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Clunkers' Effect on Pollution? A Blip

The Prof

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From ABC News, an AP piece, written by Science Writer Seth Borenstein, August 4

`Cash for Clunkers' Effect on Pollution? A Blip - ABC News

1. The Clunker Conjecture amounts to ONE HOUR PER YEAR of global warming

2. It saves 4.5 hours worth of gasoline, nation wide

"Cash for clunkers" could have the same effect on global warming pollution as shutting down the entire country — every automobile, every factory, every power plant — for an hour per year. That could rise to three hours if the program is extended by Congress and remains as popular as it is now.

Climate experts aren't impressed.

Compared to overall carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, the pollution savings from cash for clunkers do not noticeably move the fuel gauge. Environmental experts say the program — conceived primarily to stimulate the economy and jump-start the auto industry — is not an effective way to attack climate change.

"As a carbon dioxide policy, this is a terribly wasteful thing to do," said Henry Jacoby, a professor of management and co-director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT. "The amount of carbon you are saving per federal expenditure is very, very small."

Officials expect a quarter-million gas guzzlers will be junked under the original $1 billion set aside by Congress — money that is now all but exhausted.

Calculations by The Associated Press, using Department of Transportation figures, show that replacing those fuel hogs will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by just under 700,000 tons a year. While that may sound impressive, it's nothing compared to what the U.S. spewed last year: nearly 6.4 billion tons (and that was down from previous years).

That means on average, every hour, America emits 728,000 tons of carbon dioxide. The total savings per year from cash for clunkers translates to about 57 minutes of America's output of the chief greenhouse gas.

Likewise, America will be using nearly 72 million fewer gallons of gasoline a year because of the program, based on the first quarter-million vehicles replaced. U.S. drivers go through that amount of gas every 4 1/2 hours, according to the Department of Energy.

3. The credibility of Clunkers is crashing cuz most of the cars purchased---for the express purpose of pumping up the US economy---are foreign brands

4. It also demands the destruction of millions of dollars of assett, used cars that could help thousands of Americans get to work or shuttle about their families, it looks to skew screwy the pre-owned car market, it appears to be a drag on auto mechanics and parts suppliers, etc

4. In the name of environmentalism it looks to scrap tons of landfill, it pours liquid glass into engines, rendering worthless the most recyclable parts of discarded cars, wreckers don't want em, for instance...

5. As law, it's typically clumsy and ad hoc in its conception and execution, like Keystone Kops

6. It's also pertinent that the preference of consumers, when it comes to the few American cars they ARE buying, is for Ford, which did NOT receive a bailout, over Govt Motors, as the latter is apparently perceived as less solvent in the long run


The Prof
 
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Wait! You mean that we aren't going to stop global warming and wean ourselves from oil by replacing well under 1% of the nation's cars and spending under 1/100 of a percent of our GDP? Seriously? Why do we bother to collect taxes at all? Obviously, we should hire private companies to create sun-reflecting clouds of water vapor or pump sulfur into the atmosphere. And disband the EPA.
 
It's also worth noting that new cars don't spring out of thin air. They cost energy (read: pollution) to make.

Professor Michael Gerrard said what is good for the economy could also have benefited the environment. But he noted the law fell well short of that goal.

“It was sold as good for the auto industry, good for the environment and good for energy security,” Gerrard said. “It was sold as a three-fer. It’s more of a one-fer.”

...

In turn, Gerrard noted that will result in small reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gases if at all, especially when the energy costs of building the new cars are factored in.

Any energy savings, Gerrard said, could take several years to realize after taking into account what he calls “carbon dioxide payback time,” the time it takes the fuel savings from a new car to exceed the energy cost used to make a new vehicle.
 
I'll be honest, I'm not really sold on this "buy American" when it comes to cars. I mena, if I buy American, I inevitably am supporting the UAW which I don't like. If I buy a foreign made car, say a BMW, which has a plant 1 hour south of me, or a Subaru which has a plant in Indiana, I am supporting non-union jobs in this country. The money at the top is going to somewhere overseas, but people that high up aren't really my concern. It seems I support American workers no matter what car I buy.

But its a moot point, since I'll never buy a new car anyway. I always buy used.
 
What's an hour of global warming anyway?
 
