“In October, when Apple announced its redesigned Mac Pro, the company boasted that it would be assembled in the U.S. This was a curious about-face for the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant whose success has been inextricably linked to shoulder-to-shoulder assembly lines in China,” John Patrick Pullen writes for Entrepreneur. “In addition, as the New York Times reported, at a private dinner in February 2011, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs told President Obama, ‘Those jobs aren’t coming back.'”
“Indeed, they haven’t. And they won’t,” Pullen writes. “According to statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the manufacturing industry lost 2.3 million jobs in the most recent recession. Since then, factories have only regained 526,000 jobs, a sad sign of Jobs’ visionary nature.”
“A promotional video on the Mac Pro’s assembly clearly shows what led Apple to produce the new computers in the U.S.: robots, not people. An ambidextrous Fanuc M-710iC swings the Mac Pro’s machined aluminum casing from station to station. The metal is polished by Guyson Corporation’s blast-finishing robots. And components are placed on the circuit boards by Jot Automation machines,” Pullen writes. “Of course there are humans milling about, but not nearly as many as at Foxconn in China.”
“The growing use of robots in the workforce isn’t just happening at Apple. From Kiva Systems droids fulfilling Amazon warehouse orders, to telepresence robots zipping through offices and conference halls, robots are suddenly everywhere,” Pullen writes. “Though they weren’t necessarily programmed to destroy jobs, some experts believe machine-caused mass unemployment is possible.”
“Meanwhile, small businesses will scramble to keep up. But instead of joining the robot workforce, entrepreneurs can firewall their operations by cyborg-proofing their companies,” Pullen writes. “According to the Oxford study, “occupations that involve complex perception and manipulation tasks, creative intelligence tasks, and social intelligence tasks are unlikely to be substituted by computer capital over the next decade or two.” So the key to defeating robots — in the movies and in real life — is doing what they can’t.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
While it’s good press for the MacPro, I think, it’s a pretty silly conclusion. The iPhone is being built by humans, not robots, so re-apply the answer to the question about how to cyborg-proof your company: Do things robots can’t do. And the answer would be: Work cheaply enough that your contribution allows your employer to sustain profitability. US workers aren’t allowing that for Apple (manufacturing) — figure out why that is and more manufacturing jobs could be happening.
Chinese workers are working for about $600 per month. There was a time in America when American assembly-line workers worked for $600 per month. I believe this was in 1930s (and, if we adjust for inflation, back in 1890s).
So, all we have to figure out is how an American can survive on $600 per month and then we can bring ALL the manufacturing back to America.
Yup.
Mom ran the household w/3 kids in the 50s on $400 per month.
I had breakfast, lunch, dinner and dinner for about $5 total in Qingdao this past December. China has $1 meals and $100 meals. When I hear comments about China wages I always wonder what does that person think the pay should be.
In addition to that China has a huge workforce. Zhengzhou (where the iPhone is assembled) has a population of around 10 million people. Foxconn employs somewhere near 200 thousand. Tell me where in the US this could happen not to mention the other nut and bolt suppliers. I frequently travel to China and will tell you the large factories are literally small cities.
There was a time in the US when we had cities that were built around factories. Have you heard of Detroit or Pittsburgh? See Detroit now. That population could use 500,000 jobs. Do you think those people want jobs now, or do they have access to better income without the need to work? Would the people around Detroit act quickly to provide permits for a big factory that produced things that involved silver and other metals and which factories also created waste products? Would the city and federal government expect to dictate the employee benefit package? Would making iPhones and employing 200,000 Detroit residents, be considered good for the environment?
Americans today, educated with strange notions in public schools and by brilliant people in Hollywood, really does not want significant factories that actually make material goods. America today has no desire to produce the energy it consumes. All these activities, making things and producing energy, are necessary, but should be done in other parts of the world where the process won’t mess with our organic food and our utopian concepts.
Job security, for now, will remain when short runs are required. It is when you get into the 10’s of thousands that automation can be cost effective. This will change and when real AI hits, the short runs will be swallowed up too.
