At last it feels as though governments are starting to take global warming seriously. I think its the biggest issue the whole world is facing today and I hope they do something about it sooner rather than later. Does any one else worry about it?
Global Warming
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08-09-06 16:07
Lets hope you don't need to worry about in the future! You don't live within 50 miles of the sea do you? If so you may need some chest waders sometime soon. -
11-09-06 09:09Petrol prices in 2025
Facetious comments apart, I think this is something we’re all going to see major changes from with regard to motoring. (I drive a Prius as I personally think it matters). Moreover we’re all going to end up with much more efficient cars in the future as that is the way the industry/life is heading – not least because the damn petrol will be so expensive in 20 years time. How about a poll on how much we all think it will cost in 2025 (in current money terms, ie exculding inflation)?
My bet is £15/litre.
Pete -
12-09-06 08:12I think the main problem lies with the car manufacturers. As soon as they stop producing such powerful, gas-gussling, environmentally un-friendly cars, the sooner we can start helping the environment.
It would probably help if people stopped chopping down trees to build poor quality housing too.
I'll go for £3/litre in 2025. -
18-10-06 20:53Hi folks,
Great topic, with some very interesting views.
my $5
Car companies are companies, nice safe assertion that! They react to supply and demand, the reason they make powerful cars is because there is a demand for it. Government legislation would be the only way to curtail these activites.
Why would you want a slow car? the whole point of the car is to be able to go faster than walking/cycling!
The bigger issue would have to be why we need to change? Because the global warming that scientists denied for so many years has now become credible?
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/i...emps-combo.gif
I think this link shows conclusive proof.... not that temperatures are rising, but that the "scientists" haven't got a clue!
The sheer number of different readings shows one vital fact, we cannot rely on any statistics from over 100 years ago.
This means we are taking a set of 100 years from ~4,000,000,000...
so 0.0000025% :eek: which cannot be representative as there is no spread across the timeline.
Global warming is statistically unprovable, impossible to demonstrate and too complex to build a robust theory.
That said, I am in favor of efficient cars, to me this means light weight cars! The Prius and Hybrid honda are 300lb heavier than their "normal" counterparts. Thats a 10% increase in the weight of the car! Moving something heavier takes more energy and as such the "benefit" of the hybrids do not make sense to me at the moment.
Vipers are too efficient for me, I'm after a 1970 chevelle ss with a 454.
Enjoy it while we can! :p -
04-06-07 09:26Global warming debunked
By ANDREW SWALLOW - The Timaru Herald | Saturday, 19 May 2007
Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.
Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained.
"We're all going to survive this. It's all going to be a joke in five years," he said.
A combination of misinterpreted and misguided science, media hype, and political spin had created the current hysteria and it was time to put a stop to it.
"It is time to attack the myth of global warming," he said.
Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.
"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."
The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.
However, carbon dioxide as a result of man's activities was only 3.2 per cent of that, hence only 0.12 per cent of the greenhouse gases in total. Human-related methane, nitrogen dioxide and CFCs etc made similarly minuscule contributions to the effect: 0.066, 0.047 and 0.046 per cent respectively.
"That ought to be the end of the argument, there and then," he said.
"We couldn't do it (change the climate) even if we wanted to because water vapour dominates."
Yet the Greens continued to use phrases such as "The planet is groaning under the weight of CO2" and Government policies were about to hit industries such as farming, he warned.
"The Greens are really going to go after you because you put out 49 per cent of the countries emissions. Does anybody ask 49 per cent of what? Does anybody know how small that number is?
"It's become a witch-hunt; a Salem witch-hunt," he said. -
30-07-07 08:54Read the book 'Global Warming. The 1500 Year Cycle.' to understand the real story of global warming. The chances are it won't be available at your local library and you'll have a fight to get it. The greens/liberals do not want this book available as it completely dispells the human causes of global warming. Incidentally CO2 is not the big danger it's methane but we can't do anything about the amount of methane the earth pumps into the atmosphere as it comes from nature...but keep this quiet as its a government secret'
Bryan -
27-03-08 13:39Global Warming
Global warming is a Myth. Since the earth was born it has gone through periods of heating up and then cooling down, we are infact 200 years over due for an ice age.
