Hmm... Of course there really can't be real-world crashes as there are very small number of vehicles in real-world use. Yet. However, good thing is that they reacted quickly to the problems and as some have already pointed out, the Volt's design with batteries is in many ways safer than that of the traditional gasoline powered cars. Chevrolet Volt / Opel Ampera is any case an iteresting design and surprisingly brave move from GM.
Anyway, climate change or not, reducing pollution by getting rid of fossil fuel should be a top priority.
Why?
What negative impact does pollution have, compared to all the other issues out there (like national healthcare, the social security crisis, and any number of other issues)?
Pollution is not local issue. It is global. It happens everywhere. I live in Finland and here we don't have social security or healthcare problems. We do have the euro crisis...
Also, what about other forms of pollution, like in groundwater/etc?
These are equally important and in some cases related to fossil fuel. Ground water may be in some cases polluted e.g.
by gasoline stations. Or consider oil spills, pollution from coal mines etc.
I'm all for lowering pollution, but it costs money and since money is fungible you have to prioritize it against all the other things that are also good ideas. Air is now very clean in general compared to what it was 30 years ago. Pollution also is almost completely unrelated to global warming - if anything particulate pollution tends to reduce the impact of global warming. What really drives global warming is CO2, and that isn't a pollutant.
Yes, prioritizations must always be done. As said CO2 may very well be a factor in global warning and if it is there is one good reason more to reduce fossil fuel usage. And, yes CO2 is really not a pollutant. But besides burning the fossil fuel there is also pollution in all other stages of the fossil fuel processing. Consider: drilling the oil, transporting the oil, refining the oil, transporting the end product (gasoline, diesel oil, etc.) and finally burning it. There may be a spill on transport or drilling.. There definetely is pollution during the refining and the transporting... and the list goes on.
As you said, there are numerous other things that need improvement besides reducing fossil fuel. It is indeed a matter of prioritization.
I guess so then. Could you explain how sharing e.g. potty mouth badge in twitter help in learning the environment? My original comment was about the social media usage.
Using lint, klocwork and other static code analysis tools or at least using the highest compiler warning level are all beneficial in terms of learning the language and in every day work when you have learned the language and the environment.
More over, by code reviews, pair programming etc. you can learn a lot and find many bugs and learn better ways to do things that no social media sharing can do. Twitter for example is awful media for code sharing. Consider for example the maximum tweet length.
Not only there are badges but you can share them on social media. How's that for a progress! Now we only need find a person who would willingly do that...
Seriously, this feature must be from the clippy department. I find it very hard to see that any sane person would find any use for these "advanced" features.
I agree that goto has it place. Used in a right place it may result in much more readable and maintainable code. But, when used unwisely it will result in spaghetti code. You _can_ write all your code without goto but when your code screams for a goto, use it!
In you example, however, that deep nesting is just asking for trouble; goto or no goto.
Yes, the greenhouse effect is a proven thing. The earth would be a much cooler place without it! Just compare our temperature to the moon which is about the same distance from the sun. The greenhouse effect is there and working.
There is some correlation between increased CO2 level on atmosphere due to burning of fossil fuels and the global temperature rise. It is however an indirect measurement and therefore open to debate. The question is if the greenhouse effect is enhanced by the increased CO2 level or is the global temperature rising because of some other factor, like increased activity on the sun or something else. Wast majority currently believe it is indeed the CO2 but it has not been proven.
Anyway, climate change or not, reducing pollution by getting rid of fossil fuel should be a top priority.
"Protozoa are small, and bacteria are small, but viruses are smaller than the both put together."
