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The Official Eleanor Roosevelt (And Anything Else Non-Topical) Thread

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Posted by Convicted One on Saturday, August 14, 2010 10:42 PM

Declaration:

After the weather we've enjoyed this past month, anyone  who is still committed to being a global warming denier can drink the nectar from my sweat saturated shorts!! Ashamed

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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, August 14, 2010 11:04 PM

I would not draw any religious conclusions about the hot weather.  This summer is just making up for last summer.  I never turned the air conditioning on last summer.  I never turn it off this summer.

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Posted by creepycrank on Sunday, August 15, 2010 10:45 AM
You should come up here to the northwet where we still have the heat on.
Revision 1: Adds this new piece Revision 2: Improves it Revision 3: Makes it just right Revision 4: Removes it.
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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, August 15, 2010 11:36 AM

It's nice here for the most part, but when I was working on the RR last week I fired up the furnace in the camp car in which I was staying overnight...

LarryWhistling
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Posted by Modelcar on Sunday, August 15, 2010 11:58 AM

I've been running A/C more this season in both the house and whatever vehicle I'm driving, than I've done for some years past....

Generally, I just use the A/C in a vehicle spoty when I'm just driving somewhere locally, but this season, it's just let the controls set where they are for each run.....Windows up.  Sun roof closed.

Quentin

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, August 15, 2010 2:23 PM

Modelcar

I've been running A/C more this season in both the house and whatever vehicle I'm driving, than I've done for some years past....

Generally, I just use the A/C in a vehicle spoty when I'm just driving somewhere locally, but this season, it's just let the controls set where they are for each run.....Windows up.  Sun roof closed.

Down here in South Texas we have two seasons:  Summer and January.  Cool

 

 

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Posted by Victrola1 on Monday, August 16, 2010 8:17 AM

The summers in the mid 1930's were scorching hot. A lot of the Great Plains took to the air. Eleanor could see the dust clouds go by on the East Coast. 

Was this global warming caused by coal burning steam locomotives? 

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 16, 2010 3:24 PM

Eleanor could also ride in a nice air conditioned Parlor car.

Perhaps a nice car like this:  http://www.whippanyrailwaymuseum.net/eq_jerseycoast.html

 

 

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Posted by Convicted One on Monday, August 16, 2010 6:16 PM

Bucyrus

I would not draw any religious conclusions about the hot weather.  

 

 

Funny that you would make a reference tying the two together.  I find it of interest the things some people are willing to believe just because they read it in a very old  book, yet they can witness unprecedented melt off of the polar icecaps with their own two eyes and still insist that global warming is a ruse...go figure. 

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 16, 2010 6:49 PM

Convicted One

Bucyrus

I would not draw any religious conclusions about the hot weather.  

 

 

Funny that you would make a reference tying the two together.  I find it of interest the things some people are willing to believe just because they read it in a very old  book, yet they can witness unprecedented melt off of the polar icecaps with their own two eyes and still insist that global warming is a ruse...go figure. 

I don’t think it is an unprecedented melt.  I think there are natural cooling and warming cycles going on everywhere, both locally and broadly, short term and long term.  Some of them may be so long that they may appear to be unprecedented from our relatively short historical perspective. 

 

However, I don’t believe that these cycles are being caused by manmade activities, which emit CO2, and that the only remedy is to redistribute the world’s wealth from the rich to the poor through the agency of governments.  It just seems too pat that a supposed scientific theory comes along that suddenly gives the world’s redistributionists and control freaks everything they have ever dreamed of.     

 

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Posted by Convicted One on Monday, August 16, 2010 6:58 PM

 FWIW, I don't think that the obvious "carbon credits" trading scam proves or disproves global warming.\

it's a bad "solution"  to a growing problem.

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, August 16, 2010 7:17 PM

Convicted One

 FWIW, I don't think that the obvious "carbon credits" trading scam proves or disproves global warming.\

it's a bad "solution"  to a growing problem.

True, but the people who brought us the carbon-offset solution are the same ones who alerted us to what they contend is a manmade climate problem.  And I do not see that the alleged problem has been proven.  Not even close.

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Posted by samfp1943 on Tuesday, August 17, 2010 12:18 AM

Bucyrus

Convicted One

 FWIW, I don't think that the obvious "carbon credits" trading scam proves or disproves global warming.\

it's a bad "solution"  to a growing problem.

True, but the people who brought us the carbon-offset solution are the same ones who alerted us to what they contend is a manmade climate problem.  And I do not see that the alleged problem has been proven.  Not even close.

My Uncle used to say, " Never trust a politician!" 

 When he sticks his hand out to shake your had, put your other over your wallet! 