Global warming has been created as a way of panic mongering and by means for governments having something to blame and therefor effectively "CON" the general populous out of all they can get their greedy taxing mitts on.
Yes the world is warming up but it is not the fault of you or I it's the earth just being the earth and doing what it has done for millions of years. heating up then cooling down. And the earth will continue to do this long after you or I are turned to dust.
Food for thought. -
27-03-08 16:14I have maintained all along that global warming is not just down to Man's behaviour in isolation of what Nature is doing, even though he may be contributing to it. And the UK motorists are not making any significant effect.
The larger populated countries (e.g. China, India, USA) are the major contributors, and they are not about to be dictated to by the EU as to how they conduct their lives.
So, the recent exhorbitant rise in vehicle taxes, along with the LEZ, are just excuses to raise revenue for the government; and very weak excuses at that.
Even worse, they think we are daft enough to believe their pious preaching that they are trying to save the planet, and that the masses of the large continents are going to be swayed by the pip-squeak UK.
And as the extra money is going to be used to help plug the national debt, they haven't yet explained how these new taxes will reduce global warming.
Every effort by the government to date, to reduce the carbon footprint, has had a negative effect. The mechanics of recycling require the use of power, which produces CO2. To even stand still, these operations would have to be 100% efficient.
Just one example: Our pavements are swept by a small, but very heavy, special vehicle. It uses fuel, it has to be maintained, and it is no faster than the man with brush, shovel and handcart.
Being led by lemmings is a dangerous way of life. -
29-03-08 12:46Snowball wrote: 'Our pavements are swept by a small, but very heavy, special vehicle. It uses fuel, it has to be maintained, and it is no faster than the man with brush, shovel and handcart.'
All we get is some character walking down the footpath with a very noisy hand held thing which blows all the rubbish into the road. -
29-03-08 12:57
You missed the point. Global warming has occurred naturally over millions of years; long before Man was around, or existed in significant numbers to have any effect.
There is no absolute evidence that any current global warming can be primarily attributed to the burning of fossil fuels and the generating of power.
Without doubt, these activities will ADD to it, but TOTAL ceasing of them would not necessarily prevent a steady increase in global warming.
Man's most significant contribution has been deforestation on a huge scale.
Trees absorb and store large quantities of CO2. So do the oceans, but we are polluting them to the extent that they are less efficient in this respect.
The aim to reduce each person's contribution of CO2 by 60% by 2050 sounds very optimistic, but even if it were achieved, the projected increase in world population will reinstate the status quo, bringing us back to where we are now.
The salvation is in technology, not knee-jerk taxation which, far from solving the problem, will just help to destabilise the economy.
The greatest danger are the "environmentally green at any cost" brigade. And the even more worrying thing is that some of these people are possibly control freaks, who are bandwagon jumpers; and global warming just happens to be the current weapon in their arsenal. -
29-03-08 17:27When did the mini come out? what did it do to the gallon? Interestingly with all the fancy electronics the small car does about the same so whats all that about?
Global warming, don't sign up to it myself, all goes in cycles its happened before like 7000 years ago and the ice age an all that will happen again wont it? Get on with like and forget it. All the recycling we are made to do, what happens to it? A lot goes to china where they burn it for fuel.
Knock a hole in one end of a boat, and it all goes down. -
30-03-08 16:01I wonder what CO2 levels would be if there had been no wars around the world in the last 200 years, and no serious deforestation. Then again, would the predicted 2050 population explosion already have taken place, and Man's contribution have been pretty much the same as it is now?
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30-03-08 17:47If we were considered a serious threat, car manufacturers would be making cars with engines that were actually efficient, not the rubbish they are currently producing.
