Global Warming

topgranny

Isn't it just typical of government and politicians that the only thing they can come up with to fight global warming is taxation? Green taxes are surely NOT the answer.

If it's legislation that's needed it should be directed at local councils, big businesses and industry, and Joe Public should be encouraged and helped to be energy efficient, etc., not taxed.

I thought it might be good to think up POSITIVE ways that all this could be achieved. Even if only a small amount of our resources is saved, all the small amounts add up to a large amount - just as with money saving!

One way I thought of was to make County councils replace electric street lights with solar powered lights. When you think of the thousands and thousands of streetlights in the country, this must make some difference. It might take some time, though, as I think it would take a while to replace the lights as and when they became time-expired.

I also think councils should do much more to help with recycling. Most people, although by no means all, would be much happier about sorting their waste if there weren't so many restrictions on what could and couldn't be recycled.

British inventiveness brought about so many great things in the world. Surely it's not beyond us to use that same quality to sort out the mess. Then the only thing we have to do is convince world governments that they have to put the necessary measures into practice.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Altarf

topgranny wrote:

One way I thought of was to make County councils replace electric street lights with solar powered lights. When you think of the thousands and thousands of streetlights in the country, this must make some difference. It might take some time, though, as I think it would take a while to replace the lights as and when they became time-expired.

Solar panels are being used in some low energy consumption street furniture, such as parking meters and warning signs, but street lights use about 150 watts, which would mean that you would need an enormous solar panel for each street light and a very large battery pack.

If that was not bad enough, at current costs this would work out at around £1,000 per street light.

moonrakerz

topgranny wrote:

Isn't it just typical of government and politicians that the only thing they can come up with to fight global warming is taxation? Green taxes are surely NOT the answer.

Spot on topgranny ! This is just another excuse (and what a corker - this WILL save the planet !!) to sting us for more taxes.

I am still highly sceptical about "global warming", the planet has always gone through cycles of warming up and cooling down. The Romans had vineyards in the North of England, Birmingham was under a mile of ice, CO2 levels have been MUCH higher than they are now. I have not seen any conclusive proof that me driving around in my 1.6 Focus is going to destroy the planet.

I think "Chelsea Tractors" are stupid, and people who drive them are equally stupid - but, ban them ? put road tax up to a thousand pounds ? even IF man is causing global warming, that will do nothing except line Mr Brown's pocket.

Who is going to tell all the billions of people in India, SE Asia, S America and China - "sorry you can't have that car you've always wanted - back to your donkey/camel/bullock cart". Provided it doesn't f**t too much methane gas of course.

Let's have our Government do something constructive - help the motor industry develop an engine that WILL run on tap water ( Hang on, think of all that lovely tax they would lose - best forget that one !

Let's use renewable sources of energy, but be sensible about it - Wind power is just not reliable enough or capable of providing the huge amounts of power this country needs. Hydro power, yes; tidal power, yes. Solar; expensive, at night you need batteries/inverters - very expensive.

If the Government was actually going to spend MY money on developing some sensible alternative sources of energy, I wouldn't mind. But I can guarantee that with the usual evasions, half truths, smoke and mirrors tricks, most of any extra money raised by these so called "green taxes" will be spent elsewhere. Just look at the "Lottery", a large portion of the money from there is now going into things which the Government used to fund.

Moggles_2

Originally posted by moonrakerz
I am still highly sceptical about "global warming", the planet has always gone through cycles of warming up and cooling down. The Romans had vineyards in the North of England, Birmingham was under a mile of ice, CO2 levels have been MUCH higher than they are now.

The causes of global warming were once conjecture, but not now. The international scientific community agrees that the principal cause is carbon dioxide - rising emissions into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation, transport particularly aviation, manufacturing, industry, heating and air conditioning.

It has become fashionable in some sections of the media to portray the scientific evidence about climate change (and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities) as an exaggeration, but the overwhelming majority of scientists agree on the main points even if there is disagreement on some of the details. One thing is certain. The longer we delay, the more serious the situation will become.

SaverSarah_2

moonrakerz wrote:

I am still highly sceptical about "global warming", the planet has always gone through cycles of warming up and cooling down. The Romans had vineyards in the North of England, Birmingham was under a mile of ice, CO2 levels have been MUCH higher than they are now. I have not seen any conclusive proof that me driving around in my 1.6 Focus is going to destroy the planet.

You want conclusive proof? Watch Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth.

I'm absolutely gobsmacked that some people are STILL sceptical about climate change...

moonrakerz

Moggles wrote:

The causes of global warming were once conjecture, but not now. The international scientific community agrees that the principal cause is carbon dioxide - rising emissions into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation, transport particularly aviation, manufacturing, industry, heating and air conditioning.

It has become fashionable in some sections of the media to portray the scientific evidence about climate change (and the impact of greenhouse gas
emissions from human activities) as an exaggeration, but the overwhelming majority of scientists agree on the main points even if there is disagreement on some of the details. One thing is certain. The longer we delay, the more serious the situation will become.

This "quote" is an exaggeration in itself ! The "International Scientific Community" does NOT agree

To paraphrase the post itself:- It has become fashionable in some sections of the media to portray the scientific evidence about climate change (and the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities) as the whole unvarnished truth ,

A film by Al Gore providing "conclusive proof ? To quote, perhaps, a better known American: - "You cannot be serious !"

