And now brace yourself for an ice age

simonoaks

I am quite new to in-depth reading on AWG, and have a way to go before I have read everything, however, one thing I do not quite understand: what is it with this fixation on CO2? Can someone explain?

deckingman

Oh God - don't go there Simon

johntheexpat

Nuclear coupled with efficiency.  And emphasis on the efficiency.  On the basis that coal is an environmental disaster even if CO2 is ignored.  Radioactivity on a huge scale, acid rain, other toxic emissions, the waste isn't exactly nice, mining coal is filthy and dangerous and causes huge pollution issues.  If nuclear was standard and coal the 'new' alternative, do you really think 'they' would allow it?


Britain copy France?



Good post.  My only objection is the 'rushing into it' aspect.  Nobody is rushing anywhere at the moment, the target is to try and contain Global warming by the end of the century, by bringing in processes and efficiencies over the next couple of decades.

johntheexpat

If you bothered to look beyond your nearest window and take a global view, it isn't just 'hot because it's summer'  it's record breakingly hot.  Melbourne has never had a heat wave like the one is got.

But because this year in the UK is colder than last year in the UK, you base your stance on that.
But why bother about the whole planet when 1 window supplies all the evidence you need?

simonoaks

ok, I thought it was a sensible question lol

Wild Weasel

It is a good question. Money is the answer of course.

Basically they needed something they could pin on human activity. That rules out the sun, the oceans, water vapour, clouds, or even oxygen. Ozone is also out because they've already said we don't have enough of it.

If they can blame humanity, governments can use it to justify new & higher taxes. Financiers can invent a new carbon trading racket that politicians and global warming cheerleaders like Al Gore stand to make a fortune in. Oil companies stand to make more money from higher oil and energy prices. Tame academics get millions in funding. Trendy eco-lefties get a new secular religion. The press get some juicy doomsday stories to scare the gullible with. It's win, win really. Unless you're a taxpayer.

There's plenty of people out there who lap this stuff up unquestioningly. People who don't really like humanity, don't like the materialistic, wasteful society we live in; Think that we're damaging the planet anyway and are prepared to buy into this line. They're a natural audience really.

Unfortunately (to paraphrase Captain Blackadder) there is a tiny flaw in the plan:

It's ********.

deckingman

True enough. Especially since Copenhagen.

As I've said in a previous post, even if the whole AGW argument was to collapse, we still need to find alternatives to fossil fuel. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. As they (fossil fuels that is) become more and more inaccessible it's going to cost more and more to recover and process them, and hence energy is going to get more and more expensive. I think the general public would accept this argument better then the AGW one.

So maybe there's hope (whether or not you believe in AGW).

johntheexpat

There's certainly hope.  And I'm a great believer in mankinds ingenuity.  If the political will is there, there isn't a lot we can't achieve, IMO.
As for efficiency, its not rocket science.  
Look at lighting.  We all used to have 100W incandescent bulbs to light up our lives and now with next generation LEDs, power consumption will be a handful of Watts.  There's a 90%  reduction.  
As for heating, what is the point of heating your house so that all that energy (ie money) disappears through the roof/walls/windows etc etc.  Really decent insulation certainly costs but would dramatically reduce consumption.
Hot water may be more problematical, but someone will come up with a clever thing to do with the waste heat once it goes down the drain.
Changing work patterns too.  If some can go from a 40 hr week at 5 X 8 hrs to 4 X 10 hrs, they get more leisure time and work-related transport costs go down 20%.  Throw in 1 day a week at home for those who can and work related travel has just dropped 40%.

Some years ago in Kidderminster, there were plans to have an incinerator on the old B. Sugar site, which would have, as a consequence of burning rubbish, have provided very cheap hot water/heating to local estates.  But the local Luddites shouted it down by totally misrepresenting it to the population.  The rubbish gets burnt now elsewhere and the heat is lost.  It could have saved lots of people lots of money and reduced power station emissions.  (Yes I would be happy to live close to an incinerator if it mean cheap heat, they are safe IMO.  How can they be otherwise with the current ubiquitous 'Nanny State'?)

The are loads of way to get to apparently unattainable reduction targets.  Its just the political will that is missing.  
And that relies on politicians.
Damn! The plan fell at the first hurdle

deckingman

If you burn rubbish, you release CO2. Damned if you do, dammed if you don't. Better to not have the waste in the first place. Some hope here with measures to reduce packaging.

Another thing I have a problem with is certain aspects of recycling. I don't know if it is still true but in the UK we had very little capacity to re-cycle paper, so most was shipped to France. Now, has anyone actually looked at the Carbon cost of collecting paper, taking it to central store, loading it onto lorries, taking it to the docks, loading it onto ships, etc, etc. We can get all the paper we need from sustainable forests. Would just burning it locally to produce heat relesae more or less CO2 than recycling it? Don't know but it's a thought.

Also, for the life of me, I don't understand glass. When I was a lad, we used to collect empty drinks bottles and take them back to the shop and get 3p back. They were sent back to the bottling plant, sterilised and re-used. Why can't we do that with bottles and jars? Instead we smash them up and put them back into a furnace to melt them down and make new bottles and jars. Crazy stuff IMO.

Why does my local recycling centre put a limit on what you can take in any one load? For example, a neighbour had two old broken fence panels. To make it easier, to transport, he cut them in half. On arriving at the "tip", he was told that that makes 4 panels and "you can only bring two a month mate". They made him bring two half panels back, keep them for a month and make another trip next month. And they make a note of the vehicle registration number to make sure. I had the same with six sacks of rubble (and there is a dedicated skip for this which builders regularly empty for re-use). "You can only bring 4 bags mate  - you'll have to come back next month with the other two". I queried it with the council and was told that "Yes, the is the official policy". Crazy, stupid, b......s.

simonoaks

ok, well for this month's council tax, I'll give you 2/3 this month and the rest next month lol