General Chat

It is far more efficient to generate renewable power at large sites and transmit the power through the grid than to p-s about with a few sq m on a house. Large scale solar / tide / geo (Iceland) is now the cheapest even taking account of gas supplement, far cheaper than nuclear.

The UK recently went 100 days without drawing any energy into the grid from power stations using coal.

It is perfectly possible to design modern buildings so as to be energy neutral and this is quite common in Germany and Scandinavia. Developers don't bother in the UK as there are no regs forcing them to while going green only dents profits.

There are vast deposits of frozen methane hydrate at the bottom of the world's oceans mainly the continental shelves. Some states are looking at exploiting these deposits. There is a risk that with current global warming trends the pressure/temp conditions that keep the gas frozen may change allowing the gas to escape into the atmosphere. There are signatures in the ice cores which suggest that this has indeed happened in the past. As methane is 20x more effective than CO2 for global warming the green lobby might have a point.

Technically it is quite feasible for the world to shift onto a mostly non-carbon energy basis and thus avoid some serious annoyances. The politics are another matter. Unfortunatey the time window for action is small and closing.

My guess is that going green will be nowhere near as painful as some imagine , the reason beng that green energy is now cheaper. Nothing good in it for the oil majors though whose booked assets of proven oil are next to worthless.

It could be because it adds another £5k to the cost of a house. Without a law insisting on new houses having solar panels new buyers will not necessarily pay for them.

Strange how new houses aren't automatically being built with solar panels, isn't it?

Possibly something to do with vast profits not available from them, for 'relevant' big businesses.

It seems that we need a huge number of houses to be built in his country. Now, I don't think that the population has grown so much that there is not enough accommodation. I grew up in a home with three generations as did many of my generation and the house we rented was our home.

Now, a home of similar size might well accommodate one person who lives there and is buying it not as a home but as an investment.

So much land is now being crammed with quite nasty houses to cram investors in to and those small, decent houses that working people once lived in are being extended, for investment purposes, so the working people can't afford to live there.

I think this might be the first step to thinning out the population a bit. I foresee and unrest and maybe even war.

I wonder if all those bringing London to a standstill with their protests have given up cars, foreign holidays etc. I am convinced that the earth will fight back one day. The best solution would be for some virulent disease to sweep the world which rendered all the human race sterile.

Exactly, Bob, Lip service.

There would be less pollution if the power station was fuelled directly by diesel!

Which trees in South America are being destroyed, I wonder.
...but then, I don't suppose it matters to Western Governments, as long as they're singing to the right song sheet.

The Drax power station is fuelled by eco friendly wood pellets. These are manufactured by cutting down trees in South America, transported by diesel fuelled trucks to a port, where they are transported across vast distances by diesel fuelled ships, and transported from the docks to the power station in diesel powered trucks. How green is that?

Millions of tiny contributions make a big one.

Cattle f*rt, cars give off poisonous emissions.
Is it 'better' to be a vegan who regularly drives a car, or an omnivore who never drives a car?

This is the problem.
Emma Thompson flies over to take part in a climate change protest - then flies back again.
Bus services are cut (not that buses are particularly eco-friendly - but they could be), more cars appear on the roads.
The oversized Government cars that could seat 6 - but usually carry 1 and a suitcase through London aren't Electric - yet they're trying to tell the rest of us how to 'cut our pollution footprint'

Container boats are still polluting the seas, Governments are still building airport runways, yet it's appears it's cow f*rts and domestic boilers that are, apparently 'killing' the planet!

i wonder what the hot air emmissions from humans amounts to, no more burping farting or gassing
;-)

Until you can convince the whole World, you're running uphill in concrete shoes....yes someone has to start somewhere BUT .....it will take a special person to solve this problem.

Many years ago when I was in London visiting a friend in hospital I went to the ladies toilet and there was a hot air hand dryer, fairly new then, someone had written on it “ push the button and then you will hear the words of any politician.

Dermot, indeed they do.

Actually,Maggie, when your planet is no longer inhabitable, milk intolerance won't trouble you much.

Didn't think we were allowed to put the cat in with the pigeons any more. :-S

Always someone blowing off hot air :-)

Some environmentalists suffer from accubation. :-D

:-D :-D :-D

I replied to an environmentalist who wrote something similar about cattle, and asked what we people who are intolerant to all milk but cows milk are meant to do! :-D

I also asked how much extra harmful gas human f*rts would give out if we all became vegans.

Some environmentalists claim that cattle produce huge and damaging amounts of greenhouse gasses, and that we should, therefore, get rid of them and use alternative products instead of, EG milk and beef. A quick Google search shows that there are less than 10 million head of cattle, including calves, in the UK. By contrast, there are over 13 million wildebeest in the Serengeti alone, producing the very same gasses. Perhaps.... well, you know what's coming next. I will put my tin hat on and await flack. (This is tongue in cheek, by the way, I am just bored)