Elaine
Active member
Oh Prince of Darkness, why would you say there is no proof that C02 has warmed the planet? C02 levels have gone up and global temperature has gone up. It is also generally accepted that C02 is a greenhouse gas and will cause a temperature rise. I accept that this is not definite proof - ie it could be down to something else - but will we ever get absolute definite unrefutable proof before it is too late and most of us have been wiped out? Seems to me that it is quite likely that man's activities could well cause a global temperature increase, and that will be fatal to a vast number of people because the resulting climate changes will result in crop failures and famines that we cannot deal with.
Too depressing. Just one more chocolate biscuit before global warming wipes them all out I think....
Too depressing. Just one more chocolate biscuit before global warming wipes them all out I think....
C
Cave Monkey
Guest
anfieldman said:Has anyone watched 'An Inconvenient Truth'?
It certainly made me think that we are sh**ing this planet. The figures in the film speak for themselves.
Read his book, the name escapes me but it is a core text for the OU.
There is one major point that the film seems to miss-out or is tactically ignored that his book surmises perfectly. We have no way of knowing the effect man has had on the planet or the effect man will have, as there is nothing to compare it against. Basically everything thats wrong is our fault, because that way people can keep making money out of it.
The section on how wind turbines will take 30+ years to pay off their carbon/energy footprint and yet have an operational life of much less is most amusing.
cap n chris
Well-known member
Cave Monkey said:
On what course?
A core text for every school ought to be Dr. Stanton's excellent work on Human Population Growth.
http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Growth-Human-Populations-1750-2000/dp/0906522218
"Dire consequences", indeed.
whitelackington
New member
I am sure caves are warmer than they used to be :-\
but of course i can not provide proof, it could be that I have better clothing,
it could be that as I get older my metabolisim is changing, making me feel hotter,
it could be that I have to use more energy to keep up with the youngens or it could be that "the outside is warmer"
lot of imponderables ain't there :-\
but of course i can not provide proof, it could be that I have better clothing,
it could be that as I get older my metabolisim is changing, making me feel hotter,
it could be that I have to use more energy to keep up with the youngens or it could be that "the outside is warmer"
lot of imponderables ain't there :-\
Peter Burgess
New member
Caves are only warmer because of all those hot-blooded smelly cavers who keep on going into them. None of this would have happened if we'd been born reptiles.
whitelackington
New member
Peter Burgess said:
Peter,
is that your considered oppinion?
Peter Burgess
New member
Indeed. I considdered it for 2 minutes 34 seconds before posting it for you to read.
C
Cave Monkey
Guest
cap 'n chris said:
General Science Course, I am not sure of the code, it did however included counting winkles, measuring sand dunes ect...
Population growth is the biggest problem we face.
Glenn
Member
I Don't believe anyone knows what is going on. And therefore we are being subject to a huge con.
The planet has been subject to climate change for millions of years, and we (human species) have been collecting records for a couple of hundred of those years and presenting our "understanding" as fact - depending on which school you listen to. We seem to have forgotten, or are ignoring, the mini ice age of the 1600's when the Thames regularly froze solid enough for fairs to take place on the ice, and guess what, we all survived. I think we also need to agree/understand whether global warming is pushing up carbon from the oceans, or whether increased carbon emissions are driving global warming. I agree that our present lifestyle does not help the issue, but the increase in carbon emissions goes back to the industrial revolution, not just the last couple of years as some pundits claim. But, my real gripe is how (our government especially) is using this issue to attack us, the consumer.
The motorist is being attacked by various "green" stealth taxes, the income from which is not being used for green initiatives. Neither is the government investing in better public transport, in order to give the motorist a viable option. And most importantly, the government is not forcing car manufacturers to produce greener vehicles. It's a con.
The same with recycling. "We" the consumer, are being targeted again by threats of various green taxes connected with recycling waste, but where is the government initiative to packaging manufacturers and retailers for more degradable products - there isn't! Once again it's a con. Because we, the consumer are an easy target.
Air travel amounts to a small percentage of carbon emissions, yet air travel is being "green taxed" irrespective of how green the airline is. Ryanair have invested in a complete new fleet of aircraft that are 50% cleaner than most other fleets, yet their passengers are being taxed the same as other fleets. And oh, where is that money going....
Did you see the programme last night on carbon offsetting. Companies can now claim to be carbon neutral by buying trees - which in many cases are allready growing - another con. And by the way, if trees (as we know) are so important, how come we are standing back and allowing deforestation on such a vast scale around the world.
Irrespective of the true impact of global warming, we're all being conned by obscene green initiatives none of which are in any way helping the planet.
Give any one species too much rope....
Time for a coffee.
