TV “The Great Green Smoke Screen”.

magyar

Cardew wrote: »

If you have ‘Green Tariff’ electricity, that generating capacity is there anyway regardless if nobody was on a green tariff.!

I've had a thread running on Discussion Time since the programme. Firstly, I agree with all the comments about offsetting, it's just not the 'right thing to do'. And also that it wasn't a very good programme...

Regarding the issue of green tariffs, I did make this post on that thread, by which I refute the suggestion that green power 'would be produced anyway':

The government is trying to get to a target of 20% renewable energy by 2020. In order to do this they have set the 'Renewables Obligation', which says that the amount of green energy a power company has to produce must meet this percentage (on a sliding scale, currently about 5%).

The way they do this is that companies need to either BUY or GENERATE this green power, and for every unit of green power they buy or generate, they get a certificate. Every year, they have to submit enough certificates to meet their required percentage. If they don't do enough of either, they have to pay a 'buy out' price for the difference. Since renewable energy is more expensive than conventional, this cost is basically passed on to all customers (green or not).

So the argument is that 'this electricity would be generated anyway', but that's not quite correct. If, say, Scottish Power have 100,000 customers on a green tariff, they MUST make sure that the energy usage they use is either bought or generated (i.e. it's actually generated by a real wind/hydro/biomass scheme somewhere). If they don't have the customers, they can just pay the buyout.

That said, some green tarriffs are far less 'green' than others.

magyar

moonrakerz wrote: »

Buy a tree and plant it, watch it grow. Cut it down (let it die of old age), use it, sooner or later it will decompose into its constituent parts, a large percentage of which is carbon. The more trees you plant the more carbon you will eventually release into the atmosphere.

Eh? You don't CREATE carbon by this method, even if you don't accept that much of it goes into the ground.

kennyboy66_2

moonrakerz wrote: »

The more trees you plant the more carbon you will eventually release into the atmosphere.

What utter rubbish.

Over the whole lifecycle carbon in = carbon out.

How exactly do you think oil & coal got into the ground?

On a shorter timescale, if you care to look in older building & churches you will see wood that is hundreds of years old, which contains carbon which has not been released into the atmosphere.

moonrakerz wrote: »

This assumes, of course, that you believe all the hype about carbon being the mother of all evils - which I am still somewhat cynical about !

If you are open minded about everything, you may find that your brain has rolled out of your head.

moonrakerz

kennyboy66 wrote: »

What utter rubbish.

Over the whole lifecycle carbon in = carbon out.

How exactly do you think oil & coal got into the ground?

On a shorter timescale, if you care to look in older building & churches you will see wood that is hundreds of years old, which contains carbon which has not been released into the atmosphere.



If you are open minded about everything, you may find that your brain has rolled out of your head.

I do like people who have such a sound and reasoned argument that they have to resort to personal insults ! Typical 'green' zealot tactics.

A brief science lesson for you.

The carbon in coal and oil is "trapped there", and is in a stable state. Only when it is burnt for fuel is the carbon added to the atmosphere. If you believe the carbon theory there is an increasing amount of carbon being added to the atmosphere every day.
Growing trees will absorb some of this, but this will only store it until the tree returns to its natural state, (we are told that wood burning stoves are "green") - which most will do sooner rather than later.
Even if you have the time to hang around 40 million years or so for all these 'offsetting' trees to turn back into coal you will find that not all of the carbon is there; a fair proportion will have escaped back into the atmosphere as the trees rotted. that is why swamps (which might eventually turn into coal) give off lots of methane.
Man is burning down massive areas of the rain forest to plant soya beans to run his cars on 'green' bio diesel - if that isn't madness of the highest order, what is ?
The bottom line is that man IS adding more carbon to the atmosphere, until we find a way to permanently remove this from the atmosphere, all these "offsetting" solutions are, I'm afraid, a load of bunkum ! AND a way for the 'sharks' to fleece the gullible.

Magyar. I didn't say the tree created carbon, it absorbs it as it grows and turns Co2 into solid carbon. ie: wood..

thescouselander

jordylass wrote: »

MORPH3US - Mentioning double glazing, I was surprised when the woman went into the journalist house and told him how to reduce his footprint there, turning the heating down, replacing lightbulbs etc. I was quite surprised when she said about double glazing a window. I had read somewhere that it takes approx 15 years to get the value from double glazing that it's manufacture costs in energy.