Back to my original post - it would help if people actually read what I said ! The main thrust was my point that increasing taxes would do NOTHING to "save the planet".
I mentioned. almost in passing, that I was sceptical about the causes of global warming. This, nowadays is guaranteed to get the eco warriors jumping up and down over any one who dares to disagree with anything they say.

Having a different opinion seems to guarantee a hostile response !

Please don't bother coming back with lots of Scientific "facts" which prove the point one way because I can come back with just as many the other way; all this will do is clog up the site !

Just accept the fact that not everyone agrees with you AND more importantly, let them say that without you howling them down.

Ken68

Hi TopGranny...Even as we speak, business and scientists and civil servants are rubbing their hands in glee, money, money, money. Ever a bottomless pit of taxpayers money.
All consumers should be forced to save energy, and like cars , taxed high if they don't.Government offices and schools should take the lead.
Those that do save and could prove it should be rewarded.
The carrot and the stick approach.
And why on earth is air travel so cheap!!

Volcano

Please don't bother coming back with lots of Scientific "facts" which prove the point one way because I can come back with just as many the other way

There is not a hope in hell of you coming up with with anything like enough counter-arguments against global warming. I'm all for people expressing their opinion, but without allowing them to justify that opinion just leads to a meaningless list of unsubstantiated statements.

SaverSarah_2

moonrakerz wrote:

I mentioned. almost in passing, that I was sceptical about the causes of global warming. This, nowadays is guaranteed to get the eco warriors jumping up and down over any one who dares to disagree with anything they say.

Moonrakerz, I won't waste my energy on the indisputable facts as you've made it quite clear you're not open to them. However, I'd like to point out that I'm far from being an 'eco warrior' - I'm just a concerned parent of young children who's just trying to do her best to leave some sort of habitable world behind for them...

feesh

I'm a biologist originally and now working in the renewable energy sector. I've learned a lot from my experience working in a University research department aabout 10 years ago (with my ex, who was extremely cynical about climate change as he had been looking at climate patterns for years and thought it was part of the natural cycle. He was a specialist in long term modelling/time series analysis and was ultimately convinced during the course of his PhD that climate change was very much real and happenning. He was looking at the significant effects on North Sea plankton, something which the media don't think is very sexy so nobody else seems to know about it outside the scientific community.... but they will when our fish stocks plummet even further!).

Anyway, since those days I have always had jobs where I have had the opportunity to try and change things, not just with regards to climate change but with regards to our other impacts on the environment. I have worked for NGOs, local government and private companies and I am very passionate about fighting for the natural world which I believe is slowly being destroyed.

But despite years and years of people like me trying so hard behind the scenes to make things change, it has become apparent that fiscal measures are the only way to change people's behaviour.

We've had years of environmental campaigning and awareness raising and still people are using more electricity and fuel year-on-year.

So the soft option didn't work. I really hope the hard option does.

I know you can debate ad infinitum that 'why should I change my habit x, when <insert other environmental impact> makes a bigger difference to CO2 emissions'.

Well the fact is that we should ALL be doing something. We can't just say 'well I would be OK driving my Ford Focus around as long as x thousand tonnes of CO2 could be saved by businesses turning off their lights instead'.

It doesn't work like that. We need to do ALL of those things. Yes, LAs need to be running their street lighting off solar power. But that doesn't mean you can get away without changing your own behaviour.

(incidentally a large and increasing number of LAs are on green power tariffs and using renewables where possible to avoid carbon taxes. So your streetlights might already be green powered. And this is further proof that fiscal measures do work, I can't see that the LA I used to work for would have done this if it wasn't for the carbon tax).

SusanCarter

I have to admit that I too am dubious about whether the so called global warming catastrophe is true. However, there are two reasons why my dubiousness does not affect my behaviour:
1) It is not worth taking the risk with something so serious so I will do my bit anyway.
2) All the things I know about which are supposed to help reduce global warming are better for the environment in other ways too.
For example: If I recycle and compost and throw less away then I use up less of the worlds limited resources and I don't fill up stinking landfill sites so quickly. Also if I use my car less then I produce less car fumes. Anyone who has walked a distance (especially uphill!) along a busy road or cycled behind a bus will agree that car fumes do create an unpleasant environment.

With regard to the original post, the trouble is that for the average person the effort or cost involved in being "environmentally friendly" means they will not do it. The benefits of being "environmentally friendly" and the adverse effects of not being are in general not immediate and direct. Also the way global warming has been portrayed would likely lead many people to conclude that it is a foregone conclusion and that even if they do anything it won't make a difference.

Given all these factors and the fact that the majority of people/organisations currently aren't trying to being environmentally friendly, the best way to get them to do the things is to ensure that people gain by doing them. Financial reward/punishment is probably the only workable way of doing this and if it was all rewards, we'd have to pay extra tax on other things to pay for the rewards.

I figure the government is going to take the same total amount of tax from the whole population anyway so why not arrange it in such a way that those who are more environmentally friendly pay less and those who aren't pay more? It's probably the simplest way of administering a scheme of reward/punishment as all they have to do is adjust taxes according to how "green" things are.

Obviously these are just my opinions and I may change them if other people make points I agree with but hadn't thought of so you are welcome to disagree as much as you like.