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Creative Midfielder

Climate Emergency - Why has it taken so long..............

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13 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

I imagine that would be because we don't make anything any more or indeed have hardly any heavy industry, plus the fact that we don't count most of our airline emissions.

Plus there are many different ways of calculating the figures depending upon what you want to prove - going back to the fact we make very little nowadays but we buy and use huge amounts of 'stuff' manufactured elsewhere and transported to us, especially from China but also from Germany, France etc etc. So whose is responsible for those emissions? China because they made the stuff in China or us because they made the stuff to export to us - on our behalf in effect. And who is responsible for the emissions generated by transporting them from China to UK - China, us or Panama because they're probably shipped on Panamanian flagged ships even though they have no actual connection with Panama, or more likely they are quietly forgottent about.

So if you calculate based on emissions actually generated within the UK then we may well not be in the top 10 but if you calculate emissions based upon what is 'consumed' by the UK then we most definitely are.

In 2020 we were in the top ten of the world's largest manufacturers. Granted, 8th or 9th depending on which site you look at but, never the less, in the top 10

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"“Record-shattering” heatwaves, even worse than the one that recently hit north-west America, are set to become much more likely in future, according to research. The study is a stark new warning on the rapidly escalating risks the climate emergency poses to lives."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/31/tourists-rescued-mediterranean-beach-turkey-wildfires-heatwave

Wildfires at Le Capannine beach in Catania, Sicily, on 30 July.

just as Covid is a hoax (D trump), so is climate change according to the 'righties' - as their bleat out what their masters (oil industry) tell them

meanwhile, the evidence becomes ever more obvious and worrying

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/hoover-dam-lake-mead-severe-drought-us-west

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10 hours ago, SwindonCanary said:

No, I need my diesel BMW to get to Norwich and back without filling up I can't do that in an electric

What???? You can't refuel in Norwich - presumably then you run your BMW illegally on red diesel which you can only source in Swindon?

Its true you can't do that with an electric car although you can, of course, go one better and generate your own electricity from a renewable source - some of us do that as well.

And you forgot to mention your gas boiler - what tall story have you got to tell us about that?

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22 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

What???? You can't refuel in Norwich - presumably then you run your BMW illegally on red diesel which you can only source in Swindon?

Its true you can't do that with an electric car although you can, of course, go one better and generate your own electricity from a renewable source - some of us do that as well.

And you forgot to mention your gas boiler - what tall story have you got to tell us about that?

What would you do with yourself for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon in Norwich while the car is charging ?

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45 minutes ago, Bill said:

What would you do with yourself for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon in Norwich while the car is charging ?

my wife would use it to do shopping and site seeing 

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even if we stop everything that is polluting us, the world and or the atmosphere by tomorrow, we would be doomed. We knew since the 1960/70's and dithered every time. If we would have taken incremental steps every year, we would not have ended up with such a monumental task.

The new police crime sentencing and courts bill will criminalise loud protests, any protests that annoy bystanders who can't be bothered to think about issues that will make life on earth hellish. And don't for one moment think that politicians from any mainstream political party will give a sthi, they are in it for themselves, solely, why else did this bill get consent from most parties and is now at second reading stage in the HoL? Welcome to Hades.

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I would strongly disagree with "they are in it for themselves"

The problem lies with the stupidity of so many of the populace.

Look at the US, where millions are in total denial over climate change. The dumb feckers even believed Trump when he told them that covid was a hoax - lord knows how many still do. How many still think Trump is the answer, when it is him and his kind that are actually the problem.

Here, where the thick twts delude themselves that the likes of Johnson, Rees-Mogg and Farage have the same interests. And no matter how much these people lie to them ...................... they won't lie next time 🙄

That the media, owned by the real elite, are able to lie to them and fill their silly heads with shte is because that is what they want to hear. And will spew it out routinely, irrespective of how blindingly obvious the stupidity of it is (see Mrs Mummery, former MEP).

So I cannot see much progress being made against such a brick wall of stupidity.

 

Edited by Bill

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I have an electric car, I get 240 miles from it, but charge it at around 30% it take 50 minutes, just long enough to grab a coffee. 
Ive done a few long journeys and had no issues, the drive is superb.