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31-03-08 15:41I did not think that the modern car engines were all that bad for efficiency. You may well be correct in your comments but, with the current pressure on vehicles that are heavy on CO2 emissions, I would have thought it was in the car manufacturers' best interests to produce the most efficient vehicles possible.
However, having said all that, I suppose that it is possible that they may wish to wring the last ounce of profit from their current manufacturing plant before investing in newer technology; similar to how the computer companies push their products to the utmost, just before unveiling the updates. -
31-03-08 16:58My understanding of efficiency with regard to engines is to extract as much energy as possible from the fuel. This can be manifested in terms of outright performance, or fuel consumption. We seem to have lost the way. We have got to the stage where performance is only gleaned by fitting bigger engines, and fuel consumption has fallen by the wayside. There is absolutely no excuse for the regression we are making in this regard. Fitting a catalytic converter is known to have a detrimental effect on consumption, and what real use is it. Converting one pollutant to another, hardly a realisitic attitude to any ecological issues, but good for the Chancellor. The use of unleaded fuel necessitates the de-tuning of any engine with which it is used creating more pollution and inefficiency of use of fuel. We should be seriously running around in cars capable of reasonable performance returning a reasonable consumption, and we aren't.
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31-03-08 17:54My current towcar (VW Touran 1.9 TDI has an emission figure of 162 g/km.
I achieve between 32 and 37 mpg when towing my caravan, and have touched 70 mpg solo, although the norm is about 56 mpg.
I notice that VW have now got the emission figure down to 158 g/km with the same power output, so they are still improving.
As with all forms of motive power, the further one goes in improving output efficiency, so the task of still further improvement becomes more difficult and more costly.
Technology will bring some further improvement, but I think that diesel/petrol engines are near to their ultimate levels of efficiency. As the oil reserves become depleted, oil-based fuels will be far too expensive for the average motorist. Alternative power sources will be developed, because transportation, commercial and private, is too much interlinked with everyday life, on a global scale, for vehicle manufacturers to simply shut up shop when the oil does run out. -
06-04-08 09:29In this saturday's daily Mail, the Saturday Essay is an extract from a book written by Lord (Nigel) Lawson. It is titled, "An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming".
The book echoes much of what I myself have said about it being largely a myth, and it also indicates more benefits than disaster if global warming even increases by 3 degrees Celsius.
He has indicated that, with the collapse of effective Marxism and Socialism, green is the new RED, and being paraded by those whose agenda is to control our lives.
The book is due out on April 10, and the advice, in the Daily Mail editorial comment, that everyone should read it, is good advice. Especially Alistair Darling. -
06-04-08 18:53I'm sat here freezing my man boobs off, Global Warming, Bring it on.
Seriously though, I think it's too late to do anything about it now, and the developing/ed worlds love of atmospheric pollutants, Humans are in for a rough ride ahead, but so what, with the world as it is today, a global disaster (in human terms) would be a good thing for the planet. As medicine today progresses, we are obsessed with prolonging life and in doing so exacerbating the problems that are already apparent, and I'm not talking about problems in undeveloped/3rd world countries. I refer, in part, to the insatiable appetite for manufactured goods, and every new human requires them for the rest of his life, and there is no way he could ever repay/offset his total carbon footprint.
The way I see it the only way of recovery is:
Stop saving people, it's a tough call but a necessary one.
Better birth control. the population needs to be reduced, not increased.
Peeps will almost need to adopt a "the good life" philosophy.
There needs to be a cataclysmic change in the way people travel and the way food/goods are transported.
People will need to accept that if they want electricity, then it has to be nuclear, locally erected wind farms are too expensive to manufacture, build and maintain in carbon footprint terms.
Abolish gas appliances, given sufficient electricity, there is no need for these.
Locally grown/produced goods should be made available locally, not shipped halfway round the world or vice versa.
