Author Topic: Climate change.  (Read 18443 times)

Jocko

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #15 on: March 17, 2019, 01:37:12 PM »
The section that mentioned the concrete was looking at the futility of the situation. We need to change the infrastructure to combat climate change but that brings problems of its own. Hydro electric is green, but providing the infrastructure for it is not. Carbon capture would require so much construction. Planting enough forest would take up all the diminishing land required for food production. To my eyes the outcome of climate change, no matter what we do and when we start, is a massive reduction in the human population. As the earth warms it can support less and less food production, there will be less space available for people to live. It is a frightening prospect.

John Ratsey

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2019, 02:50:49 PM »
Food production capacity isn't an issue. It's the type of food: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth. If we reduce our meat consumption then there will be a lot more land available for forests and less greenhouse gases being produced. Plus there's a lot of food currently going to waste due to damage/losses in storage and transport.
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Barky

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #17 on: March 18, 2019, 03:49:19 PM »
Food production capacity isn't an issue. It's the type of food: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth. If we reduce our meat consumption then there will be a lot more land available for forests and less greenhouse gases being produced. Plus there's a lot of food currently going to waste due to damage/losses in storage and transport.
switch back to locally produced seasonal foods & planet will respond .... consumers are far too used to getting foods 365 days a year from quarter or half way round the globe to accept this I fear

Jocko

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2019, 06:22:04 PM »
The book looks forward as far as 2100, well within the lifespan of children born today. By then the forecast is that there will be considerable less land for food production than at present and as for growing trees, it would take all the available arable land to grow enough trees to capture the CO2 needed to reverse the temperature rises.
By 2100, vast areas currently producing food will only be fit for growing cactus and sea anemones!
Getting the affluent West to give up eating beef is easier said than done, and while there is a market then there will be producers willing to make a profit from it.

culzean

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #19 on: March 18, 2019, 06:58:11 PM »
The book looks forward as far as 2100, well within the lifespan of children born today. By then the forecast is that there will be considerable less land for food production than at present and as for growing trees, it would take all the available arable land to grow enough trees to capture the CO2 needed to reverse the temperature rises.
By 2100, vast areas currently producing food will only be fit for growing cactus and sea anemones!
Getting the affluent West to give up eating beef is easier said than done, and while there is a market then there will be producers willing to make a profit from it.

https://sustainablefoodtrust.org/articles/dairy-cows-livestock-behind-growth-soya-south-america/

Interesting article says that feeding cows on Soya is much more efficient than making Soya milk with equivalent protein content,  and as a by product from cows milk you also get butter and cheese ( as well as beef - yummmmy ). 

I have to use Soya products because I am very badly affected by any kind of animal milk ( cow, goat, sheep tried most of them), but I would much rather eat butter and drink normal milk than the soya variety.   The amount of oestrogen in soya products is also a big worry, people go on about hormone fed beef etc but the amount of hormones in beef is infinitesimal compared to anything made from Soya,  and animal fats are much higher in Omega 3,  oils and fats made from plant extracts tend to have a very unbalanced ration of Omega 6 to Omega 3,  and omega 6 is nowhere near as good for you as Omega 3,  but you body will try to use omega 6 instead of omega 3 and this results in big health problems.   My whole extended family ( except me ) have gone back to eating butter and drinking animal milks -how jealous I am that they can do that while I am stuck with unhealthy and tasteless plant based sh1t£..
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John Ratsey

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #20 on: March 18, 2019, 08:53:32 PM »
switch back to locally produced seasonal foods & planet will respond .... consumers are far too used to getting foods 365 days a year from quarter or half way round the globe to accept this I fear
Shipping or flying food around the world adds to the CO2 problem which, I fear, is unlikely to be addressed until there is global consensus for a carbon tax on the fuel. Higher transport costs passed on to customers would encourage change about what to buy from where. I believe that container ships are already going slower than they used to in order to reduce fuel consumption but the current motivation is to reduce costs in a competitive market. Reduced CO2 is a welcome side-effect.

On a more local scale I would also increase the direct / indirect costs of using the road network in order to discourage the convoluted supply chains which have evolved due to road transport being relatively cheap. I would also discourage long distance commuting but that would happen anyway if our politicians had the will to ensure that sufficient housing is available near the jobs. It's the shortage of housing in the right places which drives up prices and causes the long distance commuting. Sensibly build wooden housing (using some locked-in carbon) and designed to be dismantleable in case there's a need for future moving to follow the jobs.
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Jocko

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #21 on: March 19, 2019, 07:10:18 AM »
Today comes news from the head of the Environment Agency that England and Wales will not have enough water to meet demand within 25 years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47620228

Currently I am reading about the economic consequences of climate change. Of the countries that will be hit hardest, the US is second on the list (just behind India).
Russia, on the other hand, will benefit from climate change, as it dramatically improves its climate, opens up its northern coast, but with dramatically rising sea levels having little effect on its infrastructure. And Russia, as a fossil fuel nation, has no incentive to cut emissions. And no associated costs!