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12 minutes ago, Indy said:

I have an electric car, I get 240 miles from it, but charge it at around 30% it take 50 minutes, just long enough to grab a coffee. 
Ive done a few long journeys and had no issues, the drive is superb.

as long as you don't have any problems either 😏

the question I have is how much fossil fuel is used in making an electric car

compared to using a fossil fuel car for another 10 years, and what fuel is used to generate the electricity ?

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1 hour ago, Bill said:

as long as you don't have any problems either 😏

the question I have is how much fossil fuel is used in making an electric car

compared to using a fossil fuel car for another 10 years, and what fuel is used to generate the electricity ?

To be honest Bill, lithium mining is becoming more scrutinised and being made to be greener in itself, then to think how much co2 is used in producing petrol, platforms built, manned & powered, refineries manned & powered, petrol stations, not to mention distributing fuel to all the petrol stations, it’s certainly far greener to have and us an electric car.

The myth of electric cars being less green is just that, the cycles on recharge mean I can have a lifetime range of between 200,000 miles to 300,000 miles on my battery cells. And using over night cheap electric from a network which is now nearly 60% green (including nuclear power which in itself isn’t very green to build) certainly greener and only will get more green over time.

Nothing is ever going to be totally green until solid state battery’s come in line, more wind, wave and sun powered networks are added. But it’s the only option, hybrid are only 40% more efficient than small engines petrol cars and need to be phased out. Hydrogen is certainly needed but will be used to power aircraft, larger lorries, as it’s so much more expensive to produce and uses a lot of energy to produce. Though there’s a lot of technology moving forward.

Edited by Indy
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I was actually thinking of the construction of the car - the metal, plastic etc

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10 minutes ago, Bill said:

I was actually thinking of the construction of the car - the metal, plastic etc

It’s no different to any other car, I’m not sure what you’re comparing it too? It’s an aluminium skin on different materials, the same as any car. Car technology will no doubt move forward. The issue is we’re all in homes, drive cars most households have three kids who all end up driving so in the 70’s & 80’s we had one car families where I borrowed my dads car, now as soon as kids turn 17 they end up having their own car. Families now have three or four! Like I said population demands mean massive impact on Co2.

Edited by Indy

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The point is the government will be pushing this, as they did with emissions to stimulate the market - sell more cars

I use a 'roller skate' with a 1200cc engine - so what would be the benefit of scrapping it to buy an electric car, which is where to 'push' is coming from.

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2 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Get a 🚴‍♀️

Got two and use them more than any car.

Bill I agree, it’s not a change to be done in a year, it should be as it is a long term project to buy electric in the future.

The biggest issue is we never started to address climate change when we knew it was an issue and I don’t back the tree hugging Greta Thunberg lovers, their actions are damaging and not at all helpful in teaching the real world small step changes we can all make.

Governments are still more focused on GDP than real issues. That’s life and it’s up to each of us to react teach our children what is important and what isn’t for their futures.

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6 hours ago, SwindonCanary said:

my wife would use it to do shopping and site seeing 

That's perfect, some shops (Tesco for example) will charge the car for free whilst you are shopping.

If you want to sight see you can get on public transport whilst the car is charging or as it doesn't take very long to charge a car these days just have a cup of coffee to get over the long journey to Norwich.

An electric car is a perfectly good option for you.

 

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38 minutes ago, Indy said:

Got two and use them more than any car.

Bill I agree, it’s not a change to be done in a year, it should be as it is a long term project to buy electric in the future.

The biggest issue is we never started to address climate change when we knew it was an issue and I don’t back the tree hugging Greta Thunberg lovers, their actions are damaging and not at all helpful in teaching the real world small step changes we can all make.

Governments are still more focused on GDP than real issues. That’s life and it’s up to each of us to react teach our children what is important and what isn’t for their futures.

