Absolutely not, you are misquoting and misrepresenting what I have said. We desperately need something new because what we have is running out and what we are being offered to replace it will fall short of the mark, IMHO. But do you really think that fusion will ever be cheap compared to punching a hole in West Texas ??
Is that "neinsager-ish" ? I will let you decide. It is easier to identify problems than solutions but unless you correctly identify the problem you end up with the wrong solution. I feel our approach to energy and green energy in particular is wrong. The modern world was built on cheap and plentiful energy over the last 200 years, maintaining energy supply that is going to be very difficult, but as Fig says 'we must try'. I still feel nuclear is the only tried and tested technology that has the potential to deliver. It isn't perfect but anything else is wishful thinking.
CERN is useful from the point of view of understanding the universe. It's never going to solve our energy problems. Most of the worlds population lives in the 3rd world. They can't afford fission or fusion. Some of these countries struggle to keep their national airlines from falling out the sky. Do you really want to leave some tin pot dictator in charge of maintaining a nuclear reactor. Nuclear is out as far as world energy goes and it's not needed in the UK either. We have masses of renewables potential. Scotland already generates more from renewables than coal and by 2015, renewables will be the largest source of power. By 2020, it will be 100% renewable. Those who say it can't be done, have an interest in building nuclear weapons or own mines or whatever. We need to lead by example and develop affordable methods if generating power from renewable sources. If we spent the same in that as we did building A bombs we would be sorted by now. Sobering thought - there have been over 2000 nuclear weapons tests since the first at Los Alamos.
Renewable energy has one huge point in it's favour - we won't need to kill each other over it. We'll not need to invade the middle east on the pretence of human suffering in order to lay our hands on their precious...wind, sunshine or waves. Wind power isn't ideal, obviously, but it's a decent start. But why the hell are they putting the plant on greenfield sites? We must have millions of miles of motorway verges that could be used, where no-one could possibly complain about the noise. Wave power seems to be going nowhere at the moment, but we have thousands of rivers constantly flowing through the country that could all be contributing a little energy in every single town. And why are we still using clay and slate tiles? Solar energy has been around for yonks, why isn't every rooftop harnessing the sun's rays by now? Christ, my mate's been heating his swimming pool using old radiators painted black for the last thirty years... One question for the brainier members here. How hard would it be to store electricity from solar panels rather than pump it back to the grid?
Well that is very heartening. But I do detect a distinct lack of faith about renewable energy. And I'm with those that say that if we harness enough brainpower, resources, and r &d we will crack the problem with reasonable ease. Digging things out of the ground and setting fire to them will be shown to be a fairly basic and not very clever means of energy production. In any case oil is too precious for the creation of plastics and other substances for us to just burn it. What the green debate has done is to add the urgency to actually pursuing wiser and more intelligent forms of energy production. It has also made us more ecologically aware in general. I believe there is real danger to the environment we know and love but even if that is exaggerated (in terms of inches of sea level rise for example) it has provided the focus to get something done and start thinking out of the box. Geopolitically it makes huge sense not to be energy dependent on countries to whose culture you do not subscribe. Do you really want to be beholden to Putin and the Russians for gas or ayatollah types for oil? And is it a wise idea to start digging up the south of England and pouring chemicals into it to extract gas? I agree with Fig. Stick panels on all the roofs of those look-alike UK houses. They can barely look much worse. You'd have a large array in next to no time. Then there are all the offices and commercial buildings. Saw on French news last night that the French have produced solar panels in glass, so your windows can now produce electricity. Brilliant! Only the constant harping on about tax and expense slows the whole process down, as does maintaining the green scam conspiracy theory. This is what is sought by the oil companies: doubt - slow the rate of change. Farrage thinks he's being smart but he isn't. Britain should be developing and then marketing the solar paint rather than letting other countries get there. By wanting to stay in the oil era, we're missing a trick. Renewables are coming and we're better off going with the flow. In WW2 people's gardens were dug up and turned into veggie plots and their railings were taken away to help the war effort. Now, to fight another crisis people are getting larger fuel bills than they would like. Big deal.
What's slowing the process down is big businesses trying to stake a claim to their piece of pie. All the whingeing and moaning from the great unwashed don't make a blind bit of difference.
Wales was glaciated at one point too. Rising temperatures therefore must account for the lack of glaciers in Wales today.. unless they left because they couldn't stand the singing, of course. It is interesting that this happened quite a long time before an engine was ever built. There is of course no justification for any unnecessary pollution, but we simply don't know enough about the planets patterns and cycles to genuinely understand climate change. It is of course always brushed under the carpet that the biggest crisis facing the planet in all forms is the exploding population - there is not an infinite source of food or space, let alone fuel and energy to support an ever growing population - at some point the population is going to need to stop growing. This is of course not some sort of pumped up political or economic view, but a cold hard fact. Lets not forget that every human on the planet emits Co2 on a constant basis...
That is so missing the point, Phil. At one point, the planet was largely under icecaps. At one point, it was all primeval forest. At one point, it was populated by dinosaurs. At one point, it was a sea of molten lava. Earth is just a mote of dust in the cosmos. Nothing that happens there is of any cosmic significance. In years to come, it will be vaporised when the sun explodes. So what? The important thing is that we like the planet the way it is currently, with bunnies in hedgerows, bison on the plains and polar bears bobbing about on ice floes and gardens of coral with tropical fish. It's also handy to have fields that actually produce food, instead of dust bowls. The point of ecology is to maintain this status quo. Of course, if you're Clarkson, you couldn't give a toss, just so long as you can hoon around with 700 bhp under your foot. This is surely great fun, but what is the price you have to pay for it - live in a desert? Live in a concrete jungle?
