OneGuyFromBarlick

I don't have much faith in David Attenborough, but generally its because he's one of the more irritating presenters on TV (IMO of course). But even I wouldn't hold him responsible for the decision to film baby polar bears in a zoo rather than in the wild. Hardly classifies as trick photography in my book. Be b*ggered if I'd want to freeze my backside off on some far flung lump of ice waiting for the opportune moment either...........

I'm with the majority of scientists on the subject in hand, although arguing about it is akin to arguing about religion or politics (nobody ever wins).

...and it wouldn't have been Attenborough who made the decision, it would have been the TV production company's staff. Anyway, it's obvious that it would have been committing suicide to try and film bear cubs in that situation in the wild (would have provided a good meal for the mother bear though, and she would have been able to tell her cubs: "I'm the bear wot ate David Attenborough!").

If it is not a money spinning solution how come that car tax is supposedly charged on the amount of emissions when one of the lowest emissions car is BMW diesel and it is one of the costliest cars to tax.

Politicians and scientist are using air travel for fun to go and discuss combating climate change! So is it a case of do what I say not as I do! All these wars with bombs and guns going off do they not give out greenhouse gases. I remember in Australia that everyone was using roll on deodorant as the aerosols were supposedly putting a hole in the ozone layer. Didn't catch on so try something else to fill the coffers.

There's for and against I suppose but someone is making an awful lot of money through it. Yes I am cynical and until 100% positive evidence I shall remain so.

Eileen

EileenDavid wrote:If it is not a money spinning solution how come that car tax is supposedly charged on the amount of emissions when one of the lowest emissions car is BMW diesel and it is one of the costliest cars to tax.

BMWs are no different on car tax than any other diesel. At the bottom end is the 116D which costs £30 a year for 118 g/km, at the top end is the X6 M50D which costs £260 a year and £580 for the first year for 204 g/km. The 116D compares very favourably with my Skoda Fabia diesel which costs £95 a year for 124 g/km.

Eileen, there will never be "100% positive evidence" of the causes of climate change, it's impossible. You can only have the best evidence possible which is what we've got. This applied likewise to the ozone hole - scientists came up with the best evidence possible, there was a consensus worldwide and manufacturers stopped using CFCs in aerosols. The ozone hole was held at bay. It's only now we are getting the ozone hole problem again because the burgeoning middle classes in China and India are wanting to be less smelly and the local manufacturers don't respect the dangers of CFCs.

EileenDavid wrote:If it is not a money spinning solution how come that car tax is supposedly charged on the amount of emissions when one of the lowest emissions car is BMW diesel and it is one of the costliest cars to tax.
Eileen

You must remember that politicians have an insatiable appetite for money. It is difficult to decide which are the greedier, politicians or bankers.
Politicians have the edge over bankers when it comes to "reasons" for plundering the public's purse.
It is a bit like having a row of hat pegs. When they have filled all the existing hat pegs with their hats they simply put up some more pegs. They can claim that they are now essential for virtually anything they can make sound even vaguly plausible.
Bankers do not have anywhere near as many hatpeg opportunities as do the leeches in Westminster, although they are continually on the look out.

One of the major changes we have seen over the last forty years is the way the public perceives 'science'. As more and more is explored and explained 'science' becomes the modern magic. One consequence is that most people believe that we can have perfect knowledge and control, hence the modern obsession with '100% safety', 'germ free' environments and the ability of medicine to cure all illnesses. Unfortunately this is an illusion. The best we can hope for is better understanding and good luck. In that respect nothing has changed. Tiz is right, we will never be 100% sure of the causes of climate change and global warming but we can glean enough evidence to form a conclusion and hope that the rest of the world does the same and takes steps to alleviate the causes. Anyone who can't understand that the way we treat our environment has an effect on it is ignoring reality. Nature spent millions of years locking carbon up safely and we have spent 300 years releasing it to the atmosphere, that one fact alone should point to the possibility of some sort of consequence.

