I think the US is very aware, but what about China? Nada…
You are correct it will eventually cause some changes. But your point is obscured by the time-scale of the evidence you present to make it. By the time what you describe is responsible for making the earth’s temp hotter than humans can survive, the earth-bound humans will be long gone from the scene. They’ll either find a way to abandon ship or will have destroyed themselves in the mean time.
You couch your point in how the sun’s increased radiation, in galactic terms, will affect people in human terms. Your’s is a classic example of an oranges-compared-to-apples comparison. It short, it doesn’t make any sense.
Thank you for your valuable opinion.
Former Ford, Chrysler and General Motors executive Bob Lutz and ex-Chrysler Chairman and CEO Bob Nardelli told Fox News Digital that while electric vehicles (EVs) could change the entire auto industry, thus far, it’s been handled all wrong.
“In the short term, I’m afraid, it’s going to be a challenge,” Nardelli said. “It’s going to be a challenge to convince the consumer that the EV is a reliable and affordable means of transportation.”
“You could see what’s happening out there,” he continued. “We’re seeing the cascading effect of a failed initiative.”
“The problem with the whole EV movement is that there was a colossal amount of hype behind it, largely from what I like to call the liberal mainstream media, making it sound like everybody’s next vehicle was going to be an EV,” Lutz also told Digital. “And of course, the government was pushing it, because of their climate change policies. And it just plain wasn’t going to happen.”
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IOW:“In the short term, I’m afraid, it’s going to be a challenge,” Nardelli said. “It’s going to be a challenge to convince the consumer that a toaster is more reliable than a refrigerator”
Nardelli said. “It’s going to be a challenge to convince the consumer that a toaster is more reliable than a refrigerator”. Unfortunately that is true for the modern refrigerator. But for one made in 1950, it easily lasted 30 years–with only a compressor, no fans or defrost heaters or other gadgets to break. My parents had one that ran from 1950 until 1980. It was still working in 1980 when they traded it in, but they wanted a larger one that was not rusty and did not have to be defrosted. That one only lasted about 10 years. New is not always better. Faults can be engineered in to provide new features that can be sold to stupid consumers. EVs that recharged rapidly and drove themselves was a great selling feature, but over-promoted and over-hyped.
Just because something lasts a long time doesn’t make it a better choice.
This light bulb in CA has been in continuous use since 1901. But by today’s standards it’s of little use except possibly for a night light.
The first boat anchors were stones and I’m pretty sure some of those first anchors are still around today. Today boat anchors are mad e of iron and they only last maybe 100 years or so.
If you had a boat, would you use a stone for an anchor?
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I was an engineer for 45 years, and a fixer all my life. I saw how many different human-used things were designed and built. The problem now with new consumer goods (digital phones, appliances, homes and all the things that are put in them) is that they are engineered to fail long before they should. This is because the technology exists to make things that would last a human lifetime, but that would reduce profits to much lower levels. The Chinese economy depends on this principle, so that ALL goods that they build have built-in failure modes, especially appliances. Really, all the items that I have taken apart and studied are only built to last the short warranty period of 90 days, or 6 months, or 1 year in some cases. I hate this kind of economy. It creates huge piles of thrown-away junk that clogs up landfills, and a lot gets shipped to 3rd-world countries where starving people work to tear the junked items apart and salvage the parts. Isn’t there some way to get back to the old method of building things as good as possible to last as long as possible? To an engineer it just seems more efficient in the long run, and it seems that the world would be less likely to run out of things if we slow down the amount that is thrown away every day. As you indicated, cheaper and old is not always the most economical. If we were willing to pay for a little better quality of goods, we could easily slow down the throw-away rate by about 1000%.
