Letters to the Editor
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as a resident of central Illinois.......
I invite you to "truck" yourself over to Peoria, Illinois where the main CAT plant is located; if you can find Chicago, Illinois and St Louis, Missouri, then you can find Peoria; it is about halfway between St Louis and Chicago
if China is investing heavily in mining equipment, why is it suddenly immoral for businesses that are still located in the USA (and not outsourced to Timbuktu) to dive in for a share of the money being spent?
back in the 1980's, the Springfield, Illinois plant of Fiat-Allis (formerly the Wisconsin based company known as Allis Chalmers) was forced to close when Ronald Reagan petulantly killed a huge order for large earth moving equipment destined for the Soviet Union on the grounds that the "Evil Empire" did not deserve American equipment.
and, by the way, Illinois has the most proven coal reserves of anywhere in the world
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Why is it the Bloggerati in developed countries
Are the only people violently opposed to the development of all the misfortunates elsewhere? I need all the contributing editors from Salon to go to rural China and tell those people how they have to starve and freeze in the dark for the good of the polar bears.
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Two Words, One Name
Rachel Corrie
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Dumptrucks don't cause global warming...
People driving dumptrucks cause global warming! ;-)
China is building the infrastructure to support a middle class. I don't think yelling "stop!" is going to be effective in halting that process. I think, instead, we need to find ways to have 6 billion people in the world be middle class. That's going to take some changes in practice (no land fills, instead all waste streams are captured, all houses are built with the best green technologies available, middle class housing returns to foot-traffic size, etc.) and some changes in definition (rather than being defined by the stuff you own, perhaps it is a measure of literacy, leisure, and access to health care).
On another point, I don't think we'll ever put the entire potential carbon production into the price of a vehicle. What if the trucks are powered by waste veggie oil and used to move food waste to a centralized composting facility? Carbon taxes have to go into the fuel prices.
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Don't blame the toolmakers...
... they are just responding to market signals for equipment. As far as I know, they aren't financing the mines or anything.
CAT, Deere, Komatsu et al. would do just fine supporting renewable energy construction. Those wind turbines don't install themselves. In fact, John Deere is actively in wind power: http://www.deere.com/en_US/jdc/product_financing/wind_energy/about/index.html
Same with biofuels (are they evil or good today? I lost track). Tractors running on biodiesel, baby. Deere currently puts a token amount of biodiesel in machines at the factory: http://www.deere.com/en_US/newsroom/2005/releases/farmersandranchers/050201_biodiesel.html
Cat doesn't strike me as a particularly green company (though they have a sustainability report, huzzah), but I have a hard time blaming them. They're just an enabler, and if they didn't supply the trucks, someone else would.
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And I forgot Volvo Trucks...
They have a full-life lifecycle calculator online: http://www.volvo.com/trucks/global/en-gb/aboutus/environmental_care/Environmental_Product_Declaration/epd_calculator.htm
They have also committed to low/zero carbon factories:
http://www.volvo.com/trucks/global/en-gb/aboutus/environmental_care/co2freeproduction/
Not bad, in my book.
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Hey anonymous,
I have an idea:
I'll volunteer to cover the cost difference between the cost of a new Chinese coal plant and a new Chinese wind turbine with equivalent output (not capacity, output). In exchange, I get to say that I have, what's a good word... offset some of my own emissions (which are not cost-effective to reduce much further than I already have thru conservation, etc.). Which I have, because I've displaced new coal-fired output with wind output.
Pretty sweet- Net CO2 emissions rise much less than they otherwise would have (before they go down they have to first go up less), it doesn't cost me much, and the Chinese people get their juice. And polar bears get to hang onto their ice for a couple more years.
Companies like 3Phases offer precisely these sorts of offsets.
And yet offsets have such a bad name in some quarters, which pisses me off. It's voluntary action and market signals, and it works. Why the bad press?
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3 Gorges
3 Gorges; the largest hydro power dam project ever was/is responsible for massive environmental ravaging. At one point the PRC seriously considered nuclear landmines to clear the earth. It's THAT large. I am convinced that the blogerati class have no earthly clue WTF the actual energy demands of China are. But as I said if you're willing to drive out to the sticks like a latter day Party official and exhort the masses to die for the greater good, be my guest.
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Bigger Trucks=Lower Carbon Emissions
Let's face it. People are going to burn coal, because it's an easy, reliable power source. There is not nearly enough money out there to build nuclear plants or wind-energy generators for all of rural China. The up-front costs are staggering.
Now, we can either put all that coal onto a fleet of small trucks vastly multiplying the fuel to payload ratio, or we can put it all on one really big truck and make the best of a bad situation.
I personally take offense to you blaming Caterpillar or the 797b for doing nothing more than stimulating our economic growth on the international market. And while we're on the topic of sanctimonious rhetoric, let's remember that the U.S. still has 20% higher carbon emissions than China despite having less than 1/4 the population. So, enjoy your commuter car, and the goods brought to you across the country on diesel-powered trucks and trains, and try to gain a little perspective.
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Armored what?
What in god's name is an 'armored face conveyor'?
I am pretty sure Andrew was being more than just a little bit facetious by calling dump trucks the enemy of the human race.
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Health Andrew, health and 'the economy'.
Enough pollution of the air , the water or even the food and...
Consequent illness or unavailability of labour...
[unless sequestered somehow - The Lost World or Shangri-La - perhaps
from the wider world.]
Production falls and pollution feeds back into the equation.
Such a thing might evoke special concerns if said
industrial fat-cat's own fat-cat family or fat-cat self
were exposed.
Besides, Mordor sucks...existentially.