Off Topic The Environmental & Pollution Thread

Thanks, already signed and shared.

 

The mass of a tree comes from carbon in the atmosphere. The mass of a 10 year old tree is the amount if carbon it has sucked up. Its mass doesnt come from the soil or wherever.

Certainly you cant quickly replace a 100 year tree with all the bushes and foliage and soil and ecosystem around it by just planting a couple of trees in some random place though.

Just wanted to point out the difference because things like tree farms are carbon neutral or even carbon sinks depending on how its farmed and what the wood is used for.

 

That's one way of addressing the climate issue I suppose - self driving cars to reduce the population.

 

Back somewhen around 2000, BP [British Petroleum] changed their name. "bp" meant "beyond petroleum" now, as it seemed like the fashionable thing to do. Then they kind of went back on that attitude. Still "petroleum", but softening the "beyond" aspect.
Today, they announced some changes. Have a read. I'm so knackered after today that the only energy I have is to link this Guardian article. I'll read it later:

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ssions-by-2050-what-it-says-and-what-it-means

 

Then you might be mistaken SR. But you can always switch it off. However, statistics from NHTSA in the USA point to there being substantially fewer accidents when Tesla's Autopilot is switched on. But of course, accidents happen. Nothing is perfect. Certainly not human drivers. Or robots.

OK, that's me out. Evening meal, shower, bed.

 

That jovial team, Zac & Jesse brings us yet another hidden cost of fossil fuels. Tbf, a bit of this is peculiar to the USA, but a lot of it crosses over to the rest of the world:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/~/article-4764208/index.html

 

Sadly, a fake article as usual. Read the comments - most of them debunk the whole thing.

 

Didn't know it was fake ....thought it sounded really bad.

 

If anyone thinks this isn't happening then spend 30 seconds on Google.

It's not just electric cars that use Cobalt but they do use it, along with many other materials that cause devastating pollution, water deprivation and a slave economy in poor countries.

Close our eyes to it if we want, but that doesn't make it go away:


https://www.ft.com/content/c6909812-9ce4-11e9-9c06-a4640c9feebb

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...uit-over-congolese-child-cobalt-mining-deaths

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...hallenge-battery-industry-electric-cars-congo

https://www.raconteur.net/business-innovation/cobalt-mining-human-rights

https://fortune.com/longform/blood-sweat-and-batteries

https://theirworld.org/news/drc-children-dig-for-cobalt-to-power-electric-cars-phones

 

Any Mail article needs fact checking (not the debunked tory version). Add the Barclay brothers, express group, Rothermere and Murdoch propaganda rags.

 

And the greatest usage of cobalt is ..... not electric vehicles ...... not cell phones ......

“The use of cobalt in desulphurisation reactions represents the highest tonnage of cobalt use in the catalyst sector. ... These noble metal catalysts are used in the catalytic reactions to upgrade the octane rating of the naphtha streams, which is required for the high-performance petrol engine”

cough cough ......

 

If anyone wants to buy an electric car then at least be honest and buy it because the technology is interesting and it appeals to us. Just don’t do it for environmental reasons because that argument doesn’t stack up. Even basic research leads us to see the increasingly vast amount of damage being done to the environment by ceaseless mining pollution and resource stripping. Electric cars are just another ‘thing‘ to add to a world that has far too many ‘things’.

Electric cars are yet another means that big business is using to fend off the environment movements around the world, while managing to keep the money rolling in by seeming to be more ‘green’. It’s more of the same in different packaging with the advantage of removing some pollution from our streets and dumping it on those who are unable to prevent it.

The problem is not whether we drive electric, petrol or diesel cars. The problem is we drive cars and they all cause pollution, and for many of us there is no viable alternative. What we need in this and every other developed country is less reliance on individual transportation and the rapid development of fully integrated direct electric powered public transport that serves the needs of the population. Getting people out of cars and using regular, reliable and environmentally sustainable public transport, even in the most rural areas of the country, is a win-win situation and the best way we can reduce personal transportation pollution here.

