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Comment I have to wonder ... (Score 1) 69

whether the driverless cars' systems/software takes into account the possible behavior of other drivers. For example, experience tells me that another driver will sometimes expect without caution that the driver ahead will not stop at a yellow light and proceed even if the light will be red for them. Then "unexpectedly" the driver ahead stops (as a driverless car likely would). Drivers run such "orange" lights regularly and rear-end collisions do occur, sometimes fatal like the one described in the article. I don't know if such was the case for this collision, but it does inspire the question.

Comment Consider the tops of the cars being panels (Score 1) 130

Because many railway trains run on power from overhead or through the rails, each car could be topped with an array of panels that feed their output back into the grid after extracting what the train needs for propulsion. Even when a train is sitting idle it can be generating power during the day. Maintenance only takes a car out of service for a short time.

Comment Water vapor may be key (Score 0) 219

The predictions of the models cannot be too dire or the world governments will no longer be able to control people by putting the blame on them if they do not behave in ways to reduce the warming. Too dire equals "can't do anything about it", so people will refuse to do anything.

It was in the 70's when I worked as a student for an atmospheric scientist who told me of his hypothesis that jet aircraft contrails were seeding high altitude cloud formation and therefore changing Earth's reflectivity (albedo). He said as time goes on and there are more and more flights every day, the effect will become measureable.

That got me to thinking that whether or not the warming is triggered by carbon-based molecules, the warming causes more evaporation of water and as an even more potent greenhouse gas that water vapor causes more warming which increases evaporation and so on. The vapor returns to Earth's surface due to increased rain and snow and eventually there will be an equilibrium reached at some higher average global temperature. I'm not sure that the cycle, once set in motion, can be affected by doing anything about carbon. It is water vapor (especially at high altitudes) that matters now.

I've always wondered why emphasis is not mostly on how to cope with the higher temperature in case it is unavoidable.

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