I dare say some of these suggestions are controversial, and peeps will have more input. I don't want civilisation to go back to the dark ages, but it's gonna happen, hopefully not in my kids lifetime, but if a fundamental change in the way everyone lives their lives doesn't happen then I think we will.
We can't rely on our governments to coerce us, because by the time they've finished forming a committee, we'll already be there. BTW at least it was cool then.
And all this is assuming there is a problem with global warming, but if all the hype is just that, HYPE, there still remains the problem of the planet being plundered, to satisfy the needs of the developed world, and with the population ever increasing then there has to be a point when something has to give.
Oh, BTW I am not a tree-hugger, just a layman, trying to understand what the future may have in store for my offspring. -
07-04-08 10:03galaxymadbaz: It is not your logic that is the problem. Being a normal member of Joe Public you, like most people, have a sensible, middle-of-the-road approach. This probably equates to the best ultilisation of resources (and here is where the difficulties begin) with all levels of society observing equal restraint in their use of the resources.
But we all know from bitter experience that the rich and the politicians will lay down the foundations in such a way that they themselves can still live any way they please, and the taxpaying masses will foot their bills.
There are varying opinions regarding just how much longer the oil reserves will last; with the most pessimistic ones indicating that shortages are imminent. The recent budget taxation rates for vehicles, and the rapid rises in fuel prices tell me that these privileged groups are already moving towards provision for protection of their own living standards in the near future.
Additional evidence of this trend is shown by the fact that the 10p tax rate has been abolished, leaving the lowest paid still worse off, but the Treasury £8 billion better off. Yet there is (and won't be) no intention to introduce a higher tax rate for those pulling half a million plus per year.
And I still feel that Lord Lawson's summation of the Global Warming situation is a lot more plausible than the politicians would have us believe; since it is their current smoke screen for financial rape, enthusiastically supported by the lemming-brained "green brigade". -
07-04-08 10:46
I'm with you on these points mentioned, galaxymadbaz. Definately, the government need to address point number 2 you raise. Also, the latter point is a good one you raise. Obviously exotic foods will need to be imported etc, but when we have all these farms etc around us that grow mostly all of what is shipped in, we should be using that in this country!
Also, i agree with Snowball that global warming is just a myth. It has been going on for millions/billions of years, it's nature. Well to the governemnt it's just another tax. They are trying to scare people into thinking that if they do not pay this that and the other to help global warming, then the world will end.
I also don't see why the UK is so involved with it all, we are not the main poluter. How about china causing 90% of it with all there factories! -
07-04-08 14:04Well, I think most people know that taxation isn't going to combat Global warming, and neither is Man if it is a cycle of Nature; which I believe it mainly is.
The government, and their Eco-fundamentalists (the greens), all want us to use public transport. Ha,ha,ha!
Have they ever considered the number of buses that would be required during peak periods? And who is going to fund the depreciation of those buses whilst they are standing idle at other times?
Many more buses would have to run at off-peak times than at present, in case there were passengers waiting at bus stops. Very often, these buses would run virtually empty at these times. Have they considered how much fuel is required just to move the mass of the bus?
What about people who work unsocial hours? Hospital workers, those in the utilities (gas, electricity, water). The environmentalists probably don't realise that such organisations have to be manned around the clock.
So public transport would have to operate 24/7 Overall, this would greatly increase fuel consumption (and the dreaded CO2 emissions) compared to current practices.
The resultant chaos and economic disruption would be disastrous for the country. The economic catastrophe would destroy businesses and cause mass unemployment, in which case the public transportation system would collapse, because very few people would have need of it.
This, of course, still leaves the government and the rich with there luxurious cars and plenty of open road to enjoy. But do they think that the oil companies would keep fuel stations open at great loss, simply to allow them to continue in the comfort to which they have become accustomed? -
13-04-08 14:00Global warming...urban myth!!!!
Fancy that.
Its April and look at the weather.......showers!!!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/
Global warming if proof was ever needed is definately an urban myth!!!!:D