Notice how the woman giving the advice arrived by car. Surely she should have walked, cycled or taken public transport.

Gem_

Cardew wrote: »

The term “you really can’t salve your conscience by giving someone money” struck a chord. Another said “its like paying someone to go on a diet for you”

On that subject you might enjoy this site:

http://www.cheatneutral.com/

Which has similar views on the subject ....

Gem

PS. Many people in America thought this site was real :eek:

kennyboy66_2

moonrakerz wrote: »

A brief science lesson for you.

I think I'll pass on science lessons from someone who states "The more trees you plant the more carbon you will eventually release into the atmosphere"

moonrakerz wrote: »

Man is burning down massive areas of the rain forest to plant soya beans to run his cars on 'green' bio diesel - if that isn't madness of the highest order, what is ?

Correct. Madness of the highest order

I not quite sure if you think if you think increasing Carbon dioxide levels cause global warming or not.

I'd agree that some of the off setting ideas, are really ways of extracting money from the gullible.

If wood burning stoves are using wood from forests that are being continually replanted or coppiced, in what way would they add to overall carbon dioxide levels?

moonrakerz

kennyboy66 wrote: »

I think I'll pass on science lessons from someone who states "The more trees you plant the more carbon you will eventually release into the atmosphere"

If I could use a simile to explain my point:-

If your house is flooding, you need to get rid of the water. If you scoop up the water as it comes into the house and put it into freezer, and convert it to ice, that is not solving the problem. You still have the water (albeit in a different form) and when the ice melts (as it will) you will have more water than you started with because it has still been coming under the front door while you have been fiddling around with the ice cube trays.

kennyboy66 wrote: »

I not quite sure if you think if you think increasing Carbon dioxide levels cause global warming or not.

I don't know either ! There is ample evidence to show that in the past CO2 levels have risen as a result of global warming and did not cause it.
Recently NASA announced that temperatures on Mars have risen by a proportionate amount to Earth and over the same period. There isn't much CO2 on Mars !

I think there needs to be a healthy amount of scepticism around - just look at the drivel that you read/hear about what food is good/bad for you.

When I see people like Al Gore telling me how to save the planet by reducing my carbon footprint !
Large numbers of people are fooled into thinking that this man is doing good for the planet - wrong - the man is a fraud and a hypocrite !! a failed politician on the make.

The average electricity consumption in the USA is 10,656 kWh, last year Mr Gore's mansion used 221,00kWh.
In the two years since he has been peddling "An Inconvenient Truth" his personal monthly consumption has risen from 16,200kWh to 18,400kWh.
AND he has a gas bill of over $1000 per month.
(These figure were obtained from Mr Gore's utility company under FOI)

What I won't dispute is that we are in danger of destroying our planet by various means, the biggest of which is over population - and its effects.
Paying someone to (allegedly) plant a dozen trees so that you can jet off to Thailand for a fortnight is at best, dodgy science; at worst, out-and-out fraud !

magyar

moonrakerz wrote: »

If I could use a simile to explain my point:-

If your house is flooding, you need to get rid of the water. If you scoop up the water as it comes into the house and put it into freezer, and convert it to ice, that is not solving the problem. You still have the water (albeit in a different form) and when the ice melts (as it will) you will have more water than you started with because it has still been coming under the front door while you have been fiddling around with the ice cube trays.

That's not a good analogy, because the earth does not have carbon dioxide 'coming into the house'. A better analogy is to imagine your water tank leaking. Yes, the right solution is to fix the leak - I don't think anyone disagrees with that - but if you freeze the leaked water, then yes, as the ice melts you get water again, but presumably you're still freezing more water. At least this helps you - forgive the pun - tread water whilst hopefully you wait for a plumber to arrive :rolleyes:

magyar

moonrakerz wrote: »

Paying someone to (allegedly) plant a dozen trees so that you can jet off to Thailand for a fortnight is at best, dodgy science; at worst, out-and-out fraud !

The thing is, I think we're all in agreement. Clearly if they don't actually plant the trees, it's out-and-out fraud. And yes, I think we'd all agree the science is at best dodgy (since no-one really knows what's going on).

I don't believe any of us think carbon-offsetting is the way to solve the problem. Is it better than nothing? Yes, if you would truly otherwise do nothing. No, if it makes you think 'I'm saving the planet by planting some trees', and THEN do nothing.