Honey I Broke the Planet

[Matblack]

So, as we head into 2007 with flagship companies promising to completely change the way they do business to become carbon neutral an undeniable increase in UK tempretures, a decreasing polar ice cap and one of the largest countries in the world opening a new fossil fuel fired powerstatin every week, are we finally ready to admit that we have broken the planet? Can we turn around the changes we have already made and repair the damage or is it spiraling out of control?

I've been following climate change for a while, Heather and I recycle what we can, we use energy efficient light bulbs, we only have one car and I walk to work, we're probably average in the concientious stakes, but is it enough? It takes a lot of contientious yuppies to off set China opening power stations left right and centre, but then do we have a right to ask developing countries where having electric power in the home is a luxury to stop building powerstations? Can we really make a difference?

If I'm honest I'm not really THAT worried after all I don't have an electric car, I pay more in tax to keep a nice fast car which spews CO2 (I wonder if this is one of the causes behind the increase in inflation, as people pay more to keep what they have whilst knowing it polutes?). I can't be that worried can I?

What I wonder is what are WE i.e. the BD members willing to do to save the planet? Will we be the final generation who can live in the knowledge that we don't have to find a way off this planet which we have abused for so long. Have, behind the continious comments from the US that global warming is a load of old bull, they been developing a way to get off the planet or are we stuffed?

My opinion? I'm begining to think we've fluffed it, I suspect that our childern will have to make compromises because we can't do it, we're too self endulgent and love our big cars too much, we have the 'somebody elses problem' syndrome, after all what difference can just me having a 4 litre BMW X5 rather than a Honda Insight make in the grand scheme of things? None, right?

MB

[Pebs]

I dont think anything really worthwhile will be done until something catastrophic happens or is on the brink of happening.

I must admit I do the bare minimum, and those efforts are probably negated by my car, or having the heating on 24 hours a day. I recycle some stuff but not nearly as much as I could.

[Zirax]

Me, bored at work? Never. I have been following the rise of all this carbon neutrality thing with keen interest. Essentially most of the damage was done in the past few hundred years, maybe even longer.

If you really want to argue it dates back to when we first found fire. Lets just take from the industrial age where we started burning coal. By having access to this fuel, people were able to stay warmer and generally the living conditions improved. Previously a large number of elderly were killed in the winter each year through cold and getting the flu. Gradually our medical knowledge grew and we were able to cure more diseases which leads to a longer life span.

"The average life span in 1840, in the Whitechapel district of London, was 45 years for the upper class and 27 years for tradesman. Laborers and servants lived only 22 years on average." http://www.geocities.com/victorianmedicine/entire.html

"According to the 1851 census, for instance, the mean age of males in Great Britain as a whole was 25.87 years, only slightly up on the figures for 1841 (25.49 years) and 1821 (25.13 years); the mean lifetime in England was only 40 years."
http://www.victorianweb.org/vn/death/banjeree1.html

"The 1851 census showed that the population of Great Britain was roughly 18 million"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era

So to clarify this you are likely if you are very wealthy to live to 45, and the average age is 25. There were 18 million people living in the entire uk. Now compare this to the 2001 concensus.

"The population of the United Kingdom on Census Day 2001 was 58,789,194"
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=185

"Over the last three decades, the median age of the UK population rose from 34.1 years in mid-1971 to 38.8 in mid-2005. This ageing is primarily the result of past trends in fertility, although recently declines in mortality rates especially at older ages have been playing a major role."
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=949.

The situation is that the mortality rate just after birth is now very low again due to better medicine.
You are probably wondering where I am going with this, but bear with me. We now have over 3 times as many people living in the uk alone than during victorian times. Quite simply we aren't dieing fast enough. Now its great that we have good medicine, but bearing in mind that we are now living longer and there are more of us the effect is multiplied. Another good site to have a look at is here:-
http://www.nef.org.uk/energyadvice/co2emissionsyr.htm

This directly shows the emergence of victorian coal use alongside the population rise to present day. We on average emit 7-15 tonnes of fuel per person per year. Now we are still using coal powered stations in the uk which is dumping large amounts into the atmosphere. Compare this to France:-

"France is another European country with a lower than expected Carbon Dioxide output per person. The French climate is relatively temperate, but the real reason is that around 70% of its electricity comes from nuclear power."
http://www.nef.org.uk/energyadvice/co2emissionsctry.htm

My personal take on all this carbon neutrality is that we are being prepped slowly for a move to nuclear. Whenever building nuclear powerstations has been mentioned in the past it has been met with opposition. By gradually introducing this as the lesser evil, I feel that the government will be able to start building them. I feel that we have permenantly altered the planet through the use of fossil fuels. Hopefully this will be able to be stopped with the introduction of nuclear fusion.