Some things will never be done well by robots, it is when you team up the human factor and the AI robotics that we will see an explosion of ability going in directions that few have ever considered. “Think Different” still applies! Make the most of it. What will your verse be?
Most products need millions to justify an automation run or more. Issues like flexible automation lines can reduce the volume, with similar types of products which I’ve seen with appliances.
My latest product needs 1-2 million per month to justify the dedicated medical product automation line.
Itv was obvious from the outset that the only way it makes sense for Apple to carry out manufacturing in the US is by using highly automated assembly methods, with very low numbers of unskilled workers.
I would expect to see Apple learning from the process and making more devices in this manner.
Given how ruthless Apple is with its supply chain and likes to control anything crucial to its business, Tim Cook is asking himself when, not if, he can move all products to robotic assembly.
Robotics will continue getting cheaper after replacing humans, allowing Apple to further increase margins or maintain healthy margins with lower product prices.
Asimov later had to come up with a “zeroth” law, but I can’t remember what that was. Anybody?
A very quick trip to Google revealed that it states:
0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Who’s making and maintaining the robots?
Yeah just like guns don’t kill people, people do.
Actually, people with guns kill people!
You said, “Actually, people with guns kill people!”
You mean like Barack Obama, who ordered the Justice Department to give thousands of automatic rifles to drug cartels in Mexico with no way to trace their whereabout? Which guns did kill about 200 Mexicans and at least two Americans? Yes, guns controlled by the government are very dangerous, when there is a moron in the White House. I wish Reggie would spend more time with him and he would not have so much time to do stuff to the country.
The US manufacturing sector is making a comeback due to liberal policies. The high cost of employing humans, who have a right to healthcare, who can sue for ADA violations, who get government mandated levels of pay, who bitch and moan a lot – these things have all made robots very attractive. However, when liberals figure out how to require free healthcare for all robots (paid by taxpayers) and how to organize class action lawsuits by robots suing over the poor social opportunities they have in America, and government mandated minimum wages for robots, then the robots will have to migrate, illegally, to Mexico where they can replace the people coming here for our free health care, food, Obamaphones and free mortgages. And in Colorado, marijuana paid for with nice shiny government issued EBT free food cards.
If they kept the jobs in the US can you imagine how expensive an iPhone or iPad would have been? Apple would have been gutted like a pig in a year and Samsung would completely dominate.
Since when is a living wage a “liberal policy” ?
That makes about as much sense as me claiming that our loss of manufacturing jobs is due to a ‘conservative policy’ of putting profit before the country.
Neither one really fits does it ?
All of these utopian ideas are excellent. A living wage is great. So is the idea of public teacher and government workers having defined pensions they can start at 55 that pay 85% of their last years pay – for life. That is a great idea. So is the idea of free health care though the premium under our current free health care appears to be double what it was before it was free and with about a $10,000 deductible. Driving cars which don’t need gas would be a swell idea, but I notice they do require a coal plant to recharge their battery, which often bursts into flames. Liberals have an awful lot of great ideas.
First of all, you have a very flawed understanding of the term “utopian.” Second, in your zeal to label and discount anything that is inconsistent with your viewpoint, you go to ridiculous lengths of FUD. For instance, electric cars can be powered from nuclear, natural gas, hydroelectric, hydrothermal, solar, wind, or wave sources of electrical energy. It does not have to be “coal.”
There are ways to promote the economy and jobs while also protecting, or even improving, the environment that we leave for future generations. It is not a binary, exploit or collapse, situation.
You blather unproductively quite frequently on this forum.
Actually no, everything I said was a fair representation of liberal ideas. I had to just spend a few hundred dollars buying incandescent light bulbs because idiot liberals had the government outlaw their production in the US, even though they work much better than the new supposed green alternatives, which have mercury in them which ends up in landfills and is of course a deadly chemical. I bought enough of the good old ones to last my lifetime so I won’t be putting evil chemicals in the landfill like the environmentalists are. The other examples are all valid too. The problem is you people have these brilliant ideas, but you never take the time to go back and check to see if the brilliance in the idea actually happened. Like with Obamacare, are you seeing the $2500 in annual savings Obama promised over and over and over? Are you certain you can keep your current plan even next year? Do you even know what is in Obamacare? (Hint – if you say yes you are lying)
Blather. I read your comments to get my daily dose of blather. Or horse manure.
