of gas pumps in California from Proposition 65 in 1986:
![prop_65[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/prop_651.jpg?quality=83)
People still need to get from point A to point B, like to work, and will generally consider that need above all others. Basically the new global warming gasoline warning label as proposed will just be a subtle form of harassment from the minority McKibbenites on the majority of Californians.
The local chapter of the McKibbenite sect thinks the label should look like this:
350BayArea.org has released this mock up of what a climate change warning label might look like on a gas pump. (350BayArea.org)
I keep hoping environmental zealots will be forced to wear a warning label. Maybe something like “Warning: Irrational and emotionally based statements (and odors) may emanate from this individual, keep 10 feet back.”
(h/t to a bunch of people, you know who you are.)
None of these bastards should ever be allowed on a plane again.
@ur momisugly Caroline Cowboy (re: 7:18pm today) You could start with this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/03/cooks-97-consensus-disproven-by-a-new-paper-showing-major-math-errors/
I found it by entering “peer review” into the WUWT search box (hint, hint, — smile).
If your own research into this doesn’t pan out, do ask again. There are MANY informed (far more than I) and kind people here, one of whom will help you (if they have the time).
OH, BROTHER! Sorry about that, Carolina Cowboy. Just a typo, nothing else.
Thanks for sharing your dream car, Mac. VERY cool. Go, non-ethanol gasoline!
I hope you own one (or one similar to it) someday. Start planning for it!
Priceless, “scared Shitless”.
Yes. The AGU has indeed wandered far afield from the original intent.
Sad.
A once honorable society dives to the depths of quackery and sociopathic nonsense on a grand scale payed for by … “members.”
As on 1 January 2014, I am most-definitely not a “member” of this incestuous tribe of neanderthals of the likes of its “President” and “Executives.”
May ‘God’ forgive them, … I will not!
Why dont you guys hand CA back to the Mexicans? Problem solved!
more laughs:
26 mins: 6 Jan: BBC Discovery: The Return to Mawson’s Antarctica – Part Four
10mins in: Tracey Rogers: this stuff is massive & everywhere, we’re in a sea of multi-year-ice, which is unusual for Antarctica, which is why we’re here in this region. it’s so iced up. ….it’s probably changed the environment here.
Luck-Baker: u work a lot in the west where there has been warming, i guess something else is going on here.
Tracey Rogers: that’s exactly right. that’s why we really wanted to come to this region. we talk about global warming, really climate change. u get some areas of warming, & some areas are experiencing different things. the trend in west antarctic sea ice is receding, but here it’s growing.
this is something completely different. it’s another example how the system is changing, it was not like this before. the system’s responding in different places differently; in some areas u r seeing flooding, in some u r seeing cyclones, here u r seeing this multi-multi-year ice.
Greg Mortimer: it is an extraordinary event etc etc. cough ball. cataclysmic event…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01nrh3l/Discovery_The_Return_To_Mawsons_Antarctica_Part_Four/
UNSW School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences: Tracey Rogers
Associate Professor Tracey Rogers:
Field of Research:
Predator-prey interactions, communication, Antarctic wildlife.
Reseach & Current Projects:
The common thread of my rather diverse research is the attempt to understand how mammals respond to change.
How has the recent warming off the Western Antarctic influenced the predator guild (changing food webs, morphological changes)…
http://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/tracey-rogers
Good for you, SIG INT Ex. I’m sure that was neither an easy nor a happy decision. Way to go, taking a stand for truth. If I were in your shoes, I would look for a group called something like the “Reformed AGW.” And if it did not exist, I would start one. Those guys that quit the AMS last summer (spring?) over it’s AGW propaganda should form such a group. The “Reformed … Societies” (American Physical Society is another one — Harold Lewis (now deceased, I believe) resigned from them — theirs could be the Harold Lewis Society), once funding for AGW dries up, would become the de facto societies, for all the genuine scientists of integrity would join them — and if that culls out those who are now lying and calling it “science,” TERRIFIC!
Blame the east coast, Anthony. We let all sorts of irresponsible teenagers run away “California Dreaming,” back during the summer-of-love, and your state got all our refuse and riffraff. They might have done well, had they not fried their brains with drugs, creating a population of basically incapable thinkers.
Every time I pick up some basically harmless stuff, and read on the label, “The State of California has determined this item harmful because you might poke your eye out,” I feel guilty for passing the buck, and forcing California to endure the worst sort of earthquake, namely: A million stoned hippies arriving in something like five years. (1966-1971.)
