CLIMATE CHANGE AND GLOBAL WARMING

[Stanley]

"As ye sow, so shall you reap". What you describe Tiz is a perfect example. I don't think we are fit to have an Earth......

[plaques]

I'm getting a little more than annoyed with the American Republicans. To a man they deny that climate change is taking place. Of course they know it is taking place and are encouraging its development by burning more coal and other fossil fuels. So why are they doing it? Simply because there will be pockets full of extra dollars in it. We know that there are chemicals available that will combine with carbon dioxide in the air and can be reused once the carbon has been split off. In today's terms this will be very expensive and take a lot of energy. But once you are up against crop failures and the threat of drought and mass migration people will be willing to pay the price. Immigration won't be a problem because Trump will have already built his Mexican wall. Burning coal as an energy source may not be acceptable but since the mines will probably have been worked out causing the problem in the first place this doesn't really matter. The bottom line is that the top 0.1% will be in charge and the rest, if we want to survive, will just have to pay the price.

[chinatyke]

... We know that there are chemicals available that will combine with carbon dioxide in the air and can be reused once the carbon has been split off. In today's terms this will be very expensive and take a lot of energy. But once you are up against crop failures and the threat of drought and mass migration people will be willing to pay the price.

You're thinking of the problem within today's technology framework. Imagine if energy was virtually free and limitless, then it would be easy to capture any excess CO₂ and control the climate. These things will come in the future. I'm of the opinion that tomorrow's technology will make our generation look like Neanderthals. Think what it was like 50 years ago and what is available today, and then think what it could be like in 50 years time. I'm optimistic about the future.

[Stanley]

P, only one comment about your post, I agree with all the rest. There is still plenty of coal left to extract and bugger the climate.
I think China is probably right but we should not rely on technology to sort it out while it is still unclear. Think about irreversible change like plastic and stray chemicals in the environment.
As for the deniers, the closest I can get to a comparison in history is the Flat Earthers..... Trump is one of them. It is they who are deluded not us!

[plaques]

China, I applaud your faith in technology but it doesn't appear to extend to longevity "you won't be here in 2070". Remember T Dan Smith from Newcastle that promised North Sea gas & oil would be so cheap that you would be able to warm the North sea up with it. If I remember correctly the Large Hadron Collider at CERN besides looking for the various God particles was supposed to get to a point via fusion that it would create excess energy so that they would have to give it away. On the chemistry front nano particles and tubes may improve the catalyst function but you won't be here then meanwhile you could be joined in eternity with another 7 Billion people. Always look on the bright side of death.

[Pluggy]

The LHC doesn't do nor ever will do nuclear fusion. There is lots of fusion research going on at numerous purpose built reactors but not at CERN.

MIT have said 'within 15 years' here : https://www.seeker.com/energy/mit-aims- ... n-15-years

I'll believe when I see it.

[Big Kev]

I worked at Culham Science Park 30 years ago and they seemed confident of fusion energy happening soon back then...

Still waiting

[Stanley]

It will come eventually.........

[Tizer]

`Plastic food pots and trays are often unrecyclable, say councils' LINK
I have to take issue with this story. It begins: `Most of the plastic food containers that householders wash out after use and put in the recycling bin cannot actually be recycled, it has emerged. The mixture of plastics used in many yoghurt pots, ready meal trays and other containers limits the ability of councils to recycle them.' The story comes from the Local Government Association. What puzzles me is that wherever I've lived the local councils have never accepted these items for recycling and they tell you that in their literature, on their web site and the collectors will refuse to take such items. They have to go in the ordinary waste for landfill. Yet the LGA is saying that householders wash them out after use and put them in the recycling bin. It seems to be a non-news story.

Another quibble I've got is with the LGA's claim that black plastic food packaging trays can't be recycled because the detector machines at the recycling plants can't `see' them. This is out of date. The technology is available and they have to get on and use it: LINK

[Stanley]

I heard that interview as well Tiz. What struck me particularly was that if the retailers and packaging manufacturers accepted the extra cost most of the problems the expert was talking about would go away and I suspect that applies to things like detection equipment as well. The search for profit impinging on our lives and well-being yet again!

[Tizer]

Another fact is that all that black packaging is only black because lighter colours would show up staining from the foodstuffs, especially blood, and the retailers worry that we might be put off buying it. It's not even as if the plastic they use is black - it's white but they add carbon black to it. Then recyclers say they can't recycle it because of the carbon black! Solving problems like this should be a doddle, but nobody gets on with it.

