Indeed. Regards the South African apple. This is because the overall costs are ignored. I'm becoming a bit of an advocate for a carbon tax. And yes, eat seasonal fruit and veg, in their growing season. Mind you, the way the UK is going we may have trouble feeding ourselves.
Another received knowledge fact that isn't always correct. If you're buying out of the July - September tomato season, it's much better for the environment if you buy Spanish tomatoes. That's because English growers have to heat greenhouses outside this (general) range. Spanish ones don't. The CO2 crested in transporting is less than that used to grow. You could argue that we should only have tomatoes in season but in the real world people now expect tomatoes in winter, so there's a better way and a worse way to buy them. Vin
That ignores that plants (trees) react to light and conditions. If a tree is cut down on the equator it doesn't matter if another replaces it away from the equator. The tree on the equator getting more light all year round will consume more CO2 than a tree that gets less hours. This is why what is happening in the Amazon regards bio fuels and coffee and cocoa etc is worrying.
But forest cover is increasing. So it's not one tree replacing one tree. It might be that the extra trees soak up more. Or less. Or the same. Or less today but more tomorrow. Or more today but less tomorrow. You see, I don't know, or claim to know. Why? Because you're reading far too much into what I've said. I've not said a single word or even implied that there's a positive (or even negative or neutral) impact on CO2. All I've said is that a received wisdom is not true. Forest cover has increased, not decreased. Let me put it this way. Forest cover has increased, not decreased. If you want to argue, please address only that point. Implying that I'm saying anything else at all apart from the bit in bold is not dealing with anything at all that I've said so please don't imply: that I think climate change is not happening; that I'm happy to gamble with my kids' future; that new trees being grown store more (or less or the same) amount of carbon as trees that have been felled; that I consider new forest to be identical to rainforest; that I think Saints will finish top ten next season or indeed anything that you make up that I'm saying. If it's not clear, I'm saying that Forest cover has increased, not decreased. Vin
And this is why we don't move forward. Because Attenboro and Packham go on telly and say something. The public then jump on what they say and it turns out it is wrong. Somewhere down the line it creates more and more sceptics (not deniers) because they become hardened to the constant process of scare story, followed by a big push to enact something, followed by it becoming apparent that the scare story was not completely factual and that the big push jumped the gun before the facts were known. I think most people want to do something. I think most people do what they can. Most people DO recycle. It is just that people get to a point where they ask "who is telling the truth." This is not just on environmental things. It is across the board in science, health and we have seen how it culminates in politics. If those with good intentions continually push on with things that turn out not to be correct or fully factual or fully researched then people start to ask themselves which experts can actually be trusted. Then we have as earlier where vested interests come into play. I can believe you personally about plastics with your knowledge but as an industry people can;t trust them to advise on the subject in the same way as the tobacco or oil or any other industry. We had the soft drinks companies funding the research into the sugar tax ideas and CH4 or BBC (can't remember which) investigated one of the lead scientists on that who was receiving funding from one of the major Cola companies. Can we then trust the research and advice? Then we had Chris Packham all over the Beeb banging on about bio-degradable plastics instead of the current yet it was never detailed that Packham is a paid advisor to the people developing that bio-degradable option. This leads to the problem that we have all over the place. Large accountancy firms advising the government on tax reforms etc. The left currently like to take on any research, advice or analysis that they disagree with at the moment with a barrage of "Who funds you" comments, which is a fair question. However the same can be said for things they disagree with yet because they agree with the subject matter and the apparent advice then they do not question of "who funds" that person / body etc. I have used left there for ease because while many seem to think people don't care I would suggest the vast majority, in this country, do whatever they can within the confines of the methods they are given to do such things. i.e. they have moved to LED or CFL. They are recycling etc. the environment isn't a left/right divide because most righties are happy to accept the main premise of global warming etc.
This is false and ignores the posts before it. The UK provides over 50% of its food. It isn't that we can;t supply 100%, it is that we choose not to. For example a third of our lamb produce is exported, while we then import masses of lamb from New Zealand. The problem isn't that the UK can't supply all the food it needs. The problem is the consumers and retailers are not interested in that option. And I daresay that includes quite a few people that are protesting in London don't take into account the whole picture of their own habits.