 

Great post Kaito. The best use of electric cars will be as self-driven pool cars rather than the current privately-owned model. I’d go as far as to say that people should be banned from owning cars at all, because there are simply too many of them on the roads and more and more of our precious countryside is being tarmacked over every year. That won’t change just by everyone switching to an EV from their current FFV, and people thinking it will just aren’t thinking the problem through. Railways (not HS2, but networks across the whole country) and local (electric) buses are what we need, along with the ability to call up a pool car if you really need one.

 

With you on that. Massive investment in local integrated transport required. Getting road haulage onto rail should be a long term strategy but road haulage is a powerful lobby and major tory party contributor..

 

Carbon Negative: Can we get there?

 

Can we be carbon negative? Yes, but no one likes to face the only way that we will get there.

Rewilding and localised small scale economies are two ways in which we can reclaim a natural balance to our way of life and to not only reduce damage we cause to the planet, but to start healing it. It can only be done by respecting our environment and to reject the constant destruction of our planet which is happening on a globally immense industrial scale.

All these hi-tech carbon capture schemes are completely missing the point and they are all based on various capitalist business models where a few people end up earning vast amounts of money while everyone else pays for it. That just continues the system we already have and it doesn’t work. The carbon offset system fell apart when the sheer stupidity and rip-off factors were exposed and it’s now recognised for what it is, just another Ponzi scheme dreamed up to collect the cash.

It’s unpopular with politicians and the industrial ‘elite’ but the truth is that we need to turn the clock back and to start doing things the way we did them years ago. Small local economies created within environmentally sustainable areas working hand in hand with nature and each other for the benefit of everyone. That requires a rejection of the batshit crazy consumerism we are all affected by to some degree of another. We have to re-connect with nature on a personal level and recognise that everything is finite and has to be viewed and cared for as such.

We don’t live on an ever expanding planet with ever expanding resources, so why do we treat it as though we do? It’s madness, and it will inevitably lead us down the road to our own destruction. We have now reached the moment in our history where we either stop this insanity, or we just accept that life as we know it is over. We have to do everything we can to turn things round and if anyone thinks that continuing to feed the monster that is big business is in any way the answer is dreaming.

Randomly planting billions of trees is a great PR exercise but it doesn't work the way we think it does. Rewilding of barren land and land that is currently used for industrial farming can still provide all the food we need in this country but on a regenerative basis where healthy soil is maintained and enriched. Crops grow better, taste better and there is no environmental damage. Less transport needed, less packaging and the ties to corporate food companies are lessened, if not broken.

Look at the industrial farms in the USA where the soil is unable to sustain crops without ever increasing amounts of polluting fertiliser and pesticides. Even then the crops have had to be genetically modified to be disease resistant because there is no sustaining ecosystem to support the natural growth of essential insects. They have to transport millions of bees to their almond farms because the local bees have been killed off by the pesticides the farmers use.

It can all be so very different and so much better, but it is going to take massive changes if there is to be any hope for the future.

 

Sat here at work, waiting for 7am. So I thought I'd post dear old Robert Llewellyn's latest Fully Charged Regen podcast. He's been ill for 3 months (kept that well hidden), but he's OK now:

 

Beavers have cut flooding and pollution and boosted wildlife populations.

Beavers have alleviated flooding, reduced pollution and boosted populations of fish, amphibians and other wildlife, according to a five-year study of wild-living animals in Devon (Guardian).

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-and-pollution-and-boost-wildlife-populations

Environment Secretary George Eustice said we just have to live with the fact that climate change means more extreme weather here in the UK. No mention of a coordinated effort with progressive policies to cut pollution, introduce rewilding across the country, a comprehensive nationwide public transport system and by employing natural flood defences we could mitigate much of the damage.

Let's just pour a few more millions of the taxpayers money into useless projects that shunts the problem into someone else's back yard and does nothing to create a balanced solution. These people really are imbeciles and refuse to see the evidence that is staring them in the face. It takes school children and campaigners to show these people up for what they are before anything is done.

Time for us to stand up and start making a lot of noise about taking care of the country we live in and support the environmental groups. George Monbiot was one of the people involved in creating a charity 'Rewilding Britain' and I would encourage anyone and everyone to support it in any way we can.

https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk

 

I’m a big fan of beavers ..... (well someone was going to say it) ......

Seriously, though, I’m in full agreement with this and a big fan of rewinding Britain!