I think gradually the planet will become more unfriendly to humans, causing our medicines to not be as effective, and our numbers to cut down. Think of it like the foxes and rabbits, loads of rabbits means foxes grow in numbers and kill more rabbits. The fewer rabbits causes the foxes to die out. How bad it will have to get is anyones guess.

Personally I recycle what I can but I have to get the train to work, which is powered by electricity, which comes from coal powerstations.

[Mark]

I'm energy efficient in some ways but not in others, so it probably balances out. I recycle paper and cans, and I use energy efficient lighting. Unfortunately I keep a fleet of computers on 24/7 which uses a shedload of electricity. However, because if that, I don't use much gas.

I agree with Pebbles. It's going to take a disaster of biblical proportions (that means millions killed, not just the few hundred thousand that were killed by the last big tsunami) to get the world's leaders to step up. Right now even if the UK government carries out it's plans (who knows if they will) it will be instantly undone and then some by China and India. Then we have the USA who couldn't give a damn. Ignoring the argument over what caused it which I'd agree is debateable, they still think climate change doesn't even exist over there as can be evidenced by this ****wit:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6247371.stm

I've got news for you. Your high-paid job means precisely squat to me. This thing is happening right now. Get your ****ing head out of that sandpit and deal with it. Of course, we haven't even mentioned GWB himself yet.

It takes a lot for me to swear, but that idiot deserves it.

[Dr. Z]

Woah, CO2?

Originally Posted by [TW

Fox]

All this talking about carbon being bad, mmmkay, meaning that once again the British motorist is public enemy number one, and that we absolutely must encourage everyone to drive rubbish cars and take the bus to reduce the fact carbon will kill the entire planet.

Here are some facts to put the governments ridiculous carbon obsession into context:

Global Contributors of C02 Emissions:

Power Generation: 24%
Transport (including air, rail, car, ships) 14%
Industry: 14%
Heating: 8%
'Rotting waste': 3%

Cars account for just 11% of the UK's C02 output.

If every single SUV owner changed their car for a Toyota Prius Hybrid, the UK's total C02 emissions would decrease by just 0.3%

UK motorists contribute just 0.2% of world carbon emissions

Since 1990, UK Carbon emissions have gone up by just under 6%. Chinese Carbon emissions have gone up by just under 90%.

China plans to build nearly 600 coal fired power stations in the next 8 years. 18 of these power stations will emit, per year, the equivilent C02 of the ENTIRE UK motoring population.

If every single driver in the UK changed their car for a V8 powered Range Rover, world carbon emissions would increase by just 0.2%.

These figures, from this months Evo Magazine (I recommend you subscribe, its awesome), show several key things:

a) People whinging about carbon emissions should be quiet, becuase in the grand scheme of things, its no big deal
b) Changing say, a BMW 540i to a Smart Car becuase you want to be Carbon Neutral is totally pointless
c) All this eco claptrap from the government is hot air to deflect the attention from the fact it's just more tax.

There is a thread over there with all sorts of facts and figures and I am firmly in the "CO2 doesnt matter" camp. Well, not as much as everyone is making out

There is NOWHERE NEAR enough data to indicate one way or another that any climate change is down to human actions. Climate data from ice caps for as far back as they go shows that there are definite cycles but the data isnt granular enough to show 100 year fluctuations in temperature - we dont know that it wouldnt have happened anyway.

Just because two variables are moving at the same time doesnt prove cause and effect. Someone once posted a graph of the number of pirates vs average temperature and there appeared to be a correlation. Does that mean that we need more pirates to stop climate change? No it doesnt - and the current data set is EQUALLY as useless.

Anyway, all of that aside, if you really want to make a difference to the carbon side of things (despite things like water vapour being vastly more effective as "greenhouse gasses") plant trees. Or at least stop the rainforests from being demolished. Reversing that will restore the massive carbon sink we had, which is way, way more effective than everyone in the UK walking to work each day.

[iCraig]

Isn't the Earth coming out of an ice-age? So our climate is heating up anyway? I think we've contributed to global warming, but not as much as we seem to think. Probably increased it's pace slightly.