How many things have you taken apart that had not broken? …maybe that explains your findings… 
From years of experience, I don’t take anything apart unless I first know how to put it back together. First I get all the information that I can find, such as manuals, schematic diagrams, and installation instructions. Here are two examples of what I am discussing. I had a Whirlpool Gas Range that had a 1-year limited warranty. The bottom oven broil burner stopped working after 3 years. I checked the solenoid for the broier gas valve and found that it was not working. I removed the valve and took it apart. I saw how it was constructed to fail in a few years. The solenoid coil was made of extremely fine wire, about the diameter of a hair. Fine wire is cheaper, and it will break quicker than larger wire. To make sure that it did break shortly after the warranty period, the Chinese valve manufacturer stretched the ends of the coil wires up to a post on each end of the solenoid. The metal posts were bent in a C-shaped spring, so that they put tension on the ends of the coil wires. This meant that each time the oven got hot, the wire ends were stretched out by the spring posts. When the oven cooled down, the wires would shrink and tremendous tension would be created, eventually causing one of the wires to break from metal fatigue failure. This could have easily been avoided by building the solenoid in the traditional way and leaving a little slack on each end so there was zero tension on the tiny wires. I fixed the solenoid by soldering a piece of scrap wire on each end, allowing some slack between the coil and the spring posts. That valve has been working now for about 4 years since I repaired it. It need not have ever failed in the first place, except it was made to fail. A second example is a room fan that I found on the side of the street, left to be hauled away in the city trash truck. It looked like a well-made fan that might keep my workshop cool, so I brought it home and checked it out. It was simple enough that I did not need to look for any manufacturer information, consisting only of a metal frame, a fan blade, a motor, electrical cord, and a 3-position speed switch with On/Off control. I checked out the cord and control with my voltmeter and found that 120 volt AC power was going to the motor. I took the motor apart and found that there was a tiny little fuse hidden inside the motor housing, that had burned out when the motor exceeded 1.5 amps. The normal motor current on High speed was 1.3 amps, so the manufacturer had set the fuse link to fail at a very small extra load. Which it did. There was lots of pet hair clogging up the motor vents, and I suspect that is what blew the fuse. I found a very small-diameter piece of wire, about #24 AWG to use as a fuse link, and soldered it across the old fuse ends. That would allow maybe 1.7 amps to pass before it burned out, still a very conservative fuse for a fan. It has been working for years now, and it would not have failed in the first place if it had not been built to deliberately fail early. This is the sort of crap that is going on now, across all parts of our lives. It needs to stop. It results in a throw-away society, with tons of appliances and other items sent to land fills, or shipped to other countries to be torn apart and salvaged.
So very true…! Don’t know if this is still true, but GE had a decades long reputation of building products almost impossible to DIY repairs.
During my years in buildling and maintaining mfg plants, GC’s were specifically instructed NO GE products, as they were held together with rivets at obscure angles and impossible to remove, components bonded together also impossible to disassemble.
GE’s solution to failing contacts, relays, switches, etc–buy more GE.
I think that much of the old GE patents and designs were bought by Chinese companies. Now they make GE appliance in China and other countries, but they are not as good as the 1950’s and 60’s American-made stuff. Westinghouse is another old American company that is now all Chinese, except for the nuclear power part.
Been there, done that… I understand complex and high-quality equipment.
From 1963 until 1973, I worked as a field tech with IBM’s Electric Typewriter Division, (later named the Office Products Division.) I worked on the IBM Selectric, the models 01 and A thru D model Executive and Standard typewriters IBM Copiers and mechanical graphics composers.
The IBM Selectric Typewriter has over 2,800 moving parts and the Selectric Composer has many more than that. The early mechanical IBM Selectric Composer was without a doubt one of the most complex all mechanical devices I have ever worked on.
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If your dishwasher was made with the care and precision of those machines, people couldn’t afford them.
GM CEO says committment to all-electric fleet remains firm despite industry-wide sales slowdown.
If I was still working, I would have an EV. No doubt. Ideal candidate: single home, long private driveway, 110 and 220 outside outlets, and a 90 mile RT to work. Perfect.
But millions and millions do not have that advantage.
“If your dishwasher was made with the care and precision of those machines, people couldn’t afford them.”
Maybe. But the lifetime of average automobile during my short life has gone from 2 years to around 12 years, and rising, even as they become more complex. Somehow people still afford them. It could be because they are more dependable, last longer, and do not have to be replaced as often. So maybe their cost per year has not gone up so much as my dishwasher that does not last as long as it used to, or my refrigerator, or my range, or just about any other household item that I now throw away regularly. Years ago, appliances had 3 and 4 year warranties. Now you are lucky to get a 1-year warranty that only covers replacement parts, if and only if you use a factory- qualified repair person and pay their high rates. - - - - -Somehow vehicles have escaped the decline in quality. Could it be because a few are still made in the USA? I am sure there are other reasons. There have to be a few people who want quality vehicles and dependable transportation. There is no real reason that all the other things we use are declining in quality and dependability. We need to stand up and demand better. It is time we created some Quality Police. Any manufacturer caught deliberately building in failure modes should be fined and have to provide a free replacement if his item does not last the average expected lifetime. Purposely making shoddy stuff costs us all. It is time that now-common practice was done away with.
They aren’t for everyone…but I have owned one since 2015 and I am never going back. Never charged anywhere except my garage in 9 years. Only maintenance has been cabin air filters and tires. Going to sell mine early next year and get another one.
My point exactly, and forcing consumers into buying them is not the way.
You have it backwards. A major reason automobiles are more reliable now than they were 50 years ago is because Honda, Mazda and Toyota implemented statistically-driven bottom-up quality control and strategic planning in their manufacturing processes. Ironically an American by the name of William Deming is the person responsible for that change.
Demming tried and failed to convince the big three US automakers of his revolutionary ideas and they wouldn’t listen, the Japanese did.
The result was that, by the 1980s, the US automakers were forced to make a better car or the Japanese would have put them out of business with their superior products.