Off Topic Climate change/ pollution

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
if we clean up our act etc here in the UK. What actual effect is it going to have on climate change? If we hit net zero by the timeframe targets we have said. Can anybody say what actual effect it's going to have, how much it will bring temps down or even stop them rising etc...?

We all need to be less wasteful in life full stop and take more care over things in general. But the whole "climate catastrophe" as the media and just stop oil tools call it is just an excuse to milk more money from people. If sea levels are going to raise that much for example then why are banks and financial institutions giving out 25/30yr mortgages etc on beach front properties or having wordings in those mortgages re losing your investment/property to rising sea levels?

Not saying there is or isn't climate change happening, just that words and actual actions in some cases don't match

What they often fail to mention with sea level rise, is that the land moves, and by quite a considerable amount in places, and not just up and down.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Howdentiger2
There is a fair bit of chatter going around about how and where temperatures are being measured. Now measuring ground temps rather than air temps as in the past, and many monitoring point are at airports.

We're in one of the coldest periods that the planet has experienced.

It doesn't help the arguments when they try to dramatise things, and use figures that are debatable to say the least. It's proven by marketeers and others in the persuasion game that fear and health threats are not a useful tool for generating change.

You'd think those tasked with encouraging change would be aware of that, which raises a few questions.

It's also notable how much is being pushed on to individuals, when targeting the big emitters would surely be more effective.

And while I'm on one, why all the talk of CO2*, when methane and water vapour have a far grater global warming potential, so would give the biggest bang for bucks in tackling an immediate crisis.


*It's often shorthanded to 'carbon', which is ridiculous in itself, as it has no impact on its own.
 
We will definitely benefit from decarbonisation all round, but I highly doubt the cheaper energy will ever happen, businesses will just continue to charge what they do now etc. I think the only way it happens is if it's forced by governments, but on the flip side if we suddenly get this cleaner energy will the government stop the "green taxes"? I doubt that as well, at best it'll just have its name changed and we'll be taxed for something else. Plus if we go down the route of these new technologies like EVs for example, we are still going to be dealing with other unpredictable governments as we don't have the raw materials to make the EV batteries etc and once you dig into the mining needed for those raw materials, the cleaner argument becomes a lot less cut and dry. Not to mention the human rights and social issues of these mines..
I completely agree about the energy companies raking in profits, so you are probably right that the full effects of low cost energy are not going to filter down, but that’s a separate issue for governments to sort out.

My frustration is that so much of the debate is around picking holes in environmentalism. It’s not a perfect world and expecting perfection before committing to change is just procrastination, which delays change, and that’s arguably time that we just don’t have.

I saw an interview with Dale Vince (owner of Forest Green Rovers). His business is in green energy production. He thinks we can get to net zero in 10 years at no cost to the taxpayer - there are businesses queueing up to invest, but our country’s inertia is holding back that investment.

As for this obsession the media have with Just Stop Oil protests, it’s just about sensationalising and distraction from the real crimes taking place in this country - it’s not proper journalism. Just stop oil wouldn’t exist if the world was taking the issue seriously.

I also get that the UK doing it’s bit isn’t going to fix the global climate, but we can hardly preach to the rest of the world whilst we’re doing harm to the environment. We need to get our own house in order first.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Drew and PLT
I completely agree about the energy companies raking in profits, so you are probably right that the full effects of low cost energy are not going to filter down, but that’s a separate issue for governments to sort out.

My frustration is that so much of the debate is around picking holes in environmentalism. It’s not a perfect world and expecting perfection before committing to change is just procrastination, which delays change, and that’s arguably time that we just don’t have.

I saw an interview with Dale Vince (owner of Forest Green Rovers). His business is in green energy production. He thinks we can get to net zero in 10 years at no cost to the taxpayer - there are businesses queueing up to invest, but our country’s inertia is holding back that investment.

As for this obsession the media have with Just Stop Oil protests, it’s just about sensationalising and distraction from the real crimes taking place in this country - it’s not proper journalism. Just stop oil wouldn’t exist if the world was taking the issue seriously.

I also get that the UK doing it’s bit isn’t going to fix the global climate, but we can hardly preach to the rest of the world whilst we’re doing harm to the environment. We need to get our own house in order first.

Dale Vince (a just stop oil funder) comes out with enough hot air to fuel the planet. The reality is that most of the renewables are not actually cheap energy, nor are they very green, or a credible option for quite some time yet, which isn't a lot of value in an emergency.
 
As you can see there are plenty of gullible people around

I think they're well meaning, and the fundamental cause is good in my opinion. We really should use the earth and its resources in a more sustainable and less damaging way, but many of the measures will simply replace one problem with something that has the potential to be even worse.

It's not helped by the conversation getting hijacked by people with alternative agendas.

Much of the money spent across the globe on a number of other issues would have certainly helped support people to help them do the right thing, but instead the aim seems to be try to demonise individuals, with the expectation they'll be shamed into spending money they haven't got on relatively untested, supposedly greener technologies.
 