 [Then when he leaves the house, count the family silverware]

 

 


 

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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 6:24 PM

Eleanor Roosevelt welcomes you to the new and improved trains.com general discussion forum.

 

 

 

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Posted by Victrola1 on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 7:09 AM

Is this the greatest thing since Eleanor was able to replace her storage battery radio with one you plug right into the wall? What will Atwater-Kent think of next?

 

 

 

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Posted by Victrola1 on Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:07 AM

Does Eleanor use a Mac, or Ubuntu etc. Linux? Does the updated page work well on anything other than landslide majority Microsoft O/S and Internet Explorer? Is this a democracy with majority tyranny, or a republic where the minority is respected?

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, September 3, 2010 2:56 PM

Eleanor Roosevelt's Friday song of the week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CylR5EDr9Uo

 

 

 

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Posted by Convicted One on Sunday, September 12, 2010 9:59 PM

Several municipalities with which I have first hand knowledge of, are using tax dollars to plant trees in anticipation of the imposition of "carbon credits" brokering, preparing to become sellers instead of buyers.

This has me wondering, when the carbon credits trading becomes mandatory, many railroads have oddles and boodles of trees sitting on their land along their right-of-ways, I wonder if any of those railroads will be in a position to be sellers as opposed to buyers?

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, September 12, 2010 10:15 PM

Convicted One

Several municipalities with which I have first hand knowledge of, are using tax dollars to plant trees in anticipation of the imposition of "carbon credits" brokering, preparing to become sellers instead of buyers.

This has me wondering, when the carbon credits trading becomes mandatory, many railroads have oddles and boodles of trees sitting on their land along their right-of-ways, I wonder if any of those railroads will be in a position to be sellers as opposed to buyers?

That would be a question for the U.S. Bureau of Carbon Quantification  (USBCQ).  Actually, I think everybody will be both selling and buying on an individual and on an organizational basis.  It will be like doing your taxes every day of the year. 

I would like to know more about cities who are using tax dollars to plant trees in order to avoid buying carbon credits. 

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Posted by Victrola1 on Monday, September 13, 2010 7:08 AM

Weeds growing between the rails, do those rate a carbon credit?

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Posted by Deggesty on Monday, September 13, 2010 12:01 PM

Victrola1

Weeds growing between the rails, do those rate a carbon credit?

Hmm, if the carbon credits become mandatory, what about the bushes, trees, dandelions, and morning glories in my yard? Will they offset my preference for light bulbs that give enough light for reading (and do not contain mercury)?Smile

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, September 13, 2010 3:04 PM

Dandelion credits...I LIKE that!  Laugh

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Posted by Victrola1 on Monday, September 13, 2010 3:20 PM

Kudzu credits, rag weed rebates, etc. could they be a game changer? Short lines ill maintained could sell their credits to more prosperous connecting lines. Will lightly used lines be barely maintained with one train a month simply to keep their CO2 consuming capabilities on the books?  

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, September 13, 2010 3:23 PM

Ya know, we have LOTS of mesquite down here where I live. 

I wonder if they'd consider a mesquite credit? Hmm

 

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Posted by Victrola1 on Monday, September 13, 2010 3:24 PM

If Wall Street gets a piece of the action for brokering it, anything is possible. 

BACKGROUND: Kudzu was introduced into the U.S. in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where it was promoted as a forage crop and an ornamental plant. From 1935 to the mid-1950s, farmers in the south were encouraged to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion, and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely for many years. Kudzu was recognized as a pest weed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and, in 1953, was removed from its list of permissible cover plants.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/invasivetutorial/kudzu.htm

Should we thank Eleanor for encouraging the CCC and kudzu? CO2 beware, kudzu is expanding everywhere.

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Posted by Convicted One on Monday, September 13, 2010 7:36 PM

Bucyrus

 
I would like to know more about cities who are using tax dollars to plant trees in order to avoid buying carbon credits. 

 

Well, one ideology suggests the value of marketing  "carbon storage strategies"

other ideas:

as tested in Denver: The potential of urban tree plantings to be cost effective in carbon
credit markets

 

Los Angeles: A method for locating potential tree-planting sites in urban areas

 

Urban Forests and Climate Change (lots of links)

In a nutshell, the strategy is usually some variant of enlisting taxpayer support to plant an "urban canopy" on the park strip located between city sidewalks and the curb. Promoting aesthetic quality, shade, bio diversity, or whatever might motivate the citizenry. In my particular town the city offers residents a cost splitting  incentive, if the resident will pay half the cost then the city will match that amount with tax dollars.

The catch is, by insisting that the new plantings be located only  on park strip (city property) then only the city will be entitled to reap the (eventual) carbon credit benefit.

