Thumper Club Forum
Club House => Chatter => Topic started by: bullet350 on March 08, 2007, 11:32:09 PM
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did anybody else see the channel 4 programme about global warming?
long story short:
earth is warming up.
caused 99% by variations in the suns activity.
media loves a crisis.
politicians love the power allowed by such a cause.
lots of companies and individuals making money from global warming & green issues.
government funded scientists always agree with government.
the programme backed up my own beliefs (not a scientist just a rational thinker), and concluded that the earths temprature has risen and fallen since the year dot and will continue to do so with only minor effects on the human way of life.
Discuss.
350bullet
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A perfectly rational point of view discussed by very knowledgable persons including some fascinating evidence to back up their rationale, ie in the Middle ages it was much hotter than now and productivity was up! The Thames froze over during a period colder than we have now and it got colder during the industrial revolution even though the earth was using more carbon based fuels (should have heated up!?*)
I'm convinced, I'm gonna ride both my bikes as much as I can, lets have a really good summer!
Cheers SteveD
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Not at one time I trust?
Steffan
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i have no arguments against nice ,warm,sunny,dry summers at as avarage temperature of 30 celsius and winters at a average 20 celsius ...ok a bit rain would come handy but please between 1am and 4am
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i have no arguments against nice ,warm,sunny,dry summers at as avarage temperature of 30 celsius and winters at a average 20 celsius ...ok a bit rain would come handy but please between 1am and 4am
What? just when we're coming home from a party :o nah, rain between 0900 and 1000 daily Monday to Friday would be much better ;)
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Ok so we now have 2 totally opposed views, but here's a thought what's the harm in not wasting energy e.g. turn off unused lights, it ain't that hard. Plus whatever the arguement for global warming there's still pollution et al. As one who has what is probably an enviromental disease where's the harm in putting less crap into it.
Paul
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ok then first ged rid of oil burners , wood burners ,gas burners , the loved open fire places in the living rooms , insulate your houses better then fit solar cells on the roofs a wind generator in your garden , heat your water with solar energy .... there is loads we could do but ..they all cost a lot of money and ok there would be a sollution ask the goverment :everybody who does theses changes should then be allowed to live taxfree and interest free and for the rest of his life
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did anybody else see the channel 4 programme about global warming?
long story short:
earth is warming up.
caused 99% by variations in the suns activity.
media loves a crisis.
politicians love the power allowed by such a cause.
lots of companies and individuals making money from global warming & green issues.
government funded scientists always agree with government.
the programme backed up my own beliefs (not a scientist just a rational thinker), and concluded that the earths temprature has risen and fallen since the year dot and will continue to do so with only minor effects on the human way of life.
Discuss.
350bullet
Easy to prove isn't it? I'm sure that for the last 40 years at least we've had the technology to measure the suns output via satelites etc. If there is more input of energy from space we'd measure it wouldn't we?. If the same input results in higher temperatures it has to be the insulation caused by pollution or another energy source inside the Earths atmosphere. I didn't see the film, but surely they'd mention physical measurements to back up the theory?
Personally, if it was that simple i'm sure the "it can't exist" lobby would be getting much coverage. Still, conspiracies are usually much more fun.
Now, where did I put my water powered engine design........
Andy
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Currently in Perth we are running at 27-29 C, which is nicer than 3 days running at 42C+
I went for a quick ride Tonight and it was very enjoyable, even with the leathers. Our summer seems to have arrived a bit late, but with luck it will level off for a few weeks before we descend into the winter teens
For you sailors: gusty and strong winds from the southerly @40kph.
Our states northern coastline has been hit by Cyclone George, with much damage to the isolated mining camps, and towns such as Karratha and Pt Hedland. Cyclone Jacob is hitting the same area again on Sunday.
There have been a number of casualties with 2 fatalities.
Winds have been clocked @235kph + from Cyclone George.
Imagine that hitting a Metropolis.
The Cyclones seem to be more regular with much more veracious winds than in the past.
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The largest anticipated effect upon Humans will be the loss of hundreds of villiages, towns, and cities of every size in coastal locations.