Have you read Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedmand or Fredrick Hayek? These great economist (two Noble Laureates) have said a minimum wage is a farce, with Sowell and Friedman going so far as to say it would significantly increase un-employment in black communities. Check the stats, black un-employment has increased significantly since the advent of the ‘minimum wage’ in the 60’s – seeming to validate their premise. You likely see MW as a safety net, these economists saw MW as reducing the number of jobs for entry level teenagers looking to develop work skills so they could elevate themselves to high income levels. Furthermore, what is the impact if $15 per hour becomes the new minimum and corporations need to control costs? Most likely automation. Already fast food restaurants are exploring machines which can mix custom meat grinds, slice vegetables, and assemble the burgers or replace order takers with Siri-like devices. A MW earner ($7.25/hr) cost a typical business $14-$21/hr. Double that to $15/hr and these numbers increase to $28-$42/hr – translates to $64k-$96k/year/employee. A $500k investment in automation which replaces 5 employees (# of employees require to staff one 24/7 position) pays for itself in 1 to 2 years. You tell me what you would do?
Even if you can see you way clear to read Freedman’s book (free to choose) At least take 45min to watch this appearance on the Phil Donahue show. Very dated, but it seems the issues never change. (However the left’s the intolerance for a differing opinion certainly have, Can you imagine Stanford or PBS having someone like him Today? I can’t.)
Tessellator – if Friedman or Thomas Sowell were to try to speak real economics on a university campus today, student (like KingMel) would charge the stage, throw eggs at them, yell at them, and threaten them, disrupt the event so no discussion could take place. The students, with faculty participation, would call Friedman and Sowell greedy capitalist hateful racist Nazi, meanies. And that would be done before a word was spoken. The liberal today is incapable of actual thought. They respond to stimuli. They get feelings about issues from The Daily Show and luminaries like Michael Moore and Sean Penn and Al Gore. They then try to browbeat regular people into accepting the views transmitted by these luminaries. They do not actually investigate, consider the evidence, check various sources, and use normal rational thought. They use name calling and intimidation to defend their Groupthink. Dr. Tom Sowell would be labeled a racist though he is black and grew up in poverty.
By the way, the green thinking alternative fuel advocates commenting here are among the most heavy users of fossil fuels. They travel the world and drive expensive cars and heat large homes and use air conditioning. They actively do what they claim is destroying the planet.
Hardly. The repatriation of manufacturing jobs has more to do with increasing costs to manufacturer in China and a stronger Remembai currency vs. the Dollar.
My real fear is that when manufacturing robots unionize, the advantage will be lost. Even worse, when robots become self-aware, well you know: Cybernet. Personally, I welcome our new mecha overlords.
iRobot anyone? 🙂
Sure. I liked the Alan Parsons Project.
And when did you stop? 😉
I call it “The Alan Parsons Project”.
I Robot and Pyramid, two of my all time favorite albums. Great for background music when you do videos too.
I’m thinking about starting an Alan Parsons cover band. Call it “The Alan Parsons Project Project.”
When asked when assembly jobs in China would be brought back to the US; I remember hearing Steve Job’s saying, “those jobs will never be brought back.”
He did not say that manufacturing would never be brought back. He also stated that the US does not have enough of the right kind of workers to bring the jobs back. He was not talking about assemblers…he was talking about engineers.
China does not lack for engineers…unfortunately the US does. This needs to be addressed in our educational system and will not be a quick fix.
As someone mentioned, replacing the Chinese worker with an American worker requires a significant improvement in productivity to offset the increased labor costs. However, working FASTER is not a feasible solution to that issue.
