Dr. O.,

Thanks for your response to my "misguided green mentality" statement in my initial posting. You have presented a logical, solid refutation, esp. regarding government regulations. I now hereby retract my original premise, you rock!

 

Interesting discourse here...

Personally, I think the glass technology is a great idea. I've been tinting my windows for years -- usually limo on all the windows and medium on the windshield -- and one thing I've come to notice is that when driving on a hot day with the air on, my car gets cooler faster and stays cooler than my friend's untinted cars where no matter how long the air has been on, its stiflingly hot near the windows.

Most window tint already blocks UV light, and contains thin sheets of metal to aid in heat rejection. However, this new glass sounds especially promising because it targets IR, which makes up something like 40% of sunlight. If this is coupled with the existing heat rejection technology present in window tint, the resulting products could offer some astonishing heat rejection.

That said, I think that government still hasn't realized that global warming is not man-made. And, even if they did, they have a vested interest in "pretending" that it is man-made so they can enact more and more taxes to restrict our "carbon emissions" (re: Cap and Trade). In other words, global warming means huge revenue for government. But that doesn't mean that government is pro-environment/green/whatever, they only behave that way when its convenient for their budget. Watch Who Killed The Electric Car? for an eye-opening look at how CARB played a pivotal role in killing the EV-1, a pure electric vehicle.

So, while I support the technology, I think the decision to use it or not should be left up to the consumer. Government regulation is necessary with regards to public safety (building codes, automobile safety standards) but should not protrude into matters like this.

 

Where did you come up with that? The vast majority of the scientific community agrees that the huge increases in CO2 are due mainly to human activity.

Are you aware that the recent energy bill gives away carbon credits instead of selling them?

Oil use affects national security, global politics, agriculture, etc. Climate change is not something that can be left to the whims of consumers. The trend towards large gas-guzzling SUVs has proved that. The long-term consequences are too great. It is long past time when the government should have taken it seriously.

 

The vast majority of the scientific community is ambiguous. If every toothpaste manufactuerer said "4 out of 5 dentists recommend you use our toothpaste", you either have some seriously fuzzy math going on or you have some dentists acceping endorsement checks from more than one toothpaste. However, it is highly unlikely that 4 out of 5 dentists keep a dozen different brands of toothpaste in their medicine cabinet. The mass media oligarchy continues to show us stories that support the Gore Thesis, but that doesn't make it "more true".

For a thorough and coherent counter-argument to the "prescribed" global warming theory, see the BBC's The Great Global Warming Swindle.

Are we talking about the same energy bill? The one that will cost us over $6,000 per household by 2035?

The whims of consumers have about as much impact on climate change as they do on the movement of celestial bodies. And, it is not by the enactment of some convoluted government regulation that fluctuations in our GDP do not cause a flutter in Jupiter's orbit -- its physics. Likewise, there is virtually no relationship between human activity and global warming. I say virtually because anthropogenic CO2 makes up about 0.28% of atmospheric CO2. Close to zero, but not quite. A single volcano -- even a dormant one -- emits several times more CO2 in one year than all human activity combined.

Those are the facts. But I'd rather not be pigeonholed into one of the two camps on climate change. Those being:

1. Pro man-made global warming. Pro-environment. Pro cap/trade. Encourages the use of hybrids and rooftop solar panels, etc. Typical of left-wingers.

2. Anti man-made global warming. Pro capitalism. Anti cap/trade. Believes that since we have nothing to do with global warming, we should all just drive Hummers etc. Typical of right-wingers.

I am neither of these. I think its fantastic that following the SUV craze of the 90s, we are finally moving towards trends that are less destructive and more environmentally friendly. I think its wonderful that people find hybrids attractive and that businesses are installing solar panels on their rooftops, and are coming up with dozens of other ways to save energy. But we have to be doing it for the right reasons. We have to have our facts straight. We shouldn't do it out of fear (that if we don't act accordingly we will bring about the destruction of our planet) nor should we do it to comply with ridiculous regulations that use taxes to sway our behavior. We should do it because it makes sense, because we are the only species with the potential to leave this planet in better shape than we found it and thus far we have utterly failed to do so.

Only 1-6% of old growth forests are left in the U.S. That's sad. When I think about how corporate America has and continues to utterly rape this planet, I throw up a little in my mouth. But fear, coercion, and over-taxing is not the way to solve the problem.

 

to not do the debate about global warming on this site, as it's somewhat like religeon in that minds are rarely if ever changed, and people just get pisssed off. Every thread that I've been in that's spent a lot of time on the subject hasn't really done any good or gotten anyone to say that they actually learned anything at all, even if good data is brought to the table, those who have already formed an opinion have thier favorite slice of the data available to defent thier position. I guess I learned the hard way on this subject.....

Anyway, the glass mandate is such a low cost delta that it's not worth it to really use it as a test case for government action or not. Just be happy to know that the cars will be cooler to get into after they are parked for a while, and that the interiour wont fade as fast, and the cost delta is so statistically insignifcant to the price of a car that you won't even notice it. Heck, if the volume of glass produced for this is high enough and costs come down enough, maybe we'll all get replacment windshields with the technology next time a replacement is needed with the cost adder being less than the $75 or so it is now.

Matt

 

Wow! I actually learned something, you know? I think I'm gonna have to take some time and rethink my position. This has been a pretty enlightening debate. Carry on, folks.

 

Does anyone know how the new glass will affect GPS, Radar detectors and cells phones? Sounds like a great safety feature if no one can use their electronic devices while driving!

 

these items aren't using metallic films to do what they do. They are more tuned multilayers that are designed to selectively reject the IR.

Early window films for houses used the mettalic stuff that did effect cell reception and the like, but newer technology doesn't use those compositions anymore....

Matt

 

Thanks DR.

That should ease the minds of the cell phone junkies.

This might also be a good time to remind Mini owners that when you unlock your Mini via remote, if you hold down the unlock button, the windows will roll down as well, thereby cooling off your car before you get in.