Someone really clever once told me if something's not going to be recycled or reused you really don't want bio-degradable plastics. They just break down into smaller and smaller pieces and end up out there in the environment. What you want is compostable plastics. But the clamour is for biodegradable because that's a word people know. Vin
This is another problem. Different with some markets in trendy areas but in Lincoln they have driven the market (as was) out because they want to pretty up their gentrified city centre.....Used to be massive markets in Lincoln. Now they are driven into a small block inside a building hidden away.
You are correct there but there are masses of field sized greenhouse operations popping up in the country that pump CO2 into the greenhouses to speed up growth of fruits and veg.
But your bold part of "Forest cover has increased, not decreased" is the same argument that deniers use about ice sheets. I accept that you're admitting "we don't know the facts" but the problem there lies with those who push the agenda and should be detailing the facts, fully researched and everything taken into account and not just jumping in with the "shock factor" demanding action without that action being researched first. Like FLT states. We keep on jumping into actions with good intentions which down the line will be questioned and may be making things worse and not better. I'm not implying anything. I am merely stating that a lot of these sort of claims play into the hands of those that doubt. And from there down the line those that don't doubt can become doubters when advice changes. Think the diesel situation as an example. Think the continuing health advice of "X is bad for you" followed 6 months later with contradictory "X is actually good for you."
Anyone else find it ironic that holiday makers, apparently fed up with Brexit, are booking shed loads of holidays to Turkey, the country that Brexiteers used to scare people into voting Leave by insisting that they were on the verge of joining the EU and were going to flood this country with benefit seeking migrants.
Only because it's cheap.....same with Tunisia, holidays are on the decline to Greece etc due to cost of the holiday and how expensive it is when you get there.
Turkey has always been value for money. What I would suggest remainers ought to consider more is that one of their lines of attack in regards to the remain/leave argument is the "need a visa" requirement as well as "need 6 months left on your passport" which are both necessary for travel to Turkey.
But this is not necessarily true either. Tree cover, or rather tall plant cover is not the same as forest cover. A lot of the growth in tree cover is cut to plant farming. So you have large areas of mono-cultured trees. If you call any bunch of trees covering an acre of land “a forest,” then you can say that we have more forest before. But if you view a human-planted trees as not a forest, then the pictures is less clear. It’s akin to saying that humans are not damaging eco-systems or wildlife because every local species that was decimated has been replaced by cat populations.
I admit defeat. Peer reviewed article in arguably the main international science journal 0 - 1 People on the internet who have an opinion Vin
There's nothing incorrect about the study. What they did was look at satellite maps and determine how much land was covered by trees. That seems like a logical approach. They concluded-- and there's no reason to doubt them-- that more of the Earth's land surface is under tree cover than 40 years ago. That's extremely useful knowledge. What they didn't do was look at the KINDS of plants that were growing. They accomplished their goal, but now it's up to other scientists to react to that data and use it to drive further investigations. No one is saying the study is wrong, just that it's incomplete. This is why I get annoyed when people blame scientists or the media for things. The whole point of science is to seek answers to tough questions. When it comes to climate change or things like that, it's pushing the envelope of knowledge. So no study should be treated as conclusive. At the same time, just because you have two findings or two interpretations that disagree, doesn't mean you throw your hands up either. Each of those things is a piece of the puzzle. The problem is that people are extremely bad at dealing with uncertainty and risk. And with more information at their hands than ever, it's simultaneously harder to think about issues if you really try (because of conflicting info.) while easier than ever to just pick a side and have tons of stuff to back you up. The article from Nature is easy to obtain online. It goes over some of this stuff. It says that the major loss is coming from the tropics, that there is some re-forestation from abandoned farms going back to nature, that some re-forestation efforts seem to have been successful, but some of the coverage is coming from tree farms and global warming as well. It doesn't draw the conclusions people want it to draw. There is no "yes/no" or "scale of 1-10" answer. Which is how it should be in science. You see this attitude in how people treat news as well. People will say "Well, I read some left wing articles. And then I read some right wing articles. I take what I read and make up my own mind." They think this is a very enlightened approach and pat themselves on the back. But really, it's a fundamentally stupid approach. The average person is not hanging out in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or 10 Downing Street. They're not experts in that area of policy, they're not experts in government. Most people are ****ty readers as well. So like, you have a reporter who has spent 10 years writing about this stuff. Or you have yourself who has spent 15 minutes reading a couple of two page articles. We're completely unqualified to render a judgment. We're basically just reinforcing our own internal biases when we decide which side to believe.
