Bob Lutz of GM is a crock of sh*t

I have a 13 year old car that has 335,000 miles on it. It's my third car. My second car lasted about 9 years and had around 175,000 miles on it. My first car stretches back to 1981, so there's another 5 years.

My point here is that I have an increasing trend of driving cars into the ground. Part of it is that I'm one of those rare people that, even though I am a guy and a Mechanical Engineer, I'm not really torqued about new cars. Don't get me wrong, I can get excited about automotive engineering, and I appreciate classic lines, but I am more impressed by longevity than flashiness.

I got it from my father, who also had a habit of driving cars into the grave, but also from the military. We had lots of Viet Nam era equipment in my unit in Panama during the late 80s. These were big complex, rare things like 20 ton cranes, asphalt laying equipment, and two quarry crushers. I learned that you can keep anything going indefinitely as long as you maintain it. I had a friend in the Army that liked to buy and restore 60s cars. He had a 1969 Grand Sport and later a couple of sweet Mustangs. These cars were really old and beat up, but if you spend enough money, you could make any car look and drive like new.

So don't get me wrong, it's not a matter of being cheap and not wanting to make a car payment, because older cars start costing more and more to keep up. It's a matter of familiarity and comfort and connection with your machine. And, I have to admit, it's a matter of loyalty. I know that the car can't feel anything, and wouldn't care if I sold it or took it to the junk yard, but it just feels disloyal to abandon it after all the adventures I've had in it and all the wonderful places it has taken me.

My current car is nearing the end of its useful life and needs to be replaced soon. So my first priority is to get another car that will last a long time. It has to be rugged and dependable. If I'm going to be driving this car 8 to 10 years from now, one thing I cannot imagine is driving something that gets 20 miles to the gallon. When gas is $6 a gallon and rationed because we are at war with Iran and the cold war with Russia is in full swing, and Venezuela refuses to sell to us anymore, and global demand has gone through the roof with a billion more cars in India and China, 20 miles to the gallon will not make any sense. Maybe 35 or 40, but I'd really like something that has a little more of a flex fuel capability and a plug-in hybrid possibility. Don't get me wrong, I believe in global warming, and that we are responsible for it, but that's not the primary reason to look for fuel efficiency. Reason #1 is the expense, and right behind that is not to continue to enrich Muslim fundamentalist that hate us.

My dilemma is that the idiots that run American car companies (and I am one of those buy American types) can't pull their heads out of their orifices long enough to see what's coming and plan for it. They say it's impossible to get better mileage, that there is just this physical limit. I say they can't engineer their way out of a wet paper bag and they don't deserve to share the title American Engineer with the geniuses and heroes that won WWII with unbelievable productivity and innovation, invented the atomic bomb (it's horrible, I know, but it's also a triumph of science, design, and engineering), and PUT MEN ON THE MOON. My message to US Automaker Engineers: You're pathetic. You don't deserve your diplomas. We should take away your licenses and give you the only thing you have earned, which is membership in the Diaper Club. I've listened to these lame excuses for 20 years about why we can't have a more fuel efficient automobile. It's a "can't do" attitude that is so against the grain of everything American stands for that I wish the government would take away your companies and give them to someone that deserves them, and give you a baby bonnet and a jail shaped like a big crib.

OK, that was fun. That said, my dilemma remains. So while I ponder this problem, this morning I see this article: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/02/13/gms-bob-lutz-global-warming-is-a-total-crock-of-sh-t/ where GM chairman Bob "No Can Do" Lutz says that global warming is a crock of sh*t. Bob, I know you're just saying that because for some reason a scientific fact, a global trend that can be proven and documented just happens to also be politicized. Nowadays, if you're a conservative Republican, you're not supposed to believe in global warming because it's a fairy tale concocted by crazy environmentalists that just want to bring rich and wealthy people down, and want to stop people from doing whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it.

Hey Mr. Rich bastard, you've got about 4 or 5 more years to sell your outdated crappy cars to your dinosaur friends before your whole empire comes crumbling down around your ears. Actually, if you're like most of your rich and narrow minded friends, you'll probably be sitting in your mansion with your 9 figure severance pay and your fat pension and your immense stock dividends - completely unconcerned that you drove your company and an American icon into the ground. So I don't understand why what people think about global warming is your problem or concern. You're so insulated by your wealth an priveledge that you can laugh all the way to the bank. Maybe you feel the cold hand of reality creeping in to destroy the system that annoints individuals like yourself without brains or talent to be the caretakers of our giant American corporations.

