Off Topic Climate change/ pollution

An interesting article that touches on one of the other little discussed issues relating to weight. The extra weight of EV's is already a cause of concern for some multi storey car parks, particularly older ones that are having their end of useful life brought forward as a consequence. There were also reports not that long ago expressing concerns at the number of bridges on Highways Networks that were in depserate need of upgrades, and these too should be factored in to any overall environmental and economic impacts of EV's.

One issue mentioned is local emissions, which may well be reduced by not having a tailpipe, but the reduction in free radicals can result in an increase in ground level ozone concentrations that may turn out to be more harmful than the emissions they'r replacing.

 

Some people(myself included) don't see the necessity with analysing their power usage in 'real time' and some of us are even capable of giving meter readings,I even find the time to do it monthly

A 'bit of kit' telling you how much money you're 'burning' whilst roasting a chicken in the oven changes nothing in real terms and we could always open the meter cupboard door and watch the wheel spinning round faster than it normally does if bored enough.

Some people have been known to obsess over them,especially those who are hard up/feeling the pinch.

Maybe they could introduce a smart meter to attach to a John Player Special and see how quickly our money is burning and disappearing into thin air?

 

That may well be the case, however I’m still not handing total control over to them regarding my utilities

 

Given their high handed attitude to customers, I'm wary of how they will use the opportunity to add variable tariffs to smart meters to control demand, which is needed largely due to them using profits that should have been reinvested in infrastructure to instead be paid out to the board and shareholders. This and other penny pinching measures has resulted in a big part of the reason the network is in such a mess today.

I very much doubt the best for the customer is at the forefront of their decision making process.

 

Could be worse, since privatisation the water companies have paid out sixtyfive billion quid in dividends. You don't even have the option of switching to another company.


The views expressed in my posts are not necessarily mine.

 

They'd maybe make even more profit If they invested the money they spend on advertising the need to save water (because they're incompetent) into actually repairing leaks instead.

 

Absolutely Dutch.

I’ve never liked the idea of them, and a conversation that I had recently with a solicitor compounded my thoughts, he told me that if you don’t have a smart meter that it would take any utility supplier 18 months to cut off your supply, via the courts, and that if you paid a single £1.00 during that 18 month period that the process had to be re-started again from scratch.

I’ve not looked into whether that’s 100% correct, however he appeared really quite knowledgeable in that area. Hopefully I’ll never be in a position whereby my utilities are under threat of being cut off but one never knows, and in any case I’m certainly never handing that kind of power over to them.

 

Your singing voice would be raised a couple of octaves if you had your utilities cut off, don't you know?

 

10,000 Brits on Rhodes need to be evacuated because of fires caused by climate change. I don't suppose this lot cycled or walked there, non of the holidaymakers waiting for planes to get them out of there, fleeing the apocalyptic scenes see the irony.


Hang on a minute, latest news from the Greek media suggests arson was the probable cause of the fires.

 

Yes, it's difficult for a fire to be literally started by the climate. The issue with the climate is that if it's very dry and hot, fires spread more quickly and are harder to control.

 

It's Greece, it's the summer, it's hot, as it has been for 1000s of years. What has changed is the 10,000s of people flying there for a holiday and chucking their tab ends about.


Other means of starting a fire are available.

 

A couple fo years ago on the M62 near Saddleworth Moor, it was closed as the Central Reservation was on fire... must have been a tab end...

 

This is similar to what I was saying on the cricket thread yesterday. We have no way of knowing whether climate change has played a part in this particular wildfire, and to talk about it as fact that it is down to climate change is unhelpful in a way because it muddies the issue and makes people apprehensive towards the whole issue.

We do know however that the direction of travel of climate change is likely to bring more fires, more floods and so on, across the world in general.

On a slightly different issue, I also think that scrutiny of people flying for holidays in relation to climate change is unhelpful. There are lots of simple changes that we (society) could and should make which would be far less disruptive than asking people to stop enjoying holidays. If it comes to the point that we've done everything else we can and we still need to cut back on civilian aviation, then let's have that conversation then. Focusing on that now when there's no need to, makes people think that looking after the planet needs big sacrifices, which I don't think it necessarily does.

 

I'm not far off the equator and the temperature here is several degrees cooler than normal, it averages itself out IMO.

 

14 degrees here and been raining all July, bring on climate change ; On the upside, my renewables-produced electricity is currently free.

 

Personally I believe this is the main reason why temperatures change, at certain time we are slightly closer to the sun than at other times hence ice age and warmer times.

Obliquity (change in axial tilt)
As the axial tilt increases, the seasonal contrast increases so that winters are colder and summers are warmer in both hemispheres. Today, the Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit around the sun. But this tilt changes. During a cycle that averages about 40,000 years, the tilt of the axis varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. Because this tilt changes, the seasons as we know them can become exaggerated. More tilt means more severe seasons—warmer summers and colder winters; less tilt means less severe seasons—cooler summers and milder winters. It's the cool summers that are thought to allow snow and ice to last from year-to-year in high latitudes, eventually building up into massive ice sheets. There are positive feedbacks in the climate system as well, because an Earth covered with more snow reflects more of the sun's energy into space, causing additional cooling.

 

That's probably true right now, but if the UK continues to follow the rest of W Europe, gas heating will be phased out, wood burners restricted, oil heating banned and you may have to have an electric car eventually, so then you'll notice a huge difference in billing between peak and off-peak spot price times - with the meter, you connect it to a smart hub and then heat your water, use the underfloor heating, have the tumble dryers on, charge the car etc. when the electricity price is at its cheapest.

 

It can't be that....you can't tax it