Do trees not soak up Carbon and give out oxygen? Would it not be prudent to first educate the people to stop cutting down the rain forrests and also plant more trees to combat our carbon footprints, followed by putting a stop to building on flood plains to alleviate flooding? Our country is so small in comparison to the main culprets so why do we have to be the leaders? I am still of the opinion it is a money making spin as the emissions test proves when deciding cost of road tax is a prime example.

Eileen

Agreed , and we have now outsourced our carbon production to China. British Guiana offered to sell all its rainforest production on a sustainable basis to Britain (rental not outright purchase ) to ensure bio-diversity and nil net carbon, Gordon Brown when chancellor , declined.

EileenDavid wrote:I am still of the opinion it is a money making spin as the emissions test proves when deciding cost of road tax is a prime example.

Eileen

I take it you run a large car ?, my two small cars are much cheaper to tax under the emissions based system than under the old engine sized based system. For small old cars under 1549CC the road tax which has gone up in line with inflation more or less from 2001, is £130 a year. My Skoda as already mentioned costs £95 a year, and my daughters Citroen C2 diesel costs £20 a year. So the politician's money making spin means I'm paying the government £145 less in road tax a year than I would have been otherwise. Lets have more of their money making I say.......

Not that I consider it a wonderfully fair system, my Skoda (band D) costs almost 5 times as much to tax as my Daughters Citroen (band B), its only a marginally larger car and the fuel consumption is almost the same (around 55-60 mpg.)

If I could afford to buy a big BMW diesel (band K) , the paltry £580 for the first years road tax wouldn't worry me.

Feel free to check out my figures: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Ow ... G_10012524

EileenDavid wrote:Do trees not soak up Carbon and give out oxygen? Would it not be prudent to first educate the people to stop cutting down the rain forrests and also plant more trees to combat our carbon footprints, followed by putting a stop to building on flood plains to alleviate flooding? Our country is so small in comparison to the main culprets so why do we have to be the leaders? I am still of the opinion it is a money making spin as the emissions test proves when deciding cost of road tax is a prime example. Eileen

Yes, trees do `soak up' carbon (dioxide) and give out oxygen during photosynthesis (but only during daylight) but remember that, just like animals they respire, i.e. soak up oxygen and give out carbon dioxide, and they respire 24 hours a day. The real value of trees from a carbon point of view is when they fall down, turn slowly into compost, then peat and then (over a geological time scale) into coal. The carbon is then locked away unless some strange two-legged animal comes along and learns how to burn it to carbon dioxide again to keep warm. Crude oil comes from the decomposition of ancient algae rather than trees but in a similar way.

I fully agree with you about educating people not to burn rain forests and not to build on flood plains but that alone won't be sufficient to stop the climate change that's already happening. It's more important to educate people to use less energy but that's not popular, partly because of vested interests and partly because people in the West have become use to a profligate lifestyle and those in the East, not surprisingly, want some of the same.

Where I will agree with you on the money spinners Eileen is the vested interests. The money spinning goes on as profits for those in the oil and coal industry and they don't want it stopped; and now it includes the biofuel producers such as ethanol and palm oil, and even the renewable energy sellers such as solar, wind, hydro and wave energy, even as far as the nuclear energy companies. None of them will make a profit out of telling people to use less energy. But please don't blame the climate scientists for all that money spinning, they are simply doing the experiments and calculations and telling us the results and conclusions. People often accuse scientists as profiting by frightening us over climate change, but I've said it many times on here before - if scientists had proof that climate change wasn't caused by humans, or even better there was no change at all, they would rush to publicise it. Every scientist wants to disprove other scientist's claims, that's how you advance as a scientist. The scientists are far more sceptical than the public.

I would say that it is OK to burn the rainforest (queue hoards of boos)

But once it is felled and burned the trees need to be replaced to continue the cycle (maybe some relief)

Hence I put in a carbon cycle graphic.