Glenn
The planet has been subject to climate change for millions of years, and we (human species) have been collecting records for a couple of hundred of those years and presenting our "understanding" as fact - depending on which school you listen to. We seem to have forgotten, or are ignoring, the mini ice age of the 1600's when the Thames regularly froze solid enough for fairs to take place on the ice, and guess what, we all survived. I think we also need to agree/understand whether global warming is pushing up carbon from the oceans, or whether increased carbon emissions are driving global warming. I agree that our present lifestyle does not help the issue, but the increase in carbon emissions goes back to the industrial revolution, not just the last couple of years as some pundits claim. But, my real gripe is how (our government especially) is using this issue to attack us, the consumer.
The motorist is being attacked by various "green" stealth taxes, the income from which is not being used for green initiatives. Neither is the government investing in better public transport, in order to give the motorist a viable option. And most importantly, the government is not forcing car manufacturers to produce greener vehicles. It's a con.
The same with recycling. "We" the consumer, are being targeted again by threats of various green taxes connected with recycling waste, but where is the government initiative to packaging manufacturers and retailers for more degradable products - there isn't! Once again it's a con. Because we, the consumer are an easy target.
Air travel amounts to a small percentage of carbon emissions, yet air travel is being "green taxed" irrespective of how green the airline is. Ryanair have invested in a complete new fleet of aircraft that are 50% cleaner than most other fleets, yet their passengers are being taxed the same as other fleets. And oh, where is that money going....
Did you see the programme last night on carbon offsetting. Companies can now claim to be carbon neutral by buying trees - which in many cases are allready growing - another con. And by the way, if trees (as we know) are so important, how come we are standing back and allowing deforestation on such a vast scale around the world.
Irrespective of the true impact of global warming, we're all being conned by obscene green initiatives none of which are in any way helping the planet.
Give any one species too much rope....
Time for a coffee.
Glenn
whitelackington
New member
Glenn said:
Not to mention The Chinese
Cave_Troll
Active member
Human beings are insignificant and there is no way that we can possibly affect the global atmosphere. Thats just egotism on a huge scale to think we can.
Following the 9/11 attacks with most of the worlds airlines grounded, there was a measurable increase in atmostpheric temperature. This was due to the short term effect of the contrails produced by high altitude jets acting as clouds and increasing the relectivity of the planet. Take away those artificial clouds and more energy from the sun is absorbed and temperature rises. Before you say "see air travel is good for the planet" this is only a short term affect and if the "greenhouse effect" people are correct, CO2 outputted will cause more increase than the cloud will cause decrease
Recycling one little aluminium can can't possibly make any difference
Go down the the Alcan recycling plant. There you will see bales of aluminium cans weighing a ton apeice, containing thousands of cans that thousands of people could be bothered to put in the recycling bin. Then look around the warehouse at the hundreds of bales. Here you can see that if we all do it, the results can be significant. The same goes for recycling plastic drinks bottles. 25 2l PET bottles can be recycled and made into a Patagonia fleece jumper
Its all a big tax con, they're going to tax us if we don't recycle and spend the money on nuclear weapons.
Currently we are not really taxed on "not recycling". Arguing that "i'm not going to recycle now because the goverment is going to force us to in the future" would seem to be denying cash to the various charities that raise money at the moment by recycling our waste
It all rubbish anyway. There is no evidence to say that we're affecting the worlds atmosphere, so i'm going to carry on leaving all the 100W lightbulbs in my house, on, not recycle any metal, plastic or paper and drive to the corner shop in my HUGE BMW four wheel drive.
If we all reduce reuse and recycle, then the worst that will happen is we don't produce as much rubbish, don't destroy as much land qaurying for more metals, and save a bit of money on our fuel bills.
If we don't reduce, reuse and recycle, then if you're right the worse that will happen is that we'll run out of landfill sites, we'll have to trash a lot more Canadian wilderness to mine more metals / oil sands and your fuel bills will go up.
If the green lobby are right and you're wrong then we'll have trashed our own atmosphere.
It seems to be a bit of a no brainer to me, lets play it safe and RRR
Following the 9/11 attacks with most of the worlds airlines grounded, there was a measurable increase in atmostpheric temperature. This was due to the short term effect of the contrails produced by high altitude jets acting as clouds and increasing the relectivity of the planet. Take away those artificial clouds and more energy from the sun is absorbed and temperature rises. Before you say "see air travel is good for the planet" this is only a short term affect and if the "greenhouse effect" people are correct, CO2 outputted will cause more increase than the cloud will cause decrease
Recycling one little aluminium can can't possibly make any difference
Go down the the Alcan recycling plant. There you will see bales of aluminium cans weighing a ton apeice, containing thousands of cans that thousands of people could be bothered to put in the recycling bin. Then look around the warehouse at the hundreds of bales. Here you can see that if we all do it, the results can be significant. The same goes for recycling plastic drinks bottles. 25 2l PET bottles can be recycled and made into a Patagonia fleece jumper
Its all a big tax con, they're going to tax us if we don't recycle and spend the money on nuclear weapons.