I think I'll by a Toyota Prius. Long live the Japanese.

Religion and Rhetoric

I got into a short exchange of emails with a coworker recently. He sent me a link to a report on National Geographic from a Russian scientist (actually, the head of the Russian space program, and not necessarily an expert on solar cycles or climatology) that said that there was no human induced global warming, it was just the sun putting out more heat. The proof was that the Martian polar ice caps were shrinking as observed by new Martian satellites, like Earth's polar ice caps. I quickly found another report from about 6 months later by a panel of climatologists. This report went in more depth and said that the sun did indeed have cycles, but that the current warming was greater than the sun cycle alone could account for. It specifically cited the other report and said that it was wrong. The Russian was only looking at the last 3 years, in any case. I knew that any good experiment or research about a theory would account for baseline conditions (how much solar energy is coming in to the planet) and adjust their findings, so in my mind, the later study had more weight, seemed to be more professional, and seemed more thorough. I copied the link to my coworker with a short comment about how the first study was discredited. My coworker, who must be a global warming skeptic, replied to me that he read the second article and found it to be full of rhetoric and opinion.

My initial reaction was that I now knew that he was a global warming denier, and that any evidence or study supporting global warming would simply be disbelieved by him. The second reaction that I had was an emotional distaste of the word rhetoric. In the battle between science and religion, I like to believe that scientists dispassionately cite facts while religionists emotionally cite beliefs without any proof or support. And here someone was calling a scientific report "rhetoric". My reaction was one of taking offense to the statement.

When I realized how irritated I was about this minor issue, I had to figure out why. First, I looked up rhetoric. There are many meanings to the word. The first one says "the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast". I think that the connotation he was after. That the content was empty and the language was deceptive. If you read more, you see that rhetoric is also considered to be a highly studied method of speaking, usually to try to persuade, sometimes to deceive.

This reminds me of the Dover Pennsylvania Intelligent Design trial. The trial details were very interesting. They said it was like attending an evolutionary science class. One of my favorite parts was when they discussed scientific theory. Anti-Evolutionists like to say that evolution is only a theory. They are using the layman's definition of theory, as in "harebrained idea". Akin to something you dream up in the middle of the night after drinking too much tequila. Scientific Theory is when you propose an explanation for something many observers have witnessed and studied, and the results are reviewed by peers, tested, and torn apart if found to be weak. A mature scientific theory is something that is generally accepted and is used to help understand the world better. Gravity, electricity, magnetism, and germ behavior are all theories. People aren't going to start floating away and you aren't going to get sick from failing to forward that email your Aunt Nelly sent you just because gravity and germ theory are just theories and therefore not valid. Scientific Theory is like bedrock. You can count on it enough to build something to last on it.

Biblical literalists don't know what else to do. The first big famous crisis between church and science was when Copernicus used science and careful observation to put the sun in the center of the solar system. The church did not like the thought that man was not at the center of all things. There have been many other conflicts since, and when people started using geology to date the age of the earth, and started realizing how old fossils actually were, religious scholars that had been telling everyone that the world was 6,000 years old were seriously threatened by this. Darwin studied under one of the most famous geologists of the day, and was influenced to come up with his theory of evolution by learning about the extreme age of the world through geology.

Religious fundamentalists probably feel threatened by this because they think that if people start finding that things in the bible and things we've been told by religious authorities are not correct, then the whole bible is in question. They fear the house of cards effect.

I don't think all global warming denialists are also religious fundamentalists, but they follow the same pattern. The conservatives are under the influence and sway of religious fundamentalists in this country, and pick up on their attitudes and talking points, even when they don't mean to. Conservatives - with their heavy influence of capitalism and it's basic tenet that glorifies conspicuous consumption, fear what will happen if society peeks behind the curtain and actually starts to understand what is going on and what is at stake. And our divided political climate plays into that fear. Those at the pinnacle of society, in regards to wealth and influence, fear the restless masses. What if they rise up and take away all that is dear and precious to them? Scratch the surface of most denialists, and I believe you'll find someone that shares these fears.