The warming is undeniable, though those with monetary interests in maintaining oil and coal will deny the heating and pollution caused by trillions of running hours by various coal and oil fired vehicles for over two centuries now.
That denial is, quite literally, incredible.
CO2 alone causes tremendous heating as a greenhouse gas, and the destruction of oxygen generating rain forests will continue to make the place less hospitable for many types of animals that need oxygen to breathe.
I think a greater impact upon the Earth is the weight of the Human population upon the other resources of the World.
Coming into the 20th Century, there were one billion of us, for the very first time. As we entered the 21st, we were over six billion and counting.
Our requirements for fertile croplands with adequate water alone will deplete relatively soon at the rate we're going.
I think we will join the other extinct species of Earth, as we are unable to control our population. One billion people may be sustainable...... ten billion simply will not be.
A law of nature in the animal world is that if any animal becomes overpopulated for any number of reasons, Mother Nature will certainly exert control.
Her methods are direct and never fail. Famine and disease. In the case of Humans, throw in war.
Competition for resources and a quest for territory is the nature of Humans and many other animals as well.
Combine that with an out of control unsustainable Human Population Explosion, and it is making for a rocky ride, with lots of bumps in the road ahead.
I see no end in sight, but I do find the bumps easier to avoid on a motorcycle, if you hear me on that.
Nobody gets out alive.
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I'm all for saving energy where I can but perhaps I'm being a little cynical here, surely if we all start using less energy, then the utility companies (now private & committed to profits) will just put up their prices to compensate for a loss in profits due to less consumption of their product, leading to all of us saving the resources, (which the companies will still sell), but still paying the same (or more) for what we use????
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Mmmmmmmm
Being as we get S4C I may or may not have missed the prog - would like to have seen it.
Now - the Earth is a Dynamic, Complex Adaptive System, it is not a simple closed system, nor is it a pile of sand. As a consiquence selecting data points to support your cause whilst ignoring others that do not - is a typical exercise in tampering. If we take a run chart of global average temp which goes back before records were kept as we can use ice core and tree ring data etc, we can see that global average temps have fluctuated over time. If we take local temp records - for the UK for instance - we can see that these have also fluctuated over time - and the variation is greater than in the global average temp. This is because there are sinks and soaks, etc within the whole that allows localised variation. For example, one of the thopughts on global warming is that the temperature in the UK could actually drop, and that in the equatorial regions could rise more. Current thought is that the Northern European mean will rise, that the Gulf Stream / North Atlantic Conveyer will not switch off and that we will have more rain and higher winds - more extremes of weather.
Take those global average run charts and do a simple XmR calculation on them and we get all the data points within 3 sigma units of the mean - this indicates a stable system - however there have been periods when this stability has wobbled a little (good old chaos and complexity) However - more resent average temperatures indicate a different sort of pertubation, we should (arguably) be looking at a down turn in temps but we actually see a systemic shift in temperature. This IS very very very different to the natural variation we have seen over the past 100,000 plus years. It is also very very very different to the spin the 'global warming deniers' put on the very carefully selected data points they use.
All CAS can show dynamic complexity. There is a delay of variable length between cause and effect, and this can vary dependent on circumstance. Simple example - you are stopped in a queue of traffic at some lights, the lights go green - in a system showing no dynamic complexity all the cars, bikes etc would move off as one and gaps would develop due to varying speed as you progress. However there is a dynamic delay in the system - hence the cars further back do not move. If the queue is long enough you will see the lights on red and still be moving forwards as the dynamic complexity moves the other way. Simulaly - ever been on the motorway when there is a big delay which suddenly clears and there is no evident cause... Similar things happen in the environement. The industrial revolution was a) pretty small and poxy on a global scale - it was big news in the North of Europe but most of the world has not even got that far yet. It kicked out loads of dust in Norther Europe and increased CO2. The dust has a pretty instant effect - sit in the sun = hot, close the curtains to create shade = cooler. The CO2 produced however has a much longer time for impact, hence the reasons that if we stopped all industrial activity NOW! the effects of the CO2 and CO2 equivelents we have produced will continue to have a building effect for some decades before the system sinks it all back.
