Wilkins ice shelf breaking away?

Just look at how many more people ride bikes in this city now than say 4 years ago?

yeah, fear of suicide bombers, the current fasionable status of cycling along with the congestion charge, increasing ticket prices and overcrowding on public transport will have that effect.

i agree more bikes less cars is a good thing but i'd very surprised if anyone who's taken up cycling in the four years was motivated by altruistic environmental concerns. anyone that says they were is liar. or david cameron.

anyone that says they were is liar. or david cameron.

Tautology.

i agree more bikes less cars is a good thing but i'd very surprised if anyone who's taken up cycling in the four years was motivated by altruistic environmental concerns. anyone that says they were is liar. or david cameron.

I think you might be surprised. It's most likely all the reasons you outlined, but plenty people would be quick to point out they are "doing their bit". David Cameron is simply being a voter slut, as is Boris Job, er Johnson.

I guess i was more outlining that attitudes to anything can change and when they do hopefully for the better - look at the general attitude to homosexuality compared to 20 years ago?

I'm amazed (well, surprised) that some people are still having a discussion about climate change and man's contribution to it.

+1million

however, from a biodiversity/natural habitat point of view, those forests you refer to are plantations just like any other homogenous crop and as such support a vastly reduced range and amount of life. yes there are more trees but at the expense of the low-density, high diversity natural forest/scrub/whatever that was dug up to plant them.

I am aware of this argument. It has a lot of merit. Sustainable forestry is still farming, with all the downsides that farming entails. But like farming, it's sustainable enough to become a way of life for centuries. It's the least worst solution perhaps.

I wonder if paper can be recycled into mulch or composted rather than made into more, worse paper. Of course that depends on the chemicals that have been used to make it, but it's a question worth asking.

I don't see why councils can't take our rubbish and use it to fuel power stations. I know there are a couple already, but NIMBYs seem to prevent new ones being built. We generate too much crap, and we are facing an energy shortage. Surely it's the obvious solution to both problems. Most of what we produce was made from wood or oil, both of which are perfectly good fuels. If you can control the pollution (and I presume you can) then what's the problem?

I don't see why councils can't take our rubbish and use it to fuel power stations. I know there are a couple already, but NIMBYs seem to prevent new ones being built. We generate too much crap, and we are facing an energy shortage. Surely it's the obvious solution to both problems. Most of what we produce was made from wood or oil, both of which are perfectly good fuels. If you can control the pollution (and I presume you can) then what's the problem?

i reckon the presumption that you can control the pollution is probably the sticking point. i'm sure the carbon emissions from burning mixed waste are pretty horrendous, not to mention all the toxic shit that goes into plastics and other household goods. i know that there is heated (bad pun sorry) debate in australia about carbon-capture and sequestration as a way to reduce the carbon emissions of our 90% coal-fired power stations. it's not clear that they can manage to pull this off for a single fuel type (brown coal), let alone mixed household waste and landfill.

reduce, reuse, recycle, shyeah?

Tautology.

i know. i played with that sentence for a while: and/or/and/or etc.

Better get yourselves one of these.

ooh gulf racing colours.

My presumption that you can control the pollution was based on 4 entirely unresearched things.

1. they control the pollution when they make the stuff - don't they? So some technology exists to facilitate that.
   
2. we already have some rubbish-fired power stations, so they must have something in place to be allowed to operate.
   
3. the rubbish is not that different, chemically, from oil/gas/coal/wood which we already burn to make power.
   
4. I have a vague recollection that if you burn things hotter you burn their emissions as well and end up with CO2 and H2O - like with car exhaust catalysts.
   

i think #2 might be true, other than that the rest (i'm pretty sure) aren't

ooh gulf racing colours.

.

And carbon fibre and its mine.

Can you paddle it with your right leg out of the cockpit and crossed over the bow?

Upside down, paddle over the hull FTW.

http://qajaqunderground.com/

Skillz!

She is 531.

I don't see why councils can't take our rubbish and use it to fuel power stations. I know there are a couple already, but NIMBYs seem to prevent new ones being built. We generate too much crap, and we are facing an energy shortage. Surely it's the obvious solution to both problems. Most of what we produce was made from wood or oil, both of which are perfectly good fuels. If you can control the pollution (and I presume you can) then what's the problem?

Historically, people have objected on the grounds of toxins emitted (dioxins are a favourite), and that argument was valid, 20 years ago. As you guessed, the technology now exists to burn rubbish cleanly. But people still object, and although the same old pollution arguments are often seen, i suspect the underlying objection is a fear that power generation from waste would encourage the creation of waste, both economically and morally, and so encourage the consumerist culture that is attempting to consume all resources as fast as possible. But the campaigners recognise that many people like consumerism, so don't make that argument publicly.

Actually, energy generation from waste is taking off anyway, as people are finding they can generate worthwhile amounts of electricity by burning the methane that seeps out of rotting land fill. I don't think plastics contribute much to this methane, but paper and cardboard do. (And as methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2, burning it into water and CO2 is more responsible than just letting it go.)

The only craft for a cyclist (fixed gear as well!) - YouTube - Hobie Kayaks

Group ride up the Thames anyone?

Thats called cheating.