I’d say the nation would be better off if California fell into the ocean, however the pressures created by that insane state can be like the pressures deep under earth that turn black carbon to sparkling diamonds, and perhaps WUWT is a website like a diamond, created by California’s loony-tune pressures.
Likely Governor Brown will insist WUWT wear a label, “The state of California has determined that this website is like a diamond, and because diamonds are pure carbon, and because carbon is evil, this website must cause cancer, Global Warming, and likely balding children.”
I’ve made that typo before! Arrgh — “Reformed AGU” — Freudian, GOTTA BE.
Fast alright! But, using a hand-built engine with 32-valve DOHC heads rather than the usual Chevrolet 16-Valve OHV Heads … built by specialty engine builder, Mercury Marine in Stillwater, OK and thoroughly different from any of the other Chevrolet 350 engines of the time too …
Have to give it credit for being fast though!
.
Patrick says:
“Why dont you guys hand CA back to the Mexicans? Problem solved!”
If they want it… they will just have to come and take it.
They’ve tried before…
RokShox says:
January 10, 2014 at 1:55 pm
“…Hell, half of them probably don’t even realize gasoline is a fossil fuel.”
Heh, heh, well I realize it because I fuel both of my fossils with gasoline.
Pat Frank says:
January 10, 2014 at 11:14 am
“…It frosts me every time I see an electric bus or car with a “zero emissions vehicle” sign. It’s a lie. The sign should say ‘exported emissions vehicle.’”
Or better yet, “Premature Emission Vehicle”
re: Mac the Knife says January 10, 2014 at 7:52 pm ” _Jim and Janice, …”
Truth be told, since we’re talking GM cars here, I’ve had the good fortune to own/drive a number of GM’s V8 350 CID engines over the years, nominally ‘police package’ B-body Caprices … first was a lt. blue 1986 with a Rochester Quadrajet carb mounted atop the intake manifold … took a few seconds for that ‘Saturn V’ to fully light (get the secondaries to open fully) THEN the excitement started … the most nimble (excellent suspension tuning on that particular model) was a dark blue 1990 Caprice with “Throttle Body” injection; very responsive throttle compared to the big, ‘lethargic’ Quadrajet … the last in the GM series was a 1994 Caprice with an L99 engine … the little 4.3 L ‘brother’ to the 1990s 5.7L LT1 GM series … the 4.3L L99 with port fuel injection is VERY responsive and except for top end performance you would never know it was a small 8!
The only other car in the ‘police package’ category was a 1991 3.8L V6-engined Ford Taurus … the suspension on that car allowed cornering as if it were a ‘rocket on rails’ … sweet car if it weren’t for maintenance issues (notably air conditioning and front CV joints).
The ’83 Euro-model ‘gray market’ 500SEL import still in the garage – another story altogether and for another time …
.
@ur momisugly _Jim — Thanks for sharing, Jim. Sounds like you’ve had a lot of fun getting from here to there. Re: the (wince) Ford… “Ford Taurus … maintenance issues… ” — of course. (not to mention the boring appearance, too) Glad THAT one is no longer in your garage. #(:))
I wish Mario Lento were here, he would have had a highly-informed thing or two to share on this sub-topic I am sure!
Mario! … Mario? Are you okay? We’ve missed you.
_Jim says:
January 10, 2014 at 9:02 pm
Good stuff, _Jim! Thanks for the memories!
My brother had a 1991 Caprice with the police package on it. It was a sweet handling and surprisingly quick ride, for a full sized sedan! My favorite V8 was my first: A 1969 Firebird, with the ‘HO’ 325hp 350 cube V8, a heavy duty clutch, close ratio 4 speed, and limited slip rear differential. I bought it in the spring of ’74 and paid $1,375 for it. It had 34,000 miles on it, I was 19 years old, and the police were being forced into the new ‘smog control’ low powered cars! Yeeeee Haaaawww!
It also had a 650 cfm ‘spreadbore’ Quadrajet carburetor, with a half second throttle lag when you busted the throttle wide open, just like yours! Setting the accelerator pump up to a longer stroke and a tweek to the secondary enrichment circuit improved it a bunch but the real cure was a properly set up (used) Holley ‘square bore’ 4 barrel carb…. and a second hand Edlebrock intake manifold.