The way you make that happen is with advanced manufacturing. And the workers who use, design, implement, and maintain that technology will need to have skills well beyond those of an assembler. Those type of jobs WILL be coming back to the US. However, the speed at which this happens depends upon having knowledgeable workers. We need people with sharp minds…not strong backs.
The key for the US is doing a much better job educating more of its citizens to the qualifications required by those jobs.
It is not simply about engineers. It is about whether or not a country welcomes manufacturing and enables it to make rapid changes and additions as business needs change. To create the manufacturing Apple has in China would take many years of approvals at federal, state and local levels. It would also require compliance with laws that would at least double the cost of the product. China has processes that enable factories to be built in months versus years and it does not put onerous requirements on the businesses for every employee who has a job. China is happy to have jobs created for their people. The US used to be that way, decades ago, now it prefers to have the Federal Government dictate to businesses how they must run. We are now a “command economy” and China, amazingly, is becoming a free enterprise economy, though it has a long way to go on human rights.
China also doesn’t care about the conditions people are working in nor any impact the factory has on the area it’s in. Yeah, let’s go back to companies like a Hooker Chemical and Love Canal.
China and its workers are very happy to have jobs. Yes Scott, it is great we don’t have US Steel, National Steel, GM factories in Detroit, Goodyear and Firestone plants in Cleveland, and on and on and on. We don’t really need jobs, because the Federal Government now pays permanent unemployment benefits so actually working is a relic of the past. Obama says unemployment benefits spur economic growth, so if we add more unemployed and pay them more we will really serious growth, according to the economic understanding our Leader. It is good not to have factories anymore because all they ever did was create Love Canal (a hoax by the way) and whatever other unknown company you referenced. Better to expand unemployment so we can build a bright future.
The cover article in the latest issue of “The Economist” talks about the change on the level of the industrial revolution of the late 1800s that is coming, thanks to the technology, and that consequences will be similar. Massive numbers of jobs / professions went extinct when they were replaced by the machines first time around, and the article argues that the rapid development of technology will cause the similar massive loss of jobs and professions when intelligent software begins replacing them (and it is already happening, with travel booking sites pushing out travel agents), and unlike with the industrial revolution, this time around, they predict it will be faster and far more disruptive.
Predrag, I have a much more optimistic viewpoint.
In my companies, every time we brought in a “machine” or device to do something better with computers and “automation” (even small tasks), we managed to grow and hire more workers because we became more efficient.
It is often said that some people “can’t learn new jobs, tasks, programming, etc.”, but my experience is the opposite. You take a machinist and put him in a quick training course for the CNC mill or lathe and within a week he is programming & setting up CNC jobs.
Then these people who I now have doing more complicated work wind up earning more, and … guess what, they start buying more things and ordering more services like autos, boats and dry cleaning.
Progress. It works.
So with no one working who is going to buy all those shiny tech gadgets. There has to be a tipping point and it is coming sooner than later. After all not everyone is capable of learning the hi tech jobs that are supposed to replace manual labour.
If we needed robots to design and build robots for us, we would be in big trouble.
Since it takes a small army of engineers to design, build, run and upkeep robots, the answer is obvious.
If you want to eat, get an education that is in demand. Dropping out of High School doesn’t cut it anymore.
“1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.” Robots, you are causing harm by eliminating work for humans to do, making it difficult to feed and shelter ourselves and families.
“2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.” Robots, in light of the harm you are doing, please shut yourself off.
“3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.” (Robots continue working, because the corporations that build robots could give a flying fsck about laws…)
“Robots, you are causing harm by eliminating work for humans to do, making it difficult to feed and shelter ourselves and families.”
No, robots are taking over mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that are physically and emotionally harmful to humans in the long run. Humans also want/need to get paid more than the simple work is worth. Robots are much better suited to those kinds of jobs.
“Robots continue working, because the corporations that build robots could give a flying fsck about laws…”
Ah, yes, the “evil corporations” conspiracy again. Of course! Why bother trying to really understand things, when preaching your dogma is so much easier?
Wow, presumptuous much?