Another linky dinky to throw into the pot - http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html?page=-1

Another linky dinky to throw into the pot - http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/beware-the-climate-of-conformity-20090412-a3ya.html?page=-1

You are so timid in offering that link I almost think you are embarrassed by it. You certainly should be. Are you paid to do this?

What a very strange comment. Embarrassed? Paid!? It's a link to a review of a new book by a scientist. Why does that rattle you?

What a very strange comment. Embarrassed? Paid!? It's a link to a review of a new book by a scientist. Why does that rattle you?

If anything rattles moth, he just uses a bit of elastic to fix it. No worries there.

Putting aside the thousands and thousands of scientists who are in complete agreement, doesn't common sense tell you that if we pump massive amounts of pollutants into the atmosphere and cut down huge swaths of the worlds forests as we have been doing for the last 150 years, we are going to do some damage to our environment?

But if common sense isn't your thing, then just look at the IPCC. Hundreds of scientists from all around the world, meeting and coming up with a consensus opinion, which is that humans are making a significant impact on climate change

^There are scientists in the IPCC, but unfortunately how their findings are interpreted is entirely controlled by the governments that fund them. Some members of the IPCC are only 'scientists' in that they have doctorates in non-relevant fields. Also some of the scientists on the IPCC 'list' wanted their names removed from the reports, as conclusions drawn were contrary to their own findings. They were refused. Unfortunately there is not a concencus of opinion - and when people start talking about 'unrefutable' science you have to start questioning whether it is science at all.

i reckon the presumption that you can control the pollution is probably the sticking point. i'm sure the carbon emissions from burning mixed waste are pretty horrendous,

^Oh, and CO2 is not a 'pollutant'. It is actually a plant fertiliser, and the increase in Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased plant growth by something like 12% in the last 3 decades. As for CO2 driving global warming: It hasn't ever done in the past, and the fact that it is among the lesser greenhouse gases makes you wonder who no-one is worried about their 'water vapour footprints'?

the fact that the strong majority of climate change experts (and it's not a 51/49 split, it's much stronger than that) are in agreement that anthropocentric climate change is real and is likely to cause significant problems for human civilisation.

^ unfortunately the concensus is among politicians, not scientists. Many scientists are also afraid to speak out against the 'warmists' as there has been talk of Nuremburg-style trials against global warming (GW) deniers.

Many people I have spoken to about this matter who have no scientific knowledge on the matter believe that 'it can't do any harm in playing it safe' and going along with the CO2-as-driver-for-global-temperature theory just in case. Maybe they would be less happy to go along with this if they knew that around 12% of our taxes in the UK are now climate-change based, or that the billions of pounds spent by countries in attempts to reduce their carbon footprints could have eliminated third world debt, wiped Malaria off the planet and many other, more worthy things. Developed countries like the UK are also using GW as a means to hinder countries in Africa and Asia from developing economically.

Sadly GW is also taking the attention away from *real *environmental issues (plastic soup the size of Texas in the Pacific? when was the last time you heard about that on the TV? http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html)

^There are scientists in the IPCC, but unfortunately how their findings are interpreted is entirely controlled by the governments that fund them. Some members of the IPCC are only 'scientists' in that they have doctorates in non-relevant fields. Also some of the scientists on the IPCC 'list' wanted their names removed from the reports, as conclusions drawn were contrary to their own findings. They were refused.

straw man argument. Who made the IPCC the final and only opinion on climate change? Look at the politics behind the IPCC - it was set up by the UN.

Unfortunately there is not a concencus of opinion

evidence please, not conjecture.

• and when people start talking about 'unrefutable' science you have to start questioning whether it is science at all.
  
  
  

see both comments above.

^Oh, and CO2 is not a 'pollutant'. It is actually a plant fertiliser, and the increase in Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased plant growth by something like 12% in the last 3 decades.

Evidence please.

As for CO2 driving global warming: It hasn't ever done in the past, and the fact that it is among the lesser greenhouse gases makes you wonder who no-one is worried about their 'water vapour footprints'?

^ unfortunately the concensus is among politicians, not scientists. Many scientists are also afraid to speak out against the 'warmists' as there has been talk of Nuremburg-style trials against global warming (GW) deniers.

you are kidding with this right?

Many people I have spoken to about this matter who have no scientific knowledge on the matter believe that 'it can't do any harm in playing it safe' and going along with the CO2-as-driver-for-global-temperature theory just in case. Maybe they would be less happy to go along with this if they knew that*** around 12% of our taxes in the UK are now climate-change based, or that the billions of pounds spent by countries in attempts to reduce their carbon footprints*** could have eliminated third world debt, wiped Malaria off the planet and many other, more worthy things. Developed countries like the UK are also using GW as a means to hinder countries in Africa and Asia from developing economically.

again. citation required. I frankly don't believe this statement.

Sadly GW is also taking the attention away from *real *environmental issues (plastic soup the size of Texas in the Pacific? when was the last time you heard about that on the TV? http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/the-worlds-rubbish-dump-a-garbage-tip-that-stretches-from-hawaii-to-japan-778016.html)

because people can't manage two problems at once? it's possible that as people take on board the enormity of GW as an environmental issue, they'll acknowledge other environmental issues too? My experience of social behaviour leads me to believe that people need a catastrophe to adjust their thinking (small issues get ignored), but once people do change their mindset they can embrace new similar ideas easliy.