72 Million gallons of gasoline less? More supply = lower prices. I'm down for that. It gives businesses business. It gives people with bad cars more money when you subtract the need to replace their crappy car, the gas prices, and the repair prices. It supports the American economy. It also helps the environment at the same time, what's not to like? Btw, one hour of AMERICA'S consumption of gasoline isn't the same thing as one hour of an American's consumption of gasoline. If the government gave a person a dollar, sure you could say that "it's only a dollar" but if the government gave EVERYONE a dollar? That's hundreds of millions of dollars.
 
72 Million gallons of gasoline less? More supply = lower prices.

That's a "blip" in the grand scheme of things.

It gives businesses business.

Only after necessarily taking away business from businesses.

It gives people with bad cars more money when you subtract the need to replace their crappy car, the gas prices, and the repair prices.

It gives them more debt.

It supports the American economy.

It stimulates the economy by necessarily destimulating it.

It also helps the environment at the same time,

This has a MINIMAL effect on the environment.

what's not to like?

Pretty much everything.
 
That's a "blip" in the grand scheme of things.

Sure, if 72 million gallons of gas is a blip to you, then $200 million more in stimulus money is not a big deal either since they're roughly equivalent.

Only after necessarily taking away business from businesses.
Oh? Obama caused America not to buy cars?

It gives them more debt.
In what way? You're assuming people in debt are buying these cars. I'm not.


It stimulates the economy by necessarily destimulating it.
Care to explain this?

This has a MINIMAL effect on the environment.
So you agree that it helps the environment then? Thanks. It was on my list of minor perks, but as long as it's fulfilled, then it still gets a check mark.

Pretty much everything.
Oh? Care to explain again?
 
Sure, if 72 million gallons of gas is a blip to you, then $200 million more in stimulus money is not a big deal either since they're roughly equivalent.

It's $200 million that could have been spent on a rail line or roads. There were better ways to spend that money.

Oh? Obama caused America not to buy cars?

Where is the money for this program coming from?

In what way? You're assuming people in debt are buying these cars. I'm not.

You must not know what debt is. People who are buying these cars must take out loans in order to pay for the rest of the car not covered by this program. A loan is debt.

Care to explain this?

Money that the government puts into the economy's left pocket must necessarily be taken out of the economy's right pocket.

So you agree that it helps the environment then? Thanks. It was on my list of minor perks, but as long as it's fulfilled, then it still gets a check mark.

I don't think that anyone would say that the improvement to the environment from this program is worth $200 million.
 
The whole ball of wax is nothing short of obscene.

They are using our money to subsidize car purchases then destroying perfectly
good cars. And who thinks this is a good idea???? Duh!

And for whoever was dissing the UAW the company selling the most cars is
Ford, you know, the one that didnt use our tax money and get taken over
by the messiah....all the rest are transplant car companies.

These people rushing to the dealerships, drooling over a numbers game
will have (when the dust settles) 36 to 60 months of car notes. Now
thats a real winning situation. Too bad their jobs dont come with that
much of a certainty.

And, if you dont support American jobs there will be a point at which we
will all arrive....the level playing field...level with third world countries in
income and living standard. Think that wont affect you...dream on.:boom
 
He meant it will do nothing to the price of gas. 4.5 hours, meaning 0.05% of overall consumption, and that's presuming that people don't start driving more since the cost of driving each mile has decreased (which obviously many would, eliminating any decrease in consumption).

So as the more fuel efficient cars hit the market and the less efficient cars come off of it, we'll not be getting a higher relative supply? Is that what you're saying?

Where the hell do you think the money paying for this program came from? Magical fairies raining money from on high?

Care to read my quote again? Unless you believe that Obama became President while W was still in office and prevented people from buying cars during that period too. Don't tell me you think people just recently stopped buying cars. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Well if you're not you're making a serious error in judgment by failing to take into account the demographics which are driving around the cars that qualify for this program (speaking as someone who drives a $1500 car), but beyond that buying cars is a source of debt itself. They are going to dealerships, buying cars from people who's job is to saddle people with as much debt as humanly possible.
Not really. If people can't afford a car, it'll be hard to convince a bank to give them a loan if they're already in debt. My personal idea would be to buy one of those clunkers off a poor guy for $2500 or so (even if it's only worth $1500) and then trade it in. That way I come out $2000 ahead (assuming the max $4500 trade-in), the guy comes out on top $1000, and the car lot gets business. The poor guy wouldn't be able to buy a new car anyway, so he makes $1000 and buys either a better car than he had or does something good with the money.