My post was a sketch of a dialog between a robot and a human, where the human was trying to apply the Laws of Robotics (usually thought to mean a robot directly killing a human, but I’m being intentionally sardonic), which is laughable because it presumes a society that at all cares about humans enough to implement and require protections for humans from robots. Real robots will be deaf to this sort of plea.
But, dogmatic thinker that you are, “Or…” couldn’t resist reading it as, what, anti-capitalist? Luddite? Oh, oh, I bet….socialist? Lol…..settle down, John Wayne.
Well, you won’t guess my affiliations, but suffice to say I’m realist to know no known political system will ever give a frig about humans more than the bottom line, yes, this even includes those snakes that would pretend they are liberal, democratic, green, etc. If it makes you feel better? Robotics laws are doomed to sci-fi. So is a world without dogmatism it seems.
You forgot the sarcasm and/or irony tags on your original post. Sorry for reading it as it was posted. 😉
Yes, sorry I didn’t format it .
Manufacturing has been going offshore for decades. There are fewer factories and engineering companies in the US than ever before. Even my university has discontinued the Industrial Engineering degree I got twenty years ago.
“occupations that involve complex perception and manipulation tasks, creative intelligence tasks, and social intelligence tasks are unlikely to be substituted by computer capital over the next decade or two.”
===
Based on the level of perception and intelligence being demonstrated these days, the average person is screwed, then.
There still are people hired to help in the manufacturing even with the robots. Car manufacturers also use a lot of robots in US manufacturing. It’s just more economical to use them. Apple still needed to hire a lot of people. Apple did not in fact have to build and hire in the US but they did. So we should applaud Apple for doing so. Apple can’t change the manufacturing world by itself. So critiquing them for doing something good is just stupid nick picking.
1. Robots are used in ALL manufacturing (except for very small quantities). Including China. Much of Apple’s investment in it’s suppliers is to provide machining, including robots. Example: components are always installed on circuit boards via robot. Board stuffers, CNC machines, etc. are used by all major and most minor American companies, as well as in China.
2. Robots must be built, maintained, programmed, installed, wired. If you want work, go to where the puck is going.
Welcome to the article covering what we discussed on MDN years ago. Robots, while relatively expensive, can perform repetitive work nearly 24/7 without holidays, etc. Manufacturing processes that can be heavily automated can be located in the most convenient location based up a wide range of considerations, including logistics, legal, and financial priorities, because the cost of labor becomes a relatively small part of the total cost of fabrication. The good news is that this effect will end up bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. The bad news is that it will not create large numbers of middle-class jobs. Many of the jobs created over the next couple of decades will involve the care and feeding of automated assembly facilities and robots – designing robots, programming robots, maintaining robots, setting up automated assembly lines, etc.
This is actually very bad news for China and other countries in SE Asia and other parts of the world that are currently leveraging their low cost of labor for growth in the manufacturing sector. Not only will advanced automation offset the advantage of low labor rates, but it will also throw large numbers of employees of Foxconn and similar companies out of relatively lucrative jobs with no backup. Going back to the rural farms won’t be a practical or attractive option for most of those workers. Prepare for a lot of civil unrest in China and across the world as low-skilled workers increasing find their services in low demand with correspondingly low wages – not enough to live on in a reasonable manner.
This is not the first time that I have outlined this scenario. I predicted the return of automated manufacturing to the U.S. and it is beginning to occur. I believe that the growing disparity between rich and poor, as well as the shrinkage of the middle class that provides a “hope of upward mobility” buffer between the rich and poor, will result in civil unrest as automation expands, thus driving higher, long term unemployment.
The other issue is IPR.
Mac Pro and other high end/ low volume products made in the US will prevent knock-offs being built even before product release.
Keep the high end and allow the mass market stuff – counted in millions and millions of units to be produced where human dexterity in volume still beats robot complexity and cost.
“some experts believe machine-caused mass unemployment is possible.”
Not possible, but inevitable, is the right word.
just fyi …those guys, you know, the ones milling around the robots ..eventually, like, real eventually, they’re the ones that become morlocks. just thought you’d like to know.