culzean

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #22 on: March 19, 2019, 10:05:49 AM »
It is about time that more reservoirs were built in UK, I cannot recall any new ones in last 30 years or more, privatised water companies find it easier and cheaper to 'abstract' water from rivers.  We still have plenty of rain but during winter which is the time to fill reservoirs for following summer. Government should ban simply sucking water from rivers and make water companies build storage reservoirs. Chopping down trees and damage to peat bogs also makes water run off much quicker and so rivers get flooded one day and run dry the next.. Also south east has lowest rainfall in UK but largest population - madness on a grand scale as only governments can manage.  Spend money being wasted on HS2 on water management instead, not so headline grabbing, but much more useful in the future.  Why does a small island like Britain need high speed rail that only stops in a few places anyway ?
Some people will only consider you an expert if they agree with your point of view or advice,  when you give them advice they don't like they consider you an idiot

Jocko

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #23 on: March 19, 2019, 10:43:15 AM »

culzean

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #24 on: March 19, 2019, 11:15:49 AM »
The trouble is, we are not getting enough winter rain, as this report outlines.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/778277/Water_situation_January_2019.pdf

We get enough rain but we waste it and let it carry our precious soil into the sea.  Sydney has a truly massive reservoir and actually the snowy mountain scheme in Victorian alps penned up loads of water and diverted the course of a few rivers to flow west into the heart of Australian agricultural area. 

AS for UK and Europe..

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9261122/Keeping-the-country-short-of-water-is-now-government-and-EU-policy.html

There is an EU policy document mentioned in article that says governments should prioritise measures to get people to use less water over building new reservoirs,  as usual the EU dreamers got it wrong,  you should be doing both - and also fining the water companies big bucks for not fixing leaks in their pipes.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2019, 11:54:17 AM by culzean »
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Barky

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #25 on: March 19, 2019, 12:32:17 PM »
Things might be better if public water supply hadn't been privatised in England & Wales & £Bn's in profit wasn't creamed off ... Can always tanker water south from N of England & Scotland

Jocko

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #26 on: March 19, 2019, 12:43:30 PM »
Can always tanker water south from N of England & Scotland
Once Scotland gets it's independence we can always SELL water to England!!!!!!!!!!!!

John Ratsey

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #27 on: March 19, 2019, 06:15:30 PM »
Can always tanker water south from N of England & Scotland
Once Scotland gets it's independence we can always SELL water to England!!!!!!!!!!!!
You don't need independence, just a long tunnel! Get the Scottish water as far as the Kielder reservoir and then there's an existing network to get water as far south as the Tees. Getting Welsh water across to Birmingham was relatively easy in comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_aqueduct.

Recently a 600kV DC cable was installed in the Irish Sea to get Scottish wind electricity to England https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_HVDC_Link so maybe a big water pipe on the sea bed is an alternative to a tunnel for getting Scottish water to England but it would either need to be a very big pipe or have lots of pumps. Or maybe capture a few icebergs? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/05/could-towing-icebergs-to-hot-places-solve-the-worlds-water-shortage.

First it's necessary to fix Ofwat's fixation on leak reduction. One day they will discover that a significant proportion of the leaks is unmetered usage. New reservoirs take a long time (as Thames water tries to dust off its plans for the Abingdon reservoir for the nth time).
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Jocko

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #28 on: March 19, 2019, 06:31:19 PM »
You don't need independence, just a long tunnel! Get the Scottish water as far as the Kielder reservoir and then there's an existing network to get water as far south as the Tees.

Recently a 600kV DC cable was installed in the Irish Sea to get Scottish wind electricity to England
But we are not going to GIVE you it. Once Scotland gets independence we will SELL you it.  ;D

Ofgen just agreed in principle to a 600MW transmission link between Shetland and mainland Scotland.
It would allow new wind farms on Shetland to export electricity to the rest of the UK

Jocko

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Re: Climate change.
« Reply #29 on: March 25, 2019, 09:18:22 AM »
Eventually finished "The Uninhabitable Earth". It was a disappointing Kindle presentation as it showed me at 57% read when it finished. The rest of books was references! Hate it when that happens.
The upshot of it all is that until big business gives up their greed or until governments force them to, things will only continue to get warmer.

There was a section on the BBC News channel last night about the Murray and Darling rivers in Australia. There is virtually no water there any more, with the Murray no longer reaching the sea. The drought that SE Australia is suffering is partly to blame, but the greed of the large multinational cotton growers, taking every drop of water for their crops, and meaning that towns along the rivers are having to be supplied with bottled water, are the reason it is so bad. Corporate greed. Whether it be water in Australia, dams in Brazil, or vehicle emissions elsewhere, many of the worlds ills are down to corporate greed and the rampant pursuit of Capitalism.
I'm beginning to sound like a communist. I'll have to vote Labour next time!

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