And as was said - what is wrong with acting as if global warming was a reality - even if later it turns out to be true. Unless you are about to die from dehydration, not knowing if the clear liquid in the pop bottle is water or paraquat ahs one pretty simple answer - unless you are an infant - dont drink it! If it is water you have just gone a little thirsty, if it is paraquat drinking it is pretty terminal. In our selfish little lifetime, the prospect of a slightly less productive and rich future that acting on the premise is real may make us think - bollox I will not be around if I am wrong, however if we believe we are immortal - through our children, and through the return of the minerals etc from us to the general biomass when we die (Unless you are like Princess Di and have been buried in a lead lined coffin) then the slight hiccup in the ever growing wealth of the Northern Hemisphere is a little price to pay, just in case.
Oh and from a perfectly scientific point of view. The Holocaust happened, to deny it in may countries is a crime, and in absence of the criminal aspect you have to be pretty odd to deny it happened. Global warming will probably kill more people than the holocaust, to sit idly by like,our grandfathers did, and whatch it happen is a true crime against humanity, to deny that it is happening - or is probably happening - is conspiricy to commit that crime.
Can I get off my soap box now please?
R
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did anybody mention the fact :humans are producing about 2 kg co2 per day only by breathing ...
also all living creatures on earth are producing co2 by breathing ....
and did anyone mention the fact : plants are producing co2 as a by product of theire photosynthesis
so the fastest way to reduce co 2 is ged rid of half the population(dead people dont drive/fly/heat) /animals /plants on earth and this discussion is sortet
radical solution but a logical one
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Michael - do not talk such bananas!
Plants do not proiduce CO2 through photosynthesis - they produce it through respiration - just like animals - the process of releasing energy from simple sugars through oxidation. Photosynthesis is the process of building simple sugars by the combining of CO2 with water - using sunlight as the energy source. Photosynthesis strips CO2 from the atmosphere.
As to Humans producing CO2 - yes we do - as a byproduct of respiration. Where we breakdown simple sugars (and fat and protein) to release energy. Amongst the by products from this are CO2 and water. Thus all the CO2 we exhale has come from either the veg you ate or the meat you ate. Now here is the rub. Cattle produce large amounts of CO2 and CH4. Both are produced from the carbon in the grass and feeds they eat, so no net gain. BUT - and a big but - we pproduce cattle feed using large amounts of artificial fertilizer, as a consiquence we can get more cattle living on an acre of land, and the CH4 production can become an issue.
Remember - to all intents - any CO2 produced by an animal or a plant, has come from carbon released as part of respiration, this carbon has come from simple sugars, fats and proteins. These have either been produced by plants fixing the CO2 from the atmosphere, or by animals eating plants that were fixing plants from the atmosphere. To all intents this is a null sum - the CO2 released was reasently fixed from the atmosphere by plants.
To cut CO2 we need to stop releasing carbon tied up in long term stores - fossil fuels etc. and medium term stores - trees. Building houses from wood and growing more trees can fix this carbon for long periods. Killing off animals will make very little difference.
Mineral weathering makes loads of difference.
R
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It depends. Its only really the anti lobby that still use the phrase 'global warming' most scientist now talk about climate change. Some areas of the world do seem to be getting cooler, eastern seaboard of the US for example.
But atmospheric C02 concentrations have increased since the industrial revolution by at least 100ppm
according to the scientist who compiled the latest UN Intergovernmetal Panel on climate change report.
Aside from the known climate effects of greenhouse gas increase what will this do to our health ?
El Ninio is expected to be the worst ever this year.
The DTI has buried a report which suggested that 20% of all UK energy could be produced through home generation, wind solar etc. Used to be here http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/consultations/pdfs/microgeneration-est-report.pdf
This is equivallent to the amount currently made by nuclear. But isn't nuclear the least polluting option, certainly produces the least greenhouse gas.
