[Adam Y.]

There are also semi-serious proposals to put catalytic-converter-like coatings on the outside of car radiators to remove pollutants from the air while the cars drive down the highway.

You do know that platinum is probably rarer than oil.

It's just like the energy-efficient light bulbs. As each of the regular incandescent light bulbs in our house dies, we've been converting them over to the daylight-corrected fluorescent ones. (Except for the halogen ones on dimmers, as you can't put fluorescent bulbs on a dimmer.) Even though they cost more, you get the equivalent of a 100W light-bulb with only 37W of power. Plus, add in their increased lifespan, and you'll save money over the life of the bulb.

And yet the light bulbs are full of mercury. If you don't throw them out correctly you'll end up with a serious problem..

90 years ago, most towns and cities in this country had efficient transportation networks and city planning. People lived near where they worked, and if they did live in the suburbs, they lived near the train or trolley line. Cars undid all that, for better or worse, depending on your point-of-view. There's nothing wrong with suburbia, as long as it's close enough to a transit line to make it worthwhile.

That isn't going to happen anytime soon. There are still some parts of the country where you need a car to get anywhere. It's not a matter of public transportation more than the nearest supermarket is twenty miles away.

The countries are actually expecting oil supplies to dwindle in the next 20 years. Knowing our gas consumption, it will be just that long. We don't need to make these the goals for the next 50 years, but the goals for the next 20. What we need to do is to convince the government to start pushing this more. A lot more. They are starting to make ethanol plants, which is one of the first steps. Now they need to push ethanol using vehicles. It will be a slow change. People will be reluctant to go out and willy nilly buy a new car. Especially if they just bought a new one. But what we can do is convince the government to let us trade in gas hogging cars for new ethanol cars. The problem with that is that it will hurt our economy.

I have to find the article but I remember reading that deforestation isn't the problem. The main problem is emissions output.