The engine had a flaw however. Pontiac used a nylon overlay on their cam timing chain gears, to reduce cam chain noise. One bitterly cold morning (-22F) in WI, the nylon separated from the cam gear, the cam went out of time, and the engine went from 2500 rpm to zero with a ‘thunk’. Broken valves were embedded in pistons (this was a close tolerance 10.5-to-1 compression engine) and I had an engine rebuild on my hands. As I was going to a tech school at the time (for automechanics!), this became my major project. I reassembled the engine basically ‘stock’ but with a whole bunch of small, tweeky ‘clean ups’ and mass balancing of rods, pistons, pins, crankshaft, etc that I did myself. It also received solid steel cam gears and a higher lift & duration cam shaft. The factory engine was limited to a 5200 rpm redline, largely because it had cast iron connecting rods. During the rebuild, I blended the rough cast surfaces of the connecting rods smooth and shot peened them to reduce stress raisers and improve their fatigue resistance.
With the help of the tech school instructors, we used the in-floor dynamometer and diagnostics to set the timing and mechanical advance for optimal performance, and debugged some small ignition and carb issues on my newly installed engine. I ended up with a pretty crisp ride for relatively small dollars! All of the small improvements to the engine internals gave me an engine that was reliable and still pulling strong at 6500rpm. Did you know you can do quarter mile runs on an in-floor dyno??!! Way cool for a kid just turning 20! At the drag strip, I managed the quarter mile at 97mph/14.2 sec. Not to shabby, without changing to radial ‘slicks’…..
Changes to tires and suspension added much needed handling improvements… but that’s another story as well. Yep – Another unrepentant gear head here!
Mac
It’s kinda like the warning posted on my windshield shade: “Do not drive vehicle with shade installed!”. Serioulsy.
Gearheads Rock! — American driving spirit lives!
“Little Deuce Coupe”
“Shut Down”
Best of all….
There is hope! — There are millions of little gearheads out there right now!
— and they are NOT into hybrids, heh.
(popularity of “Cars” and “Cars 2” is strong evidence… yea!)
“We’re the Kids of the Future”
Take that, you Envirostalinist car-hate-rs!
LOL, you were passed and lapped a loooooong time ago. All those little babies born just as the warming stopped? They are now 18. And they drive…. and they will vote.
@ur momisugly Skeptic Gone Wild — lol, just one more attempt to make the world idiot-proof. Almost certainly, there is a plaintiff out there (watch out, she or he could be heading down a road near you) who did just that and sued the manufacturer, blaming his or her stupidity on the defendant corporation. They likely settled, but, word got around to all the manufacturers and foreverafter, that sticker will be there. Just like the “Do not insert fingers into mower while running” sticker and… on and on.
Bless you, Janice!
Were you the kind of gal that would pour the bleach down on the local back road ‘drag strip’ AND flag the cars off at the line? Or were you driving…..? };>)
I was in England a few months ago and in one of the hotels I stayed in there were signs on the basic and shower: Warning: Hot water may cause burns and scaling.
Methinks the nanny state is going a bit far with warnings like that. It’s all about protection from lawsuits which just means we need a few less silly activist ambulance-chasing lawyers
@Wally – in California, they are considering putting warning labels on all taps that read: WARNING – Hydrogen Hydroxide has been know to cause death by suffocation and Global Warming!
I don’t know about most of you but I ignore all these labels on things they are just like most advertising it just passes me by which must be heart breaking for all those trying to sell me stuff or get me to behave in a certain way, having said that some ads do stay with me but not for the right reasons!
The best warning label I have seen was this one.
WARNING LIFE CAN BE DANGEROUS.
James Bull
Rather brings to mind a Winston Churchill quote: “always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have exhausted all the other possibilities”. Hmm: “exhausted” – rather apt!
I do hope they’ll factor in the cost of the meetings it took to come up with this, the cost of having the stickers designed, printed, cut, the waste involved in the production, the vinyl and the ink consumed, the packaging, warehousing and distribution, the cost of having them taken out to gas stations in nasty old fossil fuelled vans, and stuck on the pumps by a guy who gets paid for doing that, setting up and running the related website, and what the *ahem* “carbon footprint” is of the entire process is and how much public fuel consumption they’d need to reduce to offset the latest ignorant, conceited, holier-than-thou exercise by the Eco-Taleban.