There is no evidence of birds being killed by wind farms.
And I ride a motorbike to work instead of taking the train which is actually quicker.
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ok ok ...the only way to stop global warming is to stop totally using fosil fuels , means stop producing elecricity with them, stop powering vehicles with them, stop heating with them ...
there are alternatives for the electric problem and for the heating problem look at island they use water instead , they pump cold water in the earth and get hot water back enough to produce electricity and to heat theire homes
or as here in uk strong winds a going over this island all the time, build big wind farms the technicis is already there ...not used
also around the uk are the highest tides in the world , the techique to use this power is already there ....not used
( ok there are a couple wind mills producing a bit electricity ....)
and another thing old houses are nice to look at but even with double glased windows ,
they are not realy enenrgy efficient ,but to be fair neither are the new ones , they could build the houses a lot more efficient ,they have build prototype houses that use in one year less energy then a normal house in a month and some even less then that
..we have to change our lifestyle .. not me of course , with this attitute we won`t find a sollution
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btw the last time humans have been environmently friendly was in the stone age .....since then .....
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certainly gets the grey matter working (well sort of).
i'm fairly certain that if global warming wasn't the bandwagon currently transporting most governments towards power and money, then something else would be invented to fulfil this role.
i agree with not wasting energy, but i feel the powers that be are using this doomsday scinario to extract masses of money from us. i think we should reduce the output of pollutants out of respect for our environment, and generally treat the planet with a lot more respect than we currently do.
350bullet.
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Funny - Bullet350 - sitting here on my fence I see a load of 'powers that be' desperatly trying NOT to increase prices etc for fear of being unelectable. There is a fair amount in the UK of pandering to the big companies - but this happens in all areas of business not just power / environment. EG in Denmark and Germany they have just changed the tax breaks to make bigger wind turbines more economic - as a result there are a load of old (read less than three years) wind turbines coming onto the market. Apart from the unenvironemntal cost of making new ones, these are finding their way in the UK market, because our govmnt will not support wind generation to the same extent - despite having the most useful winds in Europe. Go back a few years and the same story was true of factory machinery - many UK upgrades were with second hand kit from Germany. Now look at micro generation - big business does not want it in the UK, despite it costing more per KWh than bulk production. As a result we have a system of selling into the grid from micro at about 2p per unit and buying in at about 8p per unit. Denmark and Nehterlands have near nett metering - sell out at 7p buy in at 8p and I understand - but am not sure - that Germany have gone to a system where a micro generator sells into the grid at 8p and buys back at 7p. If we were to go 'greener' on our generationit would cost more. Joe Public does not like the idea of that so we are not. IN more mature societies - ie Netherlands - people are willing to pay for the future of their children and their children's children.
The environement can stand quite a lot of fossil fuel burning. Within limits the excess CO2 is consumed by chemical weathering and by additional plant growth - the system is both complex and adaptive and can respond to a certain amount of change. This increased CO2 can be quite high if, and big if, it grows slowly. CO2 increase has not been slow and it has not been from a reversable source. It is also no t'background' blips - like volcanic activity, which can cause temporary increases in CO2 and CO2 equivelents, but the system has evolved with these pertubations and in the main lives with them, and they are not persistent purtebations. However we have over stepped that mark, by a long way.
Schumacher (MF not Michael or Ralf) identified some time ago that seeing things like oil as natural resource rather than natural capital gave us a mindset that made us spend them as quick as we can - because more will be coming. If we were to see tham as natural capital, we would be in a position to spend them wisely. Think what a difference it would have been if we in the UK saw North Sea Oil as a capital asset rather than a reseaorce asset. Rather than all those tax cuts we had in the 80's to spend on imported goods, we could have invested in infrastructure and the future. Rather than ignoring the railways for 20 years, we would now be sat on the best railway system in the world. We would have some of the best roads in the world, some of the best research industries in the world etc. But UK governments were too scared to charge the people who live here what it would cost, so like they do now, they take the easy options and seek to cut tax or limit public expenditure.
