AWKWARD ZOMBIE

I will never understand why fuel efficiency and related issues are things people just don't care about.

"Oh yeah, I could save a lot of cheddar by getting this fuel efficient car, BUT LOOK AT THIS GIANT PICKUP IT MAKES A ROARING SOUND WHEN YOU TURN THE ENGINE ON, AWESOME"

People are horrible in weighing short term benefits against long term benefits.

My car is rated at 20 mpg from the factory, I get about that while driving.
I love driving and all the sights and smells, but I can get a new mustang with a v8 and get similar mileage as my 4 banger. Pretty sure I want an old v12 jag for my next ride. Keep in mind, I live in an area well above the national gas average.

As for long term effects, the most efficient and clean thing to do is own an old car. New cars means you have to get rid of an old car, potentially adding to landfills. Plus, hybrid vehicles generally have a larger carbon footprint than non hybrids, due to the required manufacturing process for the batteries.

TL;DR hybrids suck, buy used

Don't old cars consume a lot more fuel than recent ones?

That's a generalization. On average, it's true, but you can find old cars that have much better gas mileage than the ones around today.

<- knows nothing about cars

I want an ENV motorcycle. Black, preferrably. I think it's really cool

Not quite sure where to jump in so... here goes.

People need to stop using fossil fuels as their namesake suggests and rather as a feedstock for plastics and other materials. If we run out of ways to manufacture what the majority of our products are made from we are truly fucked. However if we run out of fossil-based fuel we are merely being lightly caressed and uncomfortably coddled by the hands of doom. There will be and is other fuel sources.
[Edit - does this come under ethics? Sorry about that. Have an article about floating windmills for your trouble. EDIT 2 - And an even better japanese floating windmill article to supplement that.

Plus while everyone is talking about cars - did you know that there's a chance that the DeLorean might be going back into production as an electric vehicle? Sounds pretty cool.

I think I'm crying

Where we're going, we don't need gas.

Try telling that to Katie's dad.

This is cool, but while it might be possible to produce wind energy cheaper than nuclear, the costs to adapt the power grid to it are still enormous, and is a time-consuming work. Just something to keep in mind.

What if there were some sort of kinetic plates in sidewalks that could produce small amounts of energy? It seems like a difficult project and could be easily abused, though.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. If we want to maintain the standard of living that we have right now (although I see it to be a bit superfluous) nuclear is the only way to go in the short term.
It'd just be nice to have a supplementary source set up for the far-distant future for when the resources for nuclear energy eventually run out. Which I remember reading somewhere would be just over 100 years if we became entirely dependant upon nuclear energy and energy consumption kept increasing at a similar rate as it is now. I could be wrong though.

Hey guys.

Earthquake time!

This neat video shows the location, depth, and magnitude of every earthquake Japan got hit by in 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKp5cA2sM28

It's most interesting at and after 1:48. Foreshocks, the big 9.0 quake, and then thousands of aftershock for months afterwards. I love earthquakes.