You're spending this money. Presumably it comes from somewhere. That money, before the government takes it out of the economy, was having a stimulative effect, making taking it out of the economy destimulative. Some of it goes back into the economy in the planned way, other parts of it go to paying for operating expenses for the bureaucracy required to administrate the program. As this money is going where the government decided it should go (which it presumably would not go if managed by people who care about price and quality, hence why the government took it in the first place), and subsequently is a less efficient manner of using the funds in the economy. As a product of this, the net effect of said program is the opposite of stimulative.

Prove that the money would be better used than if used in the stimulative package. Obama operates on taxing the rich more than the poor. The rich, by definition, have a lot of money sitting around. A lot of money sitting around does NOT help the economy.

It decreases our national by .005%. If you care about actually helping the environment, and not just patting yourself on the back about helping the environment, selling this program as an environmental program (subsequently coming at a cost to the political capital to be dedicated to future environmental programs) is a joke at best.
A joke at best? Maybe we should stop *****-footing around and do something. If this does anything helpful, it's better than not doing anything helpful. Sure, the effect might be small now, but it's not like this is the only thing Obama has done for the green movement. Also, this isn't just an environmental move. This is part of a stimulative action that just so happens to be related to the environment.

It's bad for the economy, both in damaging profitable businesses and in giving competitive advantage to unprofitable businesses. It's the UAW using the government as a means of stealing from productive citizens, and the democratically elected government is not only complicit in this, they are the ones stealing the money and giving it to the UAW. It sucks as an environmental program, it hurts the economy, it encourages people who need to save the most to increase their consumption and places them in a situation where they more than likely will take on even more debt (as obviously we haven't run into any problems from poor people taking on too much debt at any point in our recent history), there really isn't anything to like about it.

This doesn't even make sense. I already addressed most of these points above.
 
personally, i'm a little sick of helping my neighbor buy a better car than mine

i just got thru helping him pay for his house (and you should see it---3500 square feet, 5 beds, 3.5 baths, granite countertops, recessed lighting, crown molding---ALL the upgrades!!!)

my neighbor is such a FLAKE

LOL!
 
Prove that the money would be better used than if used in the stimulative package. Obama operates on taxing the rich more than the poor. The rich, by definition, have a lot of money sitting around. A lot of money sitting around does NOT help the economy.

You don't know anything about economics, so quit talking about it. You're making yourself sound like a fool.
 
You don't know anything about economics, so quit talking about it. You're making yourself sound like a fool.

Oh please. How about you teach me something rather than sitting in your chair calling people names. You know nothing about anything. See? I can do it too. When you make unjustified statements like that, you make YOURSELF sound like a fool. I justified myself, why not try it sometime?
 
Oh please. How about you teach me something rather than sitting in your chair calling people names. You know nothing about anything. See? I can do it too. When you make unjustified statements like that, you make YOURSELF sound like a fool. I justified myself, why not try it sometime?

Your uneducated statement was "A lot of money sitting around does NOT help the economy."
 
Your uneducated statement was "A lot of money sitting around does NOT help the economy."

Okay, explain how money sitting around in the banks of rich people helps the economy. Our economy prospers when there's a constant exchange of money flowing. When there is less money flowing? Our economy is going downhill. It's a recession, but economists will tell you to spend, spend, spend. It might make you a little bit poorer for a moment, but it'll help the economy. Am I wrong?
 
Okay, explain how money sitting around in the banks of rich people helps the economy. Our economy prospers when there's a constant exchange of money flowing. When there is less money flowing? Our economy is going downhill. It's a recession, but economists will tell you to spend, spend, spend. It might make you a little bit poorer for a moment, but it'll help the economy. Am I wrong?

Yes. How do you invest in the means of production?
 
If your money is sitting in a bank not doing anything, you don't.

So then all of the money that you put into a bank stays in the bank?
 