Funny how the view from two adjacent fences can be so different?
R
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WOW!!!
Joining this one a little late, and catching up with all the posts has hurt my head (thanks for the headache Rog)
Now for my two pence worth.
Please be wary of the industrial propaganda machine. Global warming/polution is a reality! look around people, there are machines burning fuel all around. Factories using huge amounts of power everyday, manufacturing millions and millions of tonnes of consumer goods that are shipped all over the world. Come on, smell the coffee! It has GOT to be having an effect! This stuff just didn't happen 300 years ago.
Now we hear (it would appear,I didn't see the prog in question) that it's all part of a natural cycle. Could we be being told this by those industrialists who wish to protect their revenue creating industries???
Funny, how the global ecconomy is still growing (25% growth last year) and the only brakes on the horizon might be a reduction in energy use required to slow down global warming.
To turn your backs on the problem merely because it doesn't effect us NOW is both short sighted and stupid.
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Hi All Again
Just picking up on the idea that the problem is population not energy / resource use in the Developed World. A vast majority of the population of the world do not live in the developed world - will look it up later - yet most of the polluting (even with the growth of China and India) comes from the very small minority population now seeking to protect their vested interests. I find it interesting that we are willing to sell India and China all our old technology - the really really inefficiant stuff. In reality we should be selling to them the really new stuff at a loss - so whilst they undercut our economy - as they will - at least they will be doing it in a cleaner manner...
R
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Let's just pretend that 26645547836465438747546474876 vehicles burning dirty assed coal and oil,24/7, for about 200 plus years makes no difference at all in the relatively razor thin layer above the Earth's surface we call the biosphere, and it is all caused by something like a phase of the moon or a natural cycle of warming or cooling or something else equally rediculous and scientifically unsubstantiated.
Let's pretend all that shit, just for the sake of discussion.
OK Then, given 6 billion people and counting, and admitting that 36547745474756548565856 vehicles burning coal and oil 24/7 ADDS to the problem, as no sane person with a single functioning brain cell would disagree...........
What's to be done?
Wellnow...............
There are billions being made polluting and heating the place up and paying prostitute "scientists" to deny the problem.
No question about that.
Until the major power players can figure out a way to make an equal amount to solve and profit from the problem, look for things to continue as they have............. and we're done.
No easy answer to complicated problems.
Mother Nature, as always, will be the boss of such things as lemmings and Humans.
War, famine, disease, and running over cliffs in large numbers.
Nobody gets out alive, but what a way to go.
Many bumps ahead, but I find the bumps easier to dodge on a motorcycle.
Over and out. Jim
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Dont know if any of you saw the article (have copy in PDF format if anyone is interested) but some of the Scientists involved in te C4 documentary have recieved threats of various kinds from withdrawl of funding to death, if they dont stop peddling the anti-man made global warming theory.
Now call me cynical (no email addressed to cynical please!) but if the whols argument is as water tight as the government wouold have us belive then why the threats?
I'm gonna ride both my bikes and drive my world crushing 4x4 flat out every wheree I go and bollocks to global warming!
Andy
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On the point of the scientists on the prog - apparently many of them are seeking to get their contributions removed from any repeats etc because they have been totally missrepresented. The Head of Science for C4 was on R4 this morning (Today) and was unable to answer any of the questions asked, particulaly why when global average temperatures are rising faster than any time for thousands of years, they say in the programe they are not etc.
Seems to me that there was as much about making a programme that causes controversy as there was in trying to seek the truth.