As we, most of us, are destined to become Eloi, it becomes a matter of some concern to locate an alternative food source for the Morlocks. Some of them could also benefit from friendly advice as to grooming and attire.
So we need to learn to do things robots can’t do.
Like… love?
——RM
Love, Hate, and Indifference— the three laws of biotics.
Lost jobs due to mechanization is a serious problem. The right solution is NOT going back to human manual labor. The technological advances that make these jobs obsolete are inevitable. Also, repetitive manual labor was never a great job for human beings to begin with. What we need is a system that allows 10 billion people to live and thrive on one planet, where significantly fewer than 10 billion wage jobs will ever be necessary or available because of technological efficiencies. Not a popular statement, but the free market is not capable of accomplishing the economics we need. This century demands a smarter system, where employment is not longer based on wage slavery, the planet’s limited resources are managed automatically and sustainably.
We are not losing job so much to mechanization. We are losing jobs to a mentality here now that did not used to be here that we don’t want real jobs and what comes with them. We are OK with baristas, and TSA fondlers, and Hollywood actors, and EPA inspectors, but we are not OK with people and places that make steel, cars, energy, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, timber, etc. We don’t like manufacturing. It usually involves using energy to make the product. And using energy now is evil because it destroys the planet. This is actually the mentality that exists in many Americans. Of course it is insane. But it is there. And the result is we are losing jobs and will continue to lose them. See the Keystone Pipeline, that Obama and the Democrats have been “thinking about” for the past 8 years. So far still prohibited. So, we import energy and transport it above ground in various dangerous ways. Fracking is creating jobs and look at the amazing science fiction created to stop this ability to produce our own energy.
It’s not that “energy” is evil – it’s very specific subset of energy: the combustion of hydrocarbons. There’s a billion alternatives sources of energy that are not based on combustion and do not emit greenhouse gases. What’s “evil” is pretending that burning fossil fuels is the only possible way to produce energy.
I’m confused by your statements about mechanization – it DOES actually lead to job loss. Sure, there’s a million other reasons for job loss, but mechanization IS one of them, and it’s only going to get more serious as robotics improves. What can we do about it? You can take pot shots at Hollywood, barristas, politicians all day long – but the trend is still job loss. What can actually be done about the problem? Blaming everyone except yourself and your little tribe of like-minded people does not bring anyone closer to fixing this real problem. There’s a million people without work – and that number could keep growing dramatically if trends continue. Blaming everyone else for a problem isn’t a solution – if it has any relevance, it’s in misdirecting energy away from solving it.
Fracking? Are you kidding me? What are you, some kind of a stooge for Exxon? Go frack yourself, buddy. While your at it, keep your fracking shit as far away as possible from my public water supply.
Good day, sir.
I am a bit confused about this part of your reply. “It’s not that “energy” is evil – it’s very specific subset of energy: the combustion of hydrocarbons. There’s a billion alternatives sources of energy that are not based on combustion and do not emit greenhouse gases.”
First, I am pretty sure that 90% of the energy you use is from sources that involve greenhouse gases. There is actually nothing whatsoever wrong with them. As to your comment about alternative sources, I assume you mean wind or solar. Did you know that for every kilowatt of production from these sources, an equal amount of new capacity must be added to real generating facilities like coal, natural gas, nuclear or hydroelectric? That is so, because wind and solar are not always there yet the demand is so whatever they generate must have a back up with “reliable” power, which is mostly carbon based. But you would not know this.
Regarding job losses associated with mechanization, I agree it does happen. New innovations always come and so do new job opportunities. In the US, mechanization is made to happen much faster as the government increases artificially the cost of labor, through things like minimum wage, mandated benefits, high taxes on business, etc. The more cost associated with a human employee that don’t apply to a machine, the more there will be replacement of humans with machines. If we don’t put added costs on human labor this process will be slowed somewhat. The question is “do we in the US truly want manufacturing jobs?” I would say if you put that to the people that run companies they would say emphatically no. They might like to create jobs here, but they have a need to make a profit and the cost of labor and getting things done in America is now very steep, because we have been trained to object to the very idea of factories in America, unless they are somewhere a long way from us. Wherever that is.