I'll be honest, I'm not really sold on this "buy American" when it comes to cars. I mena, if I buy American, I inevitably am supporting the UAW which I don't like. If I buy a foreign made car, say a BMW, which has a plant 1 hour south of me, or a Subaru which has a plant in Indiana, I am supporting non-union jobs in this country. The money at the top is going to somewhere overseas, but people that high up aren't really my concern. It seems I support American workers no matter what car I buy.

But its a moot point, since I'll never buy a new car anyway. I always buy used.

I used to buy used, back when a day old used car had only half the value it did the day before. These days, cars hold their value, and a two year old used car is not that much less than new, except it is filled with secret problems from the original owner. I buy new now.
 
Smoke[MaxX said:
]Not really. If people can't afford a car, it'll be hard to convince a bank to give them a loan if they're already in debt. My personal idea would be to buy one of those clunkers off a poor guy for $2500 or so (even if it's only worth $1500) and then trade it in. That way I come out $2000 ahead (assuming the max $4500 trade-in), the guy comes out on top $1000, and the car lot gets business. The poor guy wouldn't be able to buy a new car anyway, so he makes $1000 and buys either a better car than he had or does something good with the money.

Won't work. You have to prove you've owned the vehicle for at least one year.
Okay, explain how money sitting around in the banks of rich people helps the economy. Our economy prospers when there's a constant exchange of money flowing. When there is less money flowing? Our economy is going downhill. It's a recession, but economists will tell you to spend, spend, spend. It might make you a little bit poorer for a moment, but it'll help the economy. Am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong. Next question?
 
U.S. ‘Clunkers’ Add 0.5 Percentage Point to GDP: Chart of Day
Bloomberg News
Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy is poised to emerge from the worst postwar recession as early as this quarter, with manufacturers boosted by the government’s “cash-for-clunkers” program, according to the two biggest U.S.-owned automakers.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows the purchasing manager’s index, the annualized rate of U.S. auto sales and changes in the nation’s gross domestic product. The PMI reading in July was the highest since Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed, and the gauge’s trend signals August could be the first month since January 2008 when more manufacturers report improving business conditions than deteriorating.

“Cash for clunkers came at a very, very good time to jump-start the economy,” Mike DiGiovanni, sales analyst at Detroit-based General Motors Co., said at a teleconference. The so-called Car Allowance Rebate System, which provides credits of as much as $4,500 for the purchase of a new car when an older vehicle to be scrapped is handed over, ran through most of its initial $1 billion of funding within a week.

“If the cash-for-clunkers program is extended by the additional $2 billion that passes the Senate, it could boost third-quarter GDP by 0.5 percentage points,” DiGiovanni said.

The economy shrank at a 1 percent annual pace from April through June after contracting 6.4 percent in the first quarter. GDP will expand an annualized 1 percent in the current quarter, according to a Bloomberg survey taken last month.

“We’re close to the end of the contraction,” Emily Kolinski Morris, senior economist for Ford Motor Co., said at a separate teleconference in Dearborn, Michigan. “The pace of decline in the second-quarter GDP report was encouraging and, importantly, the inventory cycle apparently is well under way.”

Suck it
 
From ABC News, an AP piece, written by Science Writer Seth Borenstein, August 4

`Cash for Clunkers' Effect on Pollution? A Blip - ABC News

1. The Clunker Conjecture amounts to ONE HOUR PER YEAR of global warming

2. It saves 4.5 hours worth of gasoline, nation wide



3. The credibility of Clunkers is crashing cuz most of the cars purchased---for the express purpose of pumping up the US economy---are foreign brands

4. It also demands the destruction of millions of dollars of assett, used cars that could help thousands of Americans get to work or shuttle about their families, it looks to skew screwy the pre-owned car market, it appears to be a drag on auto mechanics and parts suppliers, etc

4. In the name of environmentalism it looks to scrap tons of landfill, it pours liquid glass into engines, rendering worthless the most recyclable parts of discarded cars, wreckers don't want em, for instance...

5. As law, it's typically clumsy and ad hoc in its conception and execution, like Keystone Kops

6. It's also pertinent that the preference of consumers, when it comes to the few American cars they ARE buying, is for Ford, which did NOT receive a bailout, over Govt Motors, as the latter is apparently perceived as less solvent in the long run


The Prof

So, because one program is not living up to expectations, the entire effort to reduce pollution is not worth while.

Got it. :roll:
 
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