Indy, it is actually a problem, a massive problem and trying to sanitise it by referring to it as an 'ishhoo' simply plays into the hands of those who would have that as no one is responsible then no one is to blame, as it is an 'ishoo'

I was made well aware why this odious word was pushed into everyday use - a very interesting talk from a law lecturer some years back explained how the intent of this bit of 'newspeak' was to move away from  any legal responsibility by phrasing problems as something that 'just happened' rather than having an identifiable cause - with all the consequences that entails

much of what is being proposed, and put into action, is little more than tinkering at the edges - yes we can do 'our bit' but it really requires changes on a massive scale - and I fear the sheer stupidity of a large enough part of the human race (mostly in the west) will make that an almost impossible task

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39 minutes ago, A Load of Squit said:

That's perfect, some shops (Tesco for example) will charge the car for free whilst you are shopping.

If you want to sight see you can get on public transport whilst the car is charging or as it doesn't take very long to charge a car these days just have a cup of coffee to get over the long journey to Norwich.

An electric car is a perfectly good option for you.

the original point I was making to our resident idiot was that if he was driving to Norwich to watch the game, then it gave him two-three hours to have the car charged

and presuming he set off with a full charge then it would not need a long charge while he was at the game - and from Swindon the cost would be around £12-15 for the round trip

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I do believe that we can save the planet from a catastrophe. And I also believe that if we just pulled back on our usage of fuels and altered our lifestyles, there is room for change.

For instance, Planning Committees stop giving permission for more and more Supermarkets that are encouraging us to eat and spend more and contribute so much to the problem, i.e. transportation. And the encouragement for nations to cut down precious trees to make room for animals to supply the insatiable McDonalds etc.

Maybe encouraging the return of daily high street shopping which many can walk to and recreate the more social side of the necessity to shop.

I also do fear that the Government's desire for people to work from home may save on travel but create other problems in domestic areas.

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My understanding is that plans for new supermarkets have all be shelved (no pun) - and the government is against people working from home as their mates owning commercial property are losing as office space usage is being reduced

I fear it will need more than just a modification in lifestyle and habits

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3 hours ago, Bill said:

I fear it will need more than just a modification in lifestyle and habits

Especially when we'll have 1000's of people flying into the UK in November to tell everybody how we need to cut emissions. 🤣

As with all of these things it's going to take a radical combination of measures such as decarbonisation of energy, reductions in demand & consumption, changes in land use, new/emerging technologies, cultural/behavioural shifts, etc. but as Indy says, this should have started 30 years ago and now we're up against it.

It could be done, but there'll also be a lots of closing of eyes and hoping it all goes away and just keeping our fingers crossed too.

Apples

 

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1 hour ago, Mr Apples said:

Especially when we'll have 1000's of people flying into the UK in November to tell everybody how we need to cut emissions. 🤣

As with all of these things it's going to take a radical combination of measures such as decarbonisation of energy, reductions in demand & consumption, changes in land use, new/emerging technologies, cultural/behavioural shifts, etc. but as Indy says, this should have started 30 years ago and now we're up against it.

It could be done, but there'll also be a lots of closing of eyes and hoping it all goes away and just keeping our fingers crossed too.

Apples

 

I made some big changes in the past 9 years, I’ve encouraged others too and though my training and career has been in oil & gas I’ve been involved in major step changes through the years including Co2 re-injection, carbon capture, green platform designs and subsea technology. It’s hard to work and get paid in that industry yet be as green as I can be. I’ve downsized my house, installed intelligent meters to minimise my utility use and gone electric car route. Not the cheapest but not done many holidays more family visiting holidays. I’ve cut my spending and used the money from the downsize to try and do things I can.

Its difficult to say for people as going greener isn’t cheap and it should be encouraged by the government by helping with grants for people. 

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I think it will take far more drastic effects to happen before a large number of the populace will begin to grasp just how serious this is.

In this country we not only have a fair number who seem indifferent to Covid, and object to measures being taken - but there are nutters who claim it does not exist.

Similarly we have seen it with brexit - even when the information stares them full in the face, an obsessive need to cling to stupidity seems over rides reasoned thought..

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33 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

I do believe that we can save the planet from a catastrophe. And I also believe that if we just pulled back on our usage of fuels and altered our lifestyles, there is room for change.

For instance, Planning Committees stop giving permission for more and more Supermarkets that are encouraging us to eat and spend more and contribute so much to the problem, i.e. transportation. And the encouragement for nations to cut down precious trees to make room for animals to supply the insatiable McDonalds etc.

