Obama to unveil big increase in required mpg

[BDKJMU]

And here is another reason this is being done...

"The steadily disappearing American car
Sedans started disappearing from the U.S. car market in 2008.
Fueling the trend are low gas prices, a stronger economy and dramatic improvements in the design of SUVs and trucks.

....Detroit's Big Three automakers — Chrysler, Ford and General Motors — pioneered the mass production of the car, but in just four years, all three may be known to Americans simply as truck and SUV makers, with only a stray sedan for sale.

The automotive industry in America is making what many observers think is an irrevocable shift toward pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and crossovers. While carmakers are producing sedans and sports cars that are safer, faster and more comfortable than ever, customers continue to flock to taller vehicles with features cars simply cannot offer.

"Since 2009 or 2010 it has been a truck story," said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of forecasting at LMC Automotive, which tracks the auto industry. The exception was a slight pullback in 2012, when the midsize car segment underwent a major refresh, he said.

The trend shows no sign of abating, despite cries from car enthusiasts that crossovers lack the driving dynamics of sedans and complaints from environmentalists that SUVs and trucks are typically less fuel-efficient than cars.

By 2022, LMC Automotive estimates 84 percent of the vehicles General Motors sells in the U.S. market will be some kind of truck or SUV. Ford's ratio of domestic SUV and truck sales will hit 90 percent; Fiat Chrysler's will notch a whopping 97 percent.

"We have SUVs eventually crossing the 50 percent threshold by themselves in the near future," Schuster said.

Signs suggest SUVs and crossovers are also taking hold elsewhere in the world.

Automotive executives and industry watchers think there will be only a small space for sedans in the U.S., perhaps consisting mostly of sports cars or niche vehicles favored by enthusiasts.

A few factors that drove this unprecedented shift can be attributed to gas prices, a stronger economy and big improvements in the design of sport utility vehicles, said Karl Brauer, executive publisher at Cox Automotive.

"It was really a one-two-three punch," Brauer said. "Essentially every force lined up to help SUVs, and that has been hurting car sales."......."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/06/the-ste ... n-car.html

[JohnStOnge]

Global Warming is undeniable. It's simply fact. Thermometers don't lie.

The cause is debatable, but let's be intellectually honest: you know that all the **** we've pumped into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution has a lot to do with it.

I voted for Trump fellas, because I hate Hillary Clinton more than anybody on the planet beside Maryland drivers.

But c'mon. You know we're **** up our planet. It won't be made uninhabitable in our lifetimes, but it's certainly being made less livable by human beings by the day. Sure, you can use the law of large numbers and conservative think-tank-funded studies to refute pretty much anything. I'm just saying that deep down inside, you know what's really going on. You just hate hearing Democrats tell it to you.

And I personally hate the misappropriation and overregulation that comes along with when Democrats know they're right, but hey - sometimes you have to suck it up. The environment is one area where I am willing to mingle with them. On guns, I am not.

Sometimes they do:
Faulty thermometers exaggerated western U.S. mountain warming
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fau ... in-warming

And people inputting and/or interpreting the data in order to fit an agenda sometimes do.

That's a good referencing job. And I think there really is a potential issue with trying to use temperature measuring devices when making statements about small temperature changes. It's like my employer got me this expensive thermocouple with a calibration certificate. And it's great. But I check it monthly in distilled water ice slurry and distilled boiling water at near sea level (I'm in Louisiana). Pretty much the average reading it gives for distilled water ice slurry is 33.1 F and that for distilled boiling water is around 211.

Now, that's close. And for what I have to do it's fine. But when you're talking about the kinds of small average temperature changes they talk about with the climate change thing that kind of imprecision can, I think, be significant.

And by the way I have a probe for measuring air temperature and a different probe for measuring liquid (water) temperature. I get slightly different readings between the two probes.