Can listen to it on BBC web site http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/
R
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Now, Im probally a bit "greener" than the average person, our house is heated (when sun permits) by solar panels. All year round our water is heated by the same curved panel solar array. We're talking about installing another 8m2 array of pv panels so we can feed back into the grid to try and offset our reliance on grid electricity in winter by generating it at peak time in the summer. House runs on a well system that is pump pressurised to give us mains pressure from it (and pump is pv powered). We recycle our rubbish where we can, however this is where it comes off the rails a bit. Besides my bikes I have a old range rover v8 classic (200 quid gov'nor, and its the only thing I own that can get the trailers out my field when its rained), which of course makes me public enemy number one to every wannabe enviromentalist, Ive had no end of idiots telling me I should get rid of my planet destroying beast and replace it with a modern eco friendly car (eg a prius) even though it runs on lpg which has much lower emissions. There was a study called "from the cradle to the grave" by a very respected german university where it was found that to make a new car produces more enviromental destruction and pollution than the car will emit during its lifetime. So instead of "getting rid of that old dirty car", what we should be doing is encouraging people to keep older cars going, but that wont suit car makers profits will it?. I shared a house with a book thumping greenie who lambasted me at any point he possibly could about the rangie, until I made him sit down and do the sums. Ive had it key'd parking it in town, and one idiot graffitied it with "save the planet, destroy this car". Ive since found out that the prius is a huge environmental disaster for the amount of waste made in its fabrication vs usefull lifespan. Seems to me its just a bandwagon to go sit on to be seen to be doing something..
Another bugbear for me is the whole "green" industry is a *HUGE* rip off. I paid 500 quid a go for my curved tube solar collectors, and Ive since discovered theres about 50 quid of materials tops in there as the awkward bits (the collector insulators) are bought in from a glass factory for buttons. Even counting for the time to assemble it, its still one hell of a mark up, multiply this by 8 (we have 8 panels) and Ive been well and truly taken in the name of helping the planet.
I was in b&q looking at the wind gennys they have there, and from the specs and average wind speeds we did some calculations on how long it would take for my neighbour to recover the cost (1500 quid installed) of it. 20 years we came up with. Thats 20 years that shoddy cheap nasty plastic fan has to stay up a pole without maintenance , without the brake failing during extreme winds etc (you can pay a grand for a yaesu antenna rotator and not have this expectation of reliability). Its not going to happen. Now why is that genny 1500 quid? its a alternator, with a inverter and some control electronics with a big plastic fan. If you had the same part on a car it'd probally cost 20 quid to make. Someones making a killing arent they? Why is a geothermal heating system 20k + the price of the digger? Instead of encouraging people to buy these systems by giving them installer grants (thus stopping the benefit for people who would much rather prefer to do the job properly themselves) perhaps someone should be looking at making these systems/components on a not for profit basis?
/soapbox.
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There was a study called "from the cradle to the grave" by a very respected german university where it was found that to make a new car produces more enviromental destruction and pollution than the car will emit during its lifetime. So instead of "getting rid of that old dirty car", what we should be doing is encouraging people to keep older cars going, but that wont suit car makers profits will it?.
I'd heard about this study but couldnt find any information on it. Makes sense though when you think about it, expecially with the Prius and the need to replace batteries etc. Do you have any links ?
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Haven't seen this study, but it makes sense.
I read an interesting bit comparing energy use with smoking though. The first reaction of the manufacturers is to claim smoking is good for you, then that it's not as bad as people say. Plan B is to launch "improved" products (low tar etc.) that are probably worse in the overall picture. They make huge efforts to sell the old products in emerging markets that don't care what they have. Finally, once the writing is totally on the wall, they switch their investments to a totally different area and sit back and wait for their original market to die.
How this works with a whole planet's economy could be pretty bad!
Andy
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Speaking as a tub thumping greenie who does not acheive as much as he should nor as much as he woould like, may I agree with every word Mr Fluffy wrote. IF he used his V8 as daily transport taking his kids 350 metres to school, then he may be better off liking at an old mini, but he does not - he seems to be using it for the job it was built for, and in the absence of being able to maintain a couple of pairs of Shire's it is probably a good use of resources.
Cost of green equipment - yup, there are start up costs, development costs etc, but in the main businesses are into ripping off the customer, because they can. Product cycles generally go like tbis mind, early adopters pay the price for their beliefs, need fopr the latest iPod etc.