Maybe encouraging the return of daily high street shopping which many can walk to and recreate the more social side of the necessity to shop.

I also do fear that the Government's desire for people to work from home may save on travel but create other problems in domestic areas.

Whilst I generally admire optimism even when I don't feel it myself, I think you have strayed into really wild optimism there bordering on complete unreality. I think there are several things that people tend to forget and to be fair are frequently not actually mentioned in all the talk of setting targets for action.

Firstly we are way too late for the sensible but modest changes you suggest to have any real effect. There is already a huge amount of climate change already 'baked in' and even if we totally stopped emitted carbon tomorrow the climates would continue to change. Worse than that the changes would increase and speed up because many of the changes already underway are creating feedback loops which generate further and new changes. The melting of the ice sheets at the poles which is now happening at a very rapid rate is perhaps the simplest example of this - melting of the ice sheets is in itself a huge problem for a lot of reasons but the ice at the poles historically has meant a that a massive amount of sunlight\heat is reflected back into space. But as the ice sheets melt and are replaced by open seas it is a double whammy as the open water will absorb far more energy from the same amount of sunlight causing a further heating effect. Same applies to snow caps and glaciers and the underlying rocks in mountainous areas. There are many other examples like this some more complex and some we don't even know about yet - the heat domes in North America this year have come as a complete surprise to everyone, for instance.

But the bottom line is that even if we somehow achieved the complete impossibility of stopping emissions tomorrow, climate change would continue and it would get worse, and I don't really need to point out that we are already suffering catastrophes all round the world.

So at the very, very best we are talking about damage limitation not prevention and that is really my second point. We keep hearing on an almost daily basis about countries setting targets for 2030, 2035, 2040 or maybe 2050. Don't get me wrong, setting targets is probably a necessary first step, but there are lots of problems with these targets. The first and most obvious is that setting targets is sometimes a substitute for actually taking action rather than trigger to act. The UK is a prime example of this but by no means the only one. Ironically the UK was the first country to formally declare a 'Climate Emergency', that was over two years ago and yet absolutely nothing has been done to address that emergency - Theresa May went silent on the issue as soon as the declaration was mde and whilst Johnson has taken the opposite approach of waffling about all the great things he is going to do but equally has done absolutely nothing apart from open up a new coal mine and increase the subsidies to the North Sea oil companies 🙄

The other really major problem with the targets is even if they are hit (which looks incredibly unlikely in the vast majority of cases) not a single one of them represents any sort of solution or reversion of the changes. Every single one of them, even those targetting net zero, are aiming at limiting the damage and possibly at a level which avoids hitting some tipping points and feedbacks which would make the changes totally chaotic and irreversible, though that was by no means certain.

When the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015 to keep global warming well below 2 degres, and preferably 1.5, and to achieve net zero by 2050, it was widely seen as very ambitous and highly challenging but also a target that might protect the planet from complete climate breakdown. Since then, however, climate science has advanced considerably and none of it is good news - it turns out that climate change is already happening much more quickly than was expected and the idea that we could make steady/gradual progress over the next 30 years is for the birds.

Current thinking is that unless we make some really massive changes by the end of this decade then it is pretty much game over and when you consider how long it will take make the kind of changes required, even if governments started to treat it as an emergency, then the reality is that it is already game over. If that sounds gloomy then I'm afraid there is another common fallacy to mention - for many years I think a lot of people have made the complacent assumption that science/technology would provide solutions than would avoid the need for us make the changes and adaptations required to reduce our impact on the planet. I can well imagine that the stellar success of the vaccine scientists during the pandemic has re-inforced this fallacy but the sad truth is that although some great and very innovative technology has emerged and will make a contribution, there have been no real game-changers so far and some that years ago were thought to be possibilities, e.g. carbon capture, have already failed to make the grade.

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If our councils continue to ignore this threat to the environment, public assets and the future viability to live in Norfolk, by continuing with their drive to add more pollution and congestion to what is already massively impacting on us all, continue to overspend and mismanage our taxes, do we have a legal case against them?

Should we spent a years worth of our council tax on a good team of lawyers instead of enabling those who don't want to act in a meaningful way?

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