I think they're well meaning, and the fundamental cause is good in my opinion. We really should use the earth and its resources in a more sustainable and less damaging way, but many of the measures will simply replace one problem with something that has the potential to be even worse.

It's not helped by the conversation getting hijacked by people with alternative agendas.

Much of the money spent across the globe on a number of other issues would have certainly helped support people to help them do the right thing, but instead the aim seems to be try to demonise individuals, with the expectation they'll be shamed into spending money they haven't got on relatively untested, supposedly greener technologies.
I cant understand the logic of saying it's the West's fault that China and India destroy the environment to produce goods for people in the West.
Surely, if they want to produce goods for the West they should produce them in an environmentally friendly way even if it is more expensive? This is what the climate nutters say we should be doing.
 
I cant understand the logic of saying it's the West's fault that China and India destroy the environment to produce goods for people in the West.
Surely, if they want to produce goods for the West they should produce them in an environmentally friendly way even if it is more expensive? This is what the climate nutters say we should be doing.

China's figures are interesting, as per head of population they're probably greener than many in several measures, but people tend to quote the over all tonnage of emissions.

Per capita, I think China's emissions are half that of places like Canada, Australia, America, UAE, Saudi and lower than those of the Netherlands.

EDIT: I just looked it up, and I have no idea about the credibility of this site, but according to it my guesses above were around the mark, and it has China lower than Iceland and the Falkland Islands for emissions per head of population.

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
 
Last edited:
China's figures are interesting, as per head of population they're probably greener than many in several measures, but people tend to quote the over all tonnage of emissions.

Per capita, I think China's emissions are half that of places like Canada, Australia, America, UAE, Saudi and lower than those of the Netherlands.
So it's not important that China produces 27% of the world's emissions whereas the UK produces less than 1%!?
I was thinking that total emissions had more of an effect on climate change rather than emissions per head.
So if China's total emissions stayed the same but their population doubled then their effect on climate change would halve?
Or was I right all along?
 
So it's not important that China produces 27% of the world's emissions whereas the UK produces less than 1%!?
I was thinking that total emissions had more of an effect on climate change rather than emissions per head.
So if China's total emissions stayed the same but their population doubled then their effect on climate change would halve?
Or was I right all along?



You know full well that's not what I'm saying. <laugh>
 
so you agree that China has a worse affect on the climate than the UK?

Emissions from China are greater, but there are a whole host of other factors that come onto play to decide who is worse, and there's an awful lot of people in China living a subsistence existence .

For example, how much of that produced in China is as a consequence of products being manufactured for the UK, and that includes the solar and wind power stuff that we claim as green energy?

If the UK (or any other Country) wants the lower prices that China can knock stuff out at, and doesn't put conditions on the method of production, whose emissions are they?
 
  • Like
Reactions: balkan tiger
I completely agree about the energy companies raking in profits, so you are probably right that the full effects of low cost energy are not going to filter down, but that’s a separate issue for governments to sort out.

My frustration is that so much of the debate is around picking holes in environmentalism. It’s not a perfect world and expecting perfection before committing to change is just procrastination, which delays change, and that’s arguably time that we just don’t have.

I saw an interview with Dale Vince (owner of Forest Green Rovers). His business is in green energy production. He thinks we can get to net zero in 10 years at no cost to the taxpayer - there are businesses queueing up to invest, but our country’s inertia is holding back that investment.

As for this obsession the media have with Just Stop Oil protests, it’s just about sensationalising and distraction from the real crimes taking place in this country - it’s not proper journalism. Just stop oil wouldn’t exist if the world was taking the issue seriously.

I also get that the UK doing it’s bit isn’t going to fix the global climate, but we can hardly preach to the rest of the world whilst we’re doing harm to the environment. We need to get our own house in order first.

Net Zero
Another part of the scam. A company can offset it's carbon footprint by buying credits, so a polluting company pays another company to plant trees for example. In a number of cases the company selling credits has bought cheap unproductive land, badly planted saplings and then left them to die.

Whilst on the subject of trees the SNP has allowed the felling of 16 million trees on publicly owned land to enable the building of wind farms.
 
Emissions from China are greater, but there are a whole host of other factors that come onto play to decide who is worse, and there's an awful lot of people in China living a subsistence existence .

For example, how much of that produced in China is as a consequence of products being manufactured for the UK, and that includes the solar and wind power stuff that we claim as green energy?

If the UK (or any other Country) wants the lower prices that China can knock stuff out at, and doesn't put conditions on the method of production, whose emissions are they?
whoever generates the emissions owns them

if I want a leather coat and it can be produced in an environmentally friendly way or an unenvironmentally friendly way it is up to the producers to decide what to do
they are the one's to be criticised if they choose the unenvironmentally friendly way

if a bus provider can produce a bus in an environmentally friendly way or an unenvironmentally friendly way
and the bus provider choses an unenvironmentally friendly way
is it the passengers on the buses who should be blamed?

I cant see the producers accepting conditions as it would mean there wouldnt be any mobile phones, electric cars or clothes being produced