I said “Good day, sir!”
Chief – you are off the reservation. Most of what you say is pure garbage. You could really benefit from doing research into real sources and not get so much of your science from the Daily Show and Al Gore. These comedians are very funny, but weak on actual facts.
I might have gone overboard with the fracking bit. It’s not as bad as many anti-fracking people make it to be: it has some clear benefits in terms of energy efficiency, and it doesn’t really create earthquakes or volcanos (most likely). Still, fracking does not fix any the fundamental problems of fossil fuels (greenhouse gas and toxic emissions) and fracking adds some unique problems of its own, such as wasting huge quantities of amounts of water, polluting underground water supplies, and a unique cocktail of airborne carcinogenic pollution.
There are no fundamental problems with fossil fuels. As a matter of fact, scientists now are not even certain they came from fossils. More likely these things came from other processes. But, oil and the gasoline that is produced from oil is among the absolute most efficient fuels there exists. That is a fact. And with present technologies it can be used with limited pollutants. Ethanol, which is made from what has been historically used as food, is very inefficient and using it as a fuel drives up food costs, has caused huge tracts of land to be plowed under to serve the demand mandated by government for ethanol which has killed so many trees this is actually creating a negative impact. Oil is actually the perfect material provided by God to man to serve energy needs. It is very interesting how we have been given this great product and we keep discovering more of it even decades after we were supposed to run out of it.
I guess you failed High School chemistry:
I guess you believe In Global Warming and believed if liked your plan you could keep your plan. In other words you are a drone
It’s not a matter of belief – that’s basic chemistry! There’s nothing political about it – it’s just how the physical world is, determined by accurate observations and rigorous testing.
How can you deny that CH₄ + O₂ → CO₂ + 2H₂O? That’s what powers your car and every other fossil fuel energy source you so steadfastly defend. The way you are arguing, I feel like your next move will be denying that 2 + 2 = 4 (that is if you can return from the name calling phase). At least point out that I’ve only illustrated the combustion of methane, and that the chemical reaction is slightly different when using petroleum or ethanol as the hydrocarbon.
Chief – what comprises 97% of all greenhouse gases?
By the way Chief, have you sworn off fossil fuels to save the planet? Are you living consistent with your beliefs or are you all talk?
Btw, my college records are more public than our current Presidents.
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is taken in by plants and used to make good things. In the past, carbon dioxide levels have been twice as high as current levels. The evidence is that it is not a causative factor in historic warming periods but rather a trailing indicator. Water vapor makes up a much greater greenhouse factor than carbon dioxide.
Swordmaker, I appreciate your input on this but facts and logic are not going to work here. Being cool is big with these people. If we could make it cool to know facts and be able to distinguish between truth and political BS, that would be great. How do we make being smart cool for people who have always preferred being wrong but feeling superior and cool at the same time. A tricky one.
Perhaps “pollutant” is not the best word to use (although it’s technically accurate) because of it’s connotation with poisonous gasses and chemicals not found in nature. I think “emission” is a better word.
Carbon dioxide emissions is not in of itself bad – you and every animal on the planet emits carbon dioxide, after-all. The total amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere usually remains unchanged because of the Carbon Cycle: this balances CO₂ emissions of animals with plants that absorb CO₂ from the air.
Where carbon emissions go wrong is when it’s out of balance – specifically, too much CO₂ emission, not enough CO₂ absorption, changing the total balance of gases in the atmosphere in relatively short amount of time. The reason why it’s even possible for humans to throw this system out of balance is because of fossil fuels – energy rich hydrocarbon compounds, formed by plants that have decomposed millions of years ago. Fossil fuels are the product of millions of years of plants absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere. As we burn through the world’s supply of fossil fuels, humans are releasing millions of years worth of plant absorbed CO₂ into the atmosphere in a matter of centuries.