[Mark]

Yup, to be absolutely clear. I did not and will not argue that humans are the cause of global warming, but I'm fairly sure we are a (i.e. one of several) factor though. You only have to look at the ozone hole to see how much of an impact humans can have on the planet.

Whether or not we are the primary factor in global warming is certainly debatable. In all honesty, I think not. Well, not yet. But, since this planet is the only home we have right now, wouldn't at least a bit of care make sense? If we can take reasonable steps to avoid the problem, if there is one, then let's do it. Note I said reasonable there - I'm not advocating anyone starts hugging trees.

[Pheebs]

I've been following climate change quite a fair bit really and recently read up quite a lot about it. It wasn't really a shock to find so many contradicting material, but I would agree with Mark that it is clear that human interactions are high contributors to CO2 emissions, which is denied by hardly anyone any more.

Along with pebbles, society (particularly Britain) won't commit to any major action until something catastrophic happens, though I reckon Tony Blair might have it right this time (crikey-mikey - it's rare I agree with any politician!). The only way to really move forward is to focus on and fund developing technologies and more fuel efficient methods to replace what we've got now. In doing so, we will at least be able to improve emissions in the future - the only problem there is whether it will be too late (many people already think it is anyway). Tony Blair has recognised that increasing green taxes won't make a sufficient impact on reducing CO2 emissions... people and business will still use them as frequent as before. Also, it's all good and well when increasing green taxes in the UK - companies can afford to pay them here or are able to invest in ways which are more economic - but what about developing countries? When researching industries, it would seem that the most polluting ones are located within poorer countries. May be (I'm not saying it definitely is) this is because governments in poorer countries cannot actually enforce green taxes as heavily as the western world. If they do then they are restricting their economic growth as many industries would not be able to afford to operate cheaply enough to profit and compete with those from wealthier countries. I've read this argument numerous times now so if this is really the case then surely we should look into encouraging other countries to become more green?

This new "Gold Standard" plant-a-tree/reduce carbon emissions in developing countries is interesting - but once again - surely we should focus more on the main problem (ie the chopping down of forests). Planting a handful of tree's to replace a well developed forest which has just been hacked down... just doesn't seem to do it for me. It's excellent and I'm not saying stop it at all - I'd definitely pay up for it if I got a flight - but... yeh. I vote we focus on encouraging sustaining forests.

I do what I can when it comes to recycling and both Picky and I are very observant and concious of how much electricity we use (forever turning off things by the wall and using energy saving bulbs etc). I'm hoping that in the future we will look into things like solar panels for our "settled" home (not this one for sure!)... but other than that we do nothing else. We've got two cars and we both use them a lot around Exeter and travelling back and forth to Cornwall and Poole. The only reason we don't use public transport is because it's so god damn expensive and irregular. This makes me quite angry because I am almost 100% certain that if the prices were reduced they would have many more users and still profit. Grrr!

LOL. Just turned on the tv and guess what - climate change debate going on! How amusing

[Flibster]

I'm not doing anything I wouldnt do anyway. I'm not even convinced that the 'globabl warming' cycle we are currently meant to be experiencing is even affected by us.

We're still coming out of the last ice age so of course the planet it heating up, then it will cool down again, and then freeze over, then start to thaw.... etc...

Can't really recycle anything here. Local council will give us a composter. Fabulous. Wonderful. What use is that though? We live in a flat.

Can I get anywhere locally by walking or using public transport? No. Public transport is a joke and walking is something I do as rarely as possible as it's too painful. Should be on crutches but I hate the bastard things.

Only thing I can agree with about our enviroment is something a comedian said many years ago.

Most creatures live in harmony with their enviroment - we change it to suit us. Only one other creature does that. We are a virus with shoes!

Now please excuse me as it's time for an injection.

Simon/~Flibster

[Treefrog]

Originally Posted by iCraig

Isn't the Earth coming out of an ice-age? So our climate is heating up anyway? I think we've contributed to global warming, but not as much as we seem to think. Probably increased it's pace slightly.

No, that was about 10,000 years ago. There's a view that says that the very severe winters back in the mid-1700s was the beginning of the next Ice Age, but was staved off by our increase in fossil fuel usage.

If the 10,000 years cycle of Ice Ages is continuing then we should expect the average temps to be sinking - which, by all accounts, they're not. I find it incredible that some people can be so stupid as to claim that humans have had nothing to do with it, and that GW is a purely natural affair.