Used to be a HM Govmt booklet on converting car electrics to manage your homebrew wind genny, ditto for homebrew methane from a two barrel converter, but these were for some reason taken out of print and withdrawn from all liburarys etc
Did find a company in South Wales selling off old German and Danish commercial wind gennys at a good price - but cannot find them any more. Starting to get fed up with Google and the like, used to turn up useful articals, sites etc on how to do something, now just 100,000,000 pages of eBay sales and trade diretories with no bearing on what I want.
R
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The study is :-
Umwelt Prognose Institut, 1998, 'Oeko-bilanz eines Autolebens', (Eco-analysis of the life cycle of a car), UPI, Heidelberg.
Id strongly encourage you to find and read the original rather than the widely quoted John Whitelegg summary (he is head of the geography dept at lancaster uni and works for Eco-Logica, neither of which qualifies him to be the authoritive interpreter of the original) as his "summary" reads very different than the original report for some reason and is quoted as being the study by people with hidden agendas. I did have a link to the original, Ill try and find it again, but its slowly getting lost in the noise on the subject, Ive just been hunting for it for a bit and cant find it yet.
R:
Thats the thing, the truly useful information is getting lost in all the hype. Go to the likes of the alliance against urban 4x4 or any of the other sites misquoting that study. Its hardly balanced scientific stuff and just discredits them in the eyes of people wanting firm scientific study or practical action instead of soundbite ranting. Lots of people have bought into that rhetoric and are happy to churn out soundbite releases and in reality havent actually got around to thinking about things for themselves. The real problem imho is industrial co2 emissions and pollution, especially in the developing countries as someone earlier pointed out we sold them all our dirty stuff so we didnt have to breath the local pollution ourselves (national nimbyism), the car is just a easy smokescreen target that can be identified without problem daily for "normal" people to focus their anger on.
Also, ignoring the black helicopters circling for a bit, the methane stuff was probally withdrawn to stop people badly implementing it and making a large bomb in a urban setting and suing them, and the pv stuff because electricity can kill. And thats just the crappily designed commercial stuff :)
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mr fluffy is spot on.
i like the idea of self sufficiency and not destroying the planet.
i had some work as an agency driver and drove dust carts for a while. since standing on top of a landfill that was probably 300yards deep at the shallowest parts, and at least 2 miles in each direction, i now recyle as much as possible. it certainly makes you wonder.
90% of this land fill was plastic wrapping. there is very little that needs to be wrapped in plastic. surely there must be some paper based packaging that could be mass produced and then rot down in a month once its wet?
as for toyota prius...
you know they are sitting in their car feeling all smug 'cos they're saving the planet. the car produces so much pollutants when its built it'd have to last 200 years to offset it. besides it gets less mpg than equivalent cars, probably because the engine has to charge a massive battery to power the stupid contraption.
and how long do modern cars last? very few make ten years. all the electronics in them die, ever used a ten year old computer?
and then where does all the plastics used to make it go?
my mate has a 56 land rover that does about 18mpg. it contains virtually no plastic and was quite eco friendly to build, the fact it has lasted 50 years so far makes it better than a prius.
so why the campaigns to get us all into cars less than 3 years old?
average car = £17000
17.5% of £17000 = £2975
add to this corporation tax from the manufacturers, income tax from those building cars. then those building cars buy a car...
its a big financial merry-go-round!
compare that to a land rover bought once in 50 years.
besides my old morris minor gave 47mpg at 65mph, and 38mpg at 70mph. how many modern cars can equal that figure?
anyway in the rain it could powerslide round every bend. try that in your prius!
350bullet
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Hows this for the future :-
http://gizmag.com/go/7000/
Compressed air powered town car, can be refilled (repressurised) from pressurisation temperatures, or can self fill from its own compressor when plugged into mains supply. 200km range on one tankfull of air.
Now if we can just build a few solar recharging bays to park in when its not in use and its perfect for city use.
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Interesting. I like the fact that it uses the low exhaust temperature for air conditioning. Neat.
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Last word on this thread, this caught my eye today :-
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/print_item.asp?NewsID=188
Summary, a prius causes over three times the environmetal damage as a hummer in a build impact assesment study...
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realy amazing and surprizing facts