Remember it takes millions of years to produce coal and oil, but a system of wood usage could be up and running if everyone planted a tree every year for the next 5 years. It does take up land etc, but the system is fully carbon neutral

Whether the system is carbon neutral is not the important point as far as global warming/climate change is concerned. It's the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which determines the `greenhouse effect' and thus the degree of warming. You can have a `neutral' (balanced) cycle at a low atmospheric CO2 level or a high atmospheric CO2 level, or any level in between. Grow masses of trees to produce a fuel source and lock up CO2, then burn them and release CO2 - it might be a balanced cycle over the long term but it will result in a raised atmospheric CO2 level and a higher global temperature. It's the amount of CO2 cycling through the atmosphere that counts, and don't forget that a significant proportion of the CO2 we are producing now will remain in the atmosphere for hundreds if not thousands of years. You can't suddenly decrease the level.

I agree, but the new science data points to the fact that CO2 is actually being lost from the atmosphere at a greater rate than was first thought.

The cycle I pointed at was burning timber rather than fossil fuels, so the other part of your arguement is less substantive too. Plus since the UK imports the majority of the carbon fuels (Gas, Oil and Coal) there is a greater carbon footprint in actually getting it here, which I'm sure you'll agree is not helping your CO2 arguement.

Despite all the arguments about carbon, nobody can argue that we are not damaging the ecology of the planet by pollution. The Bottom line is that Nature has her own defence and it takes no account of humans.

Stanley wrote:Despite all the arguments about carbon, nobody can argue that we are not damaging the ecology of the planet by pollution. The Bottom line is that Nature has her own defence and it takes no account of humans.

Yes, and much of the polution created is through extraction or usage of commodity products

Though there is some evidence that nature is evolving in some stages to buffer some of the effects. The panic stage will be once these buffers are exhausted and can no longer maintain the equilibrium.

Should this be here?

Fish and greens:

http://aquaponics.myshopify.com/

grow your own fish to eat (tilapia) and use the waste to fertilise plants which you can eat.

Systems look expensive, unless stocking levels are quite high

Tardis wrote:I agree, but the new science data points to the fact that CO2 is actually being lost from the atmosphere at a greater rate than was first thought.

The cycle I pointed at was burning timber rather than fossil fuels, so the other part of your arguement is less substantive too. Plus since the UK imports the majority of the carbon fuels (Gas, Oil and Coal) there is a greater carbon footprint in actually getting it here, which I'm sure you'll agree is not helping your CO2 arguement.

I don't know of any good evidence for CO2 levels falling - are you confusing it with natural cycles of CO2 in the atmosphere? Figures given are averages because the level is always cycling, for instance the annual cycle.

I'm not supporting burning gas, coal and oil, just pointing out that a `carbon neutral' cycle (whether based on timber or fossil fuels) is not an answer in itself - it's the CO2 level in the atmosphere that is important.

Proof ..if proof were needed.

Did anyone watch the BBC prog on 'Weird weather' last night? Little doubt in the scientist's minds that we are seeing changes that can only be attributed to global warming. The recent disturbances due to sunspot activity are a known phenomenon but these small regular changes added to overall warming make the effects much more serious. That was the tenor of the whole programme, the scale and unpredictability of the effects of relatively small changes in temperature.

As an aside, and newshoud does not appear to have picked it up yet, St Joseph's school is collecting over 1500 plastic 2ltr pop bottles to make into a greenhouse. No plans in the news report, but sounds an interesting project

'Evidence' of larger CO2 leakage from atmosphere was sited on one of the Radio4 programmes, I have not followed it up and looked through the scientific press.

It would make sense, because CO2 rates have not risen as fast as was expected.

Tardis wrote:It would make sense, because CO2 rates have not risen as fast as was expected.

Which is what you would expect, as a result of the recession depressing industrial activity and thus reducing the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere.

We're having our own weird weather at the moment.

Snow could be on the forecast for the weekend