Currently we are not really taxed on "not recycling". Arguing that "i'm not going to recycle now because the goverment is going to force us to in the future" would seem to be denying cash to the various charities that raise money at the moment by recycling our waste
It all rubbish anyway. There is no evidence to say that we're affecting the worlds atmosphere, so i'm going to carry on leaving all the 100W lightbulbs in my house, on, not recycle any metal, plastic or paper and drive to the corner shop in my HUGE BMW four wheel drive.
If we all reduce reuse and recycle, then the worst that will happen is we don't produce as much rubbish, don't destroy as much land qaurying for more metals, and save a bit of money on our fuel bills.
If we don't reduce, reuse and recycle, then if you're right the worse that will happen is that we'll run out of landfill sites, we'll have to trash a lot more Canadian wilderness to mine more metals / oil sands and your fuel bills will go up.
If the green lobby are right and you're wrong then we'll have trashed our own atmosphere.
It seems to be a bit of a no brainer to me, lets play it safe and RRR
P
Prince of Darkness
Guest
Unfortunately the older ones amongst us will remember all the previous scares that came to nothing. There is a definite political agenda to all this. The politicians like to kid us that they are in control, what better scenario than finding something to scare the s**t out of us thereby being able to justify tax increases and increased control over the (poorer) populations. The fact is that cheap fuel supplies are now drying up, there is global competition for resources,. What better way of regulating demand and siezing control. There is also the now very obvious fact that nuclear will be the only way to go. Much easier to convince people about nuclear power when you can tell the people that they are destroying the planet just by being alive.Anne said:
The lack of scientific rigour in the global warming argument is all too obvious.
C
Cave Monkey
Guest
Anne said:
That rings a bell. It was still used 4 years ago.
From what i remember the concept was that if you balance up the cost of making something against the benefit of having it, there is no point having it at all.
An example using a wind generator. If you add up all the energy used to develop, make, install and maintain the machine, by the time the thing comes to the end of its operational life, it has still not covered its original cost, therefore what was the point in making it. You might as well have invested the time and energy more wisely in the first place.
The same with recycling things such as paper. Trees have to be cut down to make new pulp to be added to recycled paper pulp to make recycled paper. Therefore if we send more paper to be recycled, more trees have to be cut down to cope with the demand for fresh pulp. Once you add all the chemicals that are needed you might as well just save your time, incinerate all the old paper, use the energy to make new paper and be better off.
My last words.....off topic, a pointless subject, and the book although valid was a pain in the ass to read.
Cave_Troll
Active member
Cave Monkey said:
Not really.
If you want to make 4 tonnes of cardboard
Option 1 - "virgin" - use 4 tonnes of trees
Option 2 - "75%" recycled - use 3 tonnes of paper waste and 1 tonne of tree
So no, i don't see how recycling more paper = cutting down more trees
Bob Smith
Member
Having direct experience of metalliferous mining I strongly disagree with current aluminium recycling policies, the amount of energy to transport all the cans to the few smelting plants in the UK negates ANY benefit from recycling. Until we are willing to have proper recycling schemes locally then recycling is almost pointless. it is often better to turn glass into high quality sand for building than turn it into bottles again. Having worked in areas of scant resources appropriate recycling schemes were better than turn the product back into itself. (we often removed nails from pallets used the wood for fuel and repaired stuff we the nails obtained) The only place where i have seen decent aluminium recycling is Iceland with their hydroelectric powered smelter
C
Cave Monkey
Guest
Bob Smith said:
They have free power, lucky sods.
Cave_Troll
Active member
If the cost of carrying the cans to Bridgend negates any benefit, then simple economics should dictate that they wouldn't bother.
The normal quote is "recycling aluminium drink cans saves up to 90% of the energy needed to make aluminium from its raw materials"
Its hard to accept that moving 1000Kg of cans across the country is more energetically expensive than shipping 4000 - 8000 Kg of Bauxite from Australia.
Then the Cans require melting while the Bauxite needs processing to AlOxide then Aluminium
The normal quote is "recycling aluminium drink cans saves up to 90% of the energy needed to make aluminium from its raw materials"
Its hard to accept that moving 1000Kg of cans across the country is more energetically expensive than shipping 4000 - 8000 Kg of Bauxite from Australia.
Then the Cans require melting while the Bauxite needs processing to AlOxide then Aluminium