I think you underestimate voter power, Fig. The whinging and moaning is the sort of thing that provides Farrage with his popularity, and that means that government won't introduce the more radical measures (which Germany has been prepared to do) because it won't get them back in power at the next election. Governments tend to do what is popular, not what is right.
No we don't; bunnies, bison and polar bears are of mainly academic and sentimental value. It is the billion cattle, sheep, and pigs we mainly want to keep on having. Fields producing food are not natural phenomena; every field on the planet has been made by humans, humans who ignored ecologists telling them to leave the landscape alone. Every variety of cropping plants and domesticated animals has also been bred by humans, and those are what feeds us. You have neatly demonstrated the point that Greens are essentially Conservatives. To them, every change is bad and the best possible world is static. If anything happens to get hotter, colder, wetter, or drier that is always a bad thing. Well not to me. I want to consider each change which comes along and decide for myself whether it is an improvement or not.
I don't. Every disappearing species is a crisis as far as I am concerned - unless it's an ant or a mosquito. I am a conservative as far as the environment is concerned. I like it as it is (or was recently). Living in a temperate climate, we don't have too much to worry about global warming wise. But for all sorts of people it is bad. It means getting flooded out of your home, or your crops turning to dust. This encourages migration and whilst I like other cultures, I don't want to live in a culture liquidiser where everything is homogenised in a multicultural soup. Cultures and societies have grown up with a certain climate. A radically different climate destroys these societies. I can't see how that can be a good thing. When you go diving and discover dead reefs with bleached coral where previously there was a thriving ecosystem - that is not a matter of indifference to me. Yes, for me all sorts of things in life have a sentimental value. It's the only real value there is. That sentimental value might be in a piece of music, a work of art, a starry sky or a landscape and view. It might be in an owned Ducati. Our lives are pointless. Seeking efficiency is to entirely miss the point of life.
In your dreams. Not a snowball in hells chance. The Conservative are more likely to win a majority in the Scottish Assembly.
The one constant thing about the earth since it was formed is change. Cultures and societies have always adapted to climate and other changes. To blame all of the change that is occurring today on the actions of mankind is simply wrong. Yes we must protect our environment, yes me must utilise resources efficiently and wisely, but the focus on cutting emissions of CO2 and the belief that this and this alone is driving climate change is lunacy.
Indeed but the Greens are essentially Socialist because they believe in large scale redistribution of wealth
firstly, its a parliament, not an assembly. Secondly, Norway has been 100% renewable for 30 years or more. the Pentland Firth is the Saudi Arabia of wave power generation, and Scotland is the world leader in developing this technology. Won't be long before this becomes commercial. there are are 2 massive offshore windfarms with planning approval which will be on stream by 2020. in 2012, 39% of Scotlands power was generated by renewables Record year for Scottish renewables which is why the interconnector between Scotlamd and England is being upgraded, as you will will be buying green electricity from us to meet your Kyoto obligations and to stop the lights going out. Scotland and Norway will be linked so that wind power from Scotland can power pump storage schemes in Norway with energy moved back and fore as required. amazing what you can do with some foresight and ambition..........and without the distraction of trying to be a wannabe world power
Are you denying that infra red insulation by CO2 has been demonstrated in labs for 100 years? are you denying that the spike shown in the graph I posted is not different to the other increases in CO2 from historical data. are you saying the spike shows the same rate of increase over similar time frames and has no correlation with mans CO2 output? There are no credible climate scientists that believe that the current climate change is not man made. Even the idiot George W Bush accepts its. Exxon, BP, Shell accept it. Name one oil company which disagrees please. Previous events are discrete. They are not related. Just because Stoner kept losing the front of his Gresini Honda and his Ducati does not mean they shred the same cause. It's a ridiculous suggestion.
What percentage of the atmosphere is made up of CO2? And what estimated percentage of CO2 is made by man? According to wiki, carbon dioxide makes up 0.3 - 0.4% of the atmosphere. The estimates of how much is produced by man are so varied it's hard to put a figure on it, but even if we were to be generous and say 10% it still makes up a pathetically small part of the atmosphere. Scientists say that's bad. Quite frankly I don't believe them. Apparently the CO2 concentration at the moment is at an 800,000-year high - sounds bad - except that's less than 10% of the 50,000,000-year high. Don't question me about these figures, if you want to argue with someone argue with wiki. I'm just quoting the internets here. So it's quite clear the earth can happily sustain massive CO2 rises (although mankind may struggle...), and it's also perfectly clear that CO2 rises and falls at will without any interaction from man. We are being conned, ladies and gentlemen. Going green is all very worthy, and I applaud the efforts of the people at the forefront of change. Change is probably good - or at least we think it is. But what about all the land being stripped of natural flora and fauna in order to produce biofuels? Surely that can't be doing the environment much good, can it? And if we stop cutting down trees there's less room for new growth - which is much better at absorbing CO2. Surely using and replanting is a much better way? Fact is, the earth will do what it does whether we're here or not, we cannot make enough of an impact ourselves to alter the way earth behaves. And the timescales are huge, too huge for us mere mortals to comprehend. Humankind will evolve at a much faster rate than the planet, so why are we all so worried? 'Climate change' equals taxation. That's all it is, a tool to make money.