Water vapor is an even stronger greenhouse gas than CO₂ – but it’s effects are secondary in climate change. At any given temperature, there’s only so much water in the world that can exist as a gas – the rest will be liquid water or ice. If you release huge amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere, without heating up the planet, it will just condense into harmless water droplets over time without disturbing the balance of nature. Therefore, water vapor cannot initiate global warming, the way carbon emissions can. However, if the average temperature of the Earth becomes even slightly warmer, then a larger amount of Earth’s water will be able to exist as water vapor. The increased amount of water vapor in the atmosphere accelerates global warming, because water vapor is an even stronger greenhouse gas than CO₂. No need for extra emissions at that point – liquid water will convert itself to a gas through evaporation, all over the planet. Water vapor is behind the estimated 2℃ “point of no return” in global warming. At at certain temperature, liquid water turning into water vapor, creating even more warming, creating even more greenhouse gases, keeps the raising the temperature with or without human emissions.
Chief – I notice you are a major emitter of carbon dioxide. I think you should extinguish yourself for the good of the planet. How can you be so disgusting as to emit these poisonous gases?
Please demonstrate ANY warming trend in the last sixteen years. Explain why there is a new record for both the number of square kilometers of arctic and Antarctic ice as well as volume of ice in the past two years, both in winter and summer seasons, despite climbing CO2 percentages? Paleoclimatology shows that CO2 in ice cores TRAILED temperature increases by several hundred to several thousand years rather than preceded the temperature rise. No demonstrable rise in ocean levels that is attributable to ANYTHING other than land subsidence, ANYWHERE. . . why? How do you explain the rise in temperature that coincided with Earth’s observed rises that also occurred on Mars, Neptune, Triton, and other extra-Terran solar system bodies during the 1990s? How could these slight temperature increases on other planets and moons be anthropogenic by similar percentage increases when Mankind has not released any CO2 into their respective atmospheres? Why do the Anthropogenic “climate change” (who can no longer claim “warming”) ignore the variability of our Type G star—a variable star—as possibly having anything to do with those temperature variances on all of those bodies including Earth????
I believe that 97% of all greenhouse gases is water vapor from the ocean. And this water vapor is as effective as a greenhouse agent as other greenhouse gases. So the vast majority of the greenhouse effect comes from water evaporation from the ocean. By the way, living in Cleveland, OH, on the shore of Lake Erie, where the lake is now covered with record levels of ice. The entire lake is ice covered, and this is not a common thing. It is damn cold here, and around the country. Cold. China is pumping out vast amounts of carbon based pollution and the rest of the world is also. And it is cold.
One thing. . . I must take the opposite side for a moment. To create all this ice require one hell of a lot of evaporation from the atmosphere, then movement of that evaporated air to the colder latitudes where it can precipitate as snow and sleet to build up on existing ice as well as freezing surface water. To accomplish this requires. . . Wait for it. . . Heat. . . So, to creat an ice age requires a great deal of warming in the tropics to evaporate the water into the atmosphere, create winds to blow the water laden clouds to the arctic and Antarctic where contact with sub freezing temperatures will precipitate it to the ground where it won’t melt because the ambient temperatures never rise above 0° centigrade and this progresses south and north. So it may take Global Warming to create an Ice Age. . .
Damn, I wish MDN had an edit function.
From the atmosphere should be “into the atmosphere from the oceans.”
Thank you. You are right. My mistake. This one fact should be repeated over and over. It kind of underlines the insignificance of Man in the vast complex creation which was designed to be our home.
The article posits that small businesses should “cyborg-proof” their businesses, but fails to explain why they would want to.
Office of Mr. Toyoda:
Ah, Mr. Toyoda, I have good news and bad news.
What is the good news?
We have taken over the automotive industry, the appliances industry, the lawn mower industry, the pots and pans industry.
What is the bad news?
The people who used to make these things are unemployed and cannot afford to buy our products. We are bankrupt.
Who is designing and producing these robots?
Must be some well educated people having (hopefully) a well paid job.