We posted last week about GM Vice Chair Bob Lutz expressing a little climate-change skepticism on The Colbert Report. Josh Nelson wrote about it as well over on Huffington Post, and thus began an online conversation with GM's director of news relations, Tom Wilkinson, who defended both Lutz and the company's environmental policies.
"There is no reason a three-dimensional human being (like Bob Lutz) can't be skeptical about global warming orthodoxy and still be wildly passionate about more efficient vehicles," wrote Wilkinson. "Which he is, by the way."
Nelson followed up today with more, where Wilkinson again weighed in. The whole thing has created some interesting back-and-forth about the sort of standards one expects from companies like GM, and whether a business can claim to care about climate policy while putting forward "dissenting voices" like Lutz.
After all, how is Joe Six Pack supposed to react when he hears about GM "going green" in one breath while one of its top executives takes a very public swat at the science demonstrating the tie between humanity's reliance on fossil fuels and global warming?
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Comments
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:28 am
22 Sep 2008
Either unwittingly or perversely, we have people who are distorting and seeking to deny what everyone knows to be real, I believe, for the sake of protecting their selfish interests and the interests of their benefactors.
Look at the behavior of the current powerbrokers of the human community's global economy. Many too many of them have determined that the global economy exists for their benefit......not for the improvement of the wellbeing of humanity, not for the protection of life as we know it, not to preserve the Earth and its environs. They neglect, and express token regard for, the family of humanity, global biodiversity, the environment and Earth's body. Actually, they are adamantly engaged in little else than "feathering their own nests."
The self-proclaimed "Masters of the Universe" among us, including the Bilderbergers from whom we have heard this week, as well as the members of The Trilateral Commission, expect only that their `inalienable rights' to plunder natural resources and conspicuously consume them be condoned.
Do not dare to disturb them.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/index.php
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:05 pm
22 Sep 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:03 pm
22 Sep 2008
Back in the day it would have saved US from this economic disaster. Well then Lutz would have credibility wether or not he believed in GHG climate change.
GM and Lutz have zero credibility on anything relating to any of this, plugin hybrids or climate change. Now they want billions in bailout money, because that credinility is gone.
But they want to use the money for more efficient ICEs, not plugin hybrids. So screw Lutz and the boardroom he rode in on. Maybe walmart will buy their brand name and build plugin hybrids in China?
As Barack says, "Enough!"
The only way these idiots should get a dime is in social security. Retire every Detroit boardroom and executive moron before any bailout is given and get a firm agreement to mass produce millions of plugin hybrids for government use.
Put some engineers in charge and they will get the job done without a free lunch. Taxpayers give them billions, we get millions of plugin hybrids for government use, over the next 20 years.
Engineers in the boardroom, instead of salesmen? Yep. Do it or go under, make them an offer they can't refuse.
A similar ultimatum for wall street. You want a bailout, we need regulation, the culprits responsible for insider trading manipulation and fraud offered up for prosecution, and taxpayer ownership equal to the bailout money. So we can recover that bail money when the economy regroups.
Time to stop playing nice with thieves.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pangolin Posted 4:58 pm
22 Sep 2008
The thing is that the modularity of a series hybrid would allow shade-tree mechanics to keep them running forever. It would have shot their model swapping ways in the foot.
The real secret to big vehicles is the big repair bills that push people to purchase new vehicles. If F=MV^2 then the only to increase vehicle mortality if you cant' increase speed is to increase mass.
So what the little people die.
Put the Carbon Back
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Bob Wallace Posted 2:03 am
23 Sep 2008
No one brought these cars to market.
There just wasn't a market when heavy, short life lead acid batteries were the only option and gas very cheap. The market disappeared when OPEC re-opened the oil tap.
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