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, September 13, 2010 8:46 PM

Convicted One

 Bucyrus:

 
I would like to know more about cities who are using tax dollars to plant trees in order to avoid buying carbon credits. 

 

 

 

as tested in Denver: The potential of urban tree plantings to be cost effective in carbon
credit markets

 

The catch is, by insisting that the new plantings be located only  on park strip (city property) then only the city will be entitled to reap the (eventual) carbon credit benefit.

As we live our lives from one moment to the next, every single move we make will either add or subtract from our carbon footprints.  Some higher authority will have to decide how big our carbon footprints are allowed to be.  If our footprints happen to exceed that maximum, we will have as many options to reduce our footprints as there are grains of sand.  Some higher authority will have to assign a value to all those options.

And that authority must also decide a value for all the things we do to increase our carbon footprints.  So, we will each need an account that measures what we do to increase our footprint and what we do to reduce it.  The balance of that account will change with every breath we take.  There are bound to be disputes in how this accounting is carried out, so we will need a system of judges and arbitrators that will make rulings on the meaning of what assigned values are assigned to and how they are tallied.

And just what happens if your carbon footprint happens to exceed your carbon allowance or cap?  Your carbon account will reveal this net carbon debit, and a punitive tax will be levied on you for the excess.  I suppose the higher authority that establishes the value of your nearly infinite carbon credits and debits will also establish the tax for non-compliance.  This means that your carbon account will have to be monitored in real time by the government in order to enforce compliance by levying carbon taxes and fines.  Maybe they will require us to post a carbon bond in a cash account as a fundamental requirement of citizenship. Then this cash account can be debited automatically in real time if our carbon account slips out of compliance.

I would not plant a bunch of trees until I knew what their offset or credit value was.  It would be utterly foolhardy and irresponsible to the taxpayers for a city to be planting trees on the taxpayers’ dime if they did not know the value of the offset.  For one thing, the cost of planting the trees might be higher than the value of the offset, so it would be a losing proposition.  But, worse than that, there might not be any net credit at all from planting trees.  On one hand, trees consume CO2, but it adds carbon to create them, transport them, and plant them.  It adds carbon to fertilize them, water them, trim them, and spray them.  It adds carbon for the city to run the computer used to cut the check to pay for the trees, and pay for fertilizing, watering, trimming, and spraying.

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Posted by schlimm on Monday, September 13, 2010 9:20 PM

Long, long ago (which I can remember), before anyone ever heard of carbon footprints, carbon taxes or credits or global climate change, a lot of American cities had programs to plant trees on parkways.  Sometimes they did it , sometimes the homeowner paid and often it was a joint effort.  I guess it was a time when trees could be appreciated for their beauty, shade and possible cooler shade that contributed to the common good.  I guess those times are sadly gone.

C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, September 13, 2010 9:36 PM

Oh I am all for trees.  When I moved in here in 1980, the first thing I did was plant 69 little evergreen trees, filling the entire yard space with them.  I have some of just about every type of evergreen tree.  Now they are 50-80 feet tall. 

My above comments are only in relation to cities planting trees as a collective enterprise to farm carbon offsets.  I say just let trees be trees.  I don't know whether my trees are adding or subtracting carbon.  They attract a lot of birds that spew CO2 when they sing.

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Posted by al-in-chgo on Monday, September 13, 2010 11:36 PM

 

Well, perhaps the time is gone during which everything didn't have to be related in terms of money . . .  I for one am a tree-hugger on a practical as well as an idealstic level.  I actually won second place in 4-H for "Foresty Appreciation" when I was 12 -- part of the appreciation, along with identifying and collecting deciduous leaves, was planting close to 100 saplings on an open (and rather windswept) plot.  County agents in those days loved to give away saplings--not a dozen, but a hundred minimum.  (Recall that 4-H is a federal program but involves the cooperation of county agents, at least to some degree.) 

Also, Chuck and I still occasionally see the old "shelter belts" on Illnois farmsteads when we drive over the old federal highways.  This came as history even to me, but in the 1930s the county farm agents were encouraged (probably with the help of some New Deal program) to plant pine trees in a nice tight row to protect the north or west side of the farm house.  Gave shade and protected from those howling Prairie winds in cold weather.  Some of them are 70, 80 feet tall, but they still provide some shade and a wind break.  Somewhere between "do it because it will be of benefit to you," and "do it because it's just a good idea," a lot of good was done--and other than the cost of the trees, it cost the federal government very little and the obliging farmer only a relatively small amount of time.  What amazes me is how constant a height the crowns are--you don't get that with maples.

If this turned into a sermonette, I apologize.  -  al

 

al-in-chgo

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