[PanBiker]

We have a bench up at Clarion House that is made from recycled plastic. The manufacturers plaque on the side says that 2,000 plastic bottles go into making one brown park bench (other colours available). As a start why not replace every park bench in the country with a zero maintenance plastic one. Then move on to resurfacing every road with with the recycled plastic Tarmac equivalent, there is a lot of potential in both of those suggestions. Some countries are actually mining previously landfilled bottles to meet demand for recycled plastic.

[Stanley]

There are two plastic benches in Valley Gardens and I suspect they are the same type Ian.
See THIS BBC report of the latest call by international researchers for immediate action to slow down what they see as the danger of runaway climate change being triggered very shortly.
How many apocalypse warnings do we need? Even if you don't believe the evidence and conclusions, the guiding principle must be to assume worst case.
Have a look at THIS Guardian report on what the Australian agriculture minister thinks. He doesn't give a rat's arse whether it is man made or not and says that taking action is a 'big call'. What hope is there with attitudes like this?

[Tizer]

There's more on the `Hothouse Earth' study here: LINK It's published in the `Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA' which is one of the Big Three most respected scientific journals worldwide (the UK's `Nature' and US `Science' are the other two). The authors say a total re-orientation of human values, equity, behaviour and technologies is required and we must all become stewards of the Earth. The BBC report of the story ends with Professor Chris Rapley, of University College London responding by saying: "Given the evidence of human history, this would seem a naive hope. At a time of the widespread rise of right-wing populism, with its associated rejection of the messages of those perceived as 'cosmopolitan elites' and specific denial of climate change as an issue, the likelihood that the combination of factors necessary to allow humanity to navigate the planet to an acceptable 'intermediate state' must surely be close to zero." Unfortunately I have to agree with him.

[chinatyke]

Perhaps it's natural selection in action. If homo sapiens goes extinct then perhaps another dominant species will succeed. Cockroaches? Would it matter in another billion years?

[PanBiker]

There are two plastic benches in Valley Gardens and I suspect they are the same type Ian.

Yes they are and the new replacement "Millenium Bench" at the top of Weets is now the same. The wooden one lasted 16 years, recycled plastic ones claim at least 50 years, not been around long enough yet but I think that will be very conservative estimate.

It's a no-brainer in my view. I wish I had the plant to recycle and produce them. Don't need to stop at benches some of the firms are now doing pre-fab houses, impervious to water and insulated too. There's a lot of money to be made.

[Stanley]

There's a lot of money to be made.
Perhaps the economic imperative is one of the strategies for adopting better ecological attitudes? It was the imminent threat of tidal flooding in London that led to the Thames Barrier. A similar threat from a tide of sewage triggered the Super Sewer under construction at the moment.
I too am pessimistic...... China is right, eventually the rats and cockroaches will inherit the earth...... Then they will evolve.......

[Stanley]

See THIS for a Washington Post article on Trump saying that the largest wildfire in the state's history is a result of their ecological policies. As is often the case he has got it completely wrong and is being attacked from all sides. He will say this is fake news.......

[Tizer]

Perhaps it's natural selection in action.

No need for `perhaps'; by definition it's natural selection. The dinosaurs were probably arguing over whether or not small mammals existed when that big thing dropped out of the sky and they all (except bird ancestors) became what Ma Ramotswe would call `late'!

[Stanley]

"It is a late parrot......" As Keynes said in another context; "In the long run we'll all be dead!".

[Stanley]

The monsoon rains in India are reported to be the heaviest for 100 years..... (LINK to BBC report)

[Tizer]

Yet another example of how climate change has raised `extreme weather events' to a higher danger level. The Kerala situation is in its early stages - the many deaths due directly to flooding will be followed by more due to starvation and disease as a consequence of the floods.

[Stanley]

I agree with you Tiz. The headlines are attracted to the shock of floods, landslides and sudden death. The aftermath of these extreme events is always more deadly and less newsworthy. Loss of infrastructure, lack of services like clean water and sewage disposal leading to famine and disease, it's a perfect storm. Then add migration to the cities under these pressures to the mix. Proper analysis would show that mortality rates due to these factors will eclipse the immediate death toll but will the media follow this relatively boring story? I doubt it, they will move on to the next 'big thing'.

[Tizer]

The sooner we put an end to all this silly Brexit business the sooner we could attend to climate change, infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance, poverty, war.....

[Stanley]