'Greenwash'

[Foulounoux]

As always an interesting thread

 

I have solar panels (HW) heating the pool in France - installation about 6k and cost of heating the pool each year by fossil fuel about 3k so am very happy ( only problem I have is that system gets too hot even heating a 12m x 6m x 1.8m deep pool - I have plans to solve but need to beef up my plumbing skills

 

Mother in Law was offered a PV installation for 9K - She was thinking about it because "i'll get free electric" then I pointed out that she stays up to gone midnight watching TV etc and that at 75 with an electric bill of about 300£ a year even if she is able to offset all her costs (doubtful) it will take 30 yrs to pay back ( OK so electric prices will rise so payback may be less)

 

We are in the process of moving house and if the situation is right then I would go PV and hot water panel route. But the technology is moving quickly and I read of combined PV/Thermal panels which will show much greater rates of return and there is even talk of printed PV panels

 

 

Recycling - OK if you have a market for the product - 20 yrs ago I saw a state of the art plastic bottle recycling plant that would separate PE/PET and PVC but it closed soon after because there was no market for the recyclate generated. And as to the anti plastic brigade I was keen t point out that they were burning oil in their car whereas at least in plastics the oil got a few more months/years of use before being disposed of. and there are interesting bio plastics that may solve the oil issue

 

As to green electricity - its not the reduction in CO2 that should be the prime mover but the fact that every MW of power from renewables is that renewable and saves fossil fuel.

 

I have said it before that micro-generation should be the way forward but then the big boys wont like that we the people will have the power in our hands - literally.

 

Also expect changes to the automotive market - electric cars using batteries are of interest to the likes o BP etc because the model will be to have Battery stations instead of petrol stations where flat batteries are exchanged for full ones and the advantage to the government - they can tax the transaction

 

Colin

[Guest Max Stafford]

I'm all for the intelligent and efficient use of resources and energy. Only a fool would reason otherwise.

One thing I do ponder about is the high price/long payback equation linked to micro-generation equipment. Surely if there is more uptake of the equipment, economies of scale will come into play driving the unit cost down to hopefully more affordable levels. It's anticipated that there is a requirement for much more new housing.

While I realise that there are other fiscal elements involved, wouldn't equipping all new houses with a micro-generation capability help to bring that cost down?

 

Dave.

[lapford34102]

Sorry to disappoint you but those sorts of arguments (as made in the videos) have been well and truly debunked by the vast majority of the scientific community.

 

Having read through some of the comments I'm glad you pointed this out.

 

 

At first it was bandied around as 'Global Warming' until it was realised that its not getting hotter, and we're probably heading towards global cooling so it was very quickly changed to 'Climate Change'. Repeat the mantra and re-program the populace using TV and media.

 

These two "labels" were first used in the mid 70's in an article entitled "Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?"1 It was the press that decided Global Warming was a better headline than Climate Change I'll leave you to decide why.

 

Before the mid 70's the phrase inadvertent climate modification was used which while hardly being catchy did rather sum things up. Looking at how human activities might affect climate and environment goes back rather further than most realise. Studies into Urban Heat islands were undertaken in the 1800's.

 

Stu

[Arthur]

Let's be quite clear here, global warming was not some sound bite the media invented or misunderstood. For over twenty years that is exactly what the green science lobby were predicting. No equivocation, anthropogenic warming was a 'fact', sceptics were deniers. However, when it became clear that, after twenty years, none of the predictions of the rate of warming were anywhere being realised, in fact global temperatures had, for some years, fallen, the phrase 'climate' change' became the new mantra. Any wonder some of us are sceptical?

[Guest Max Stafford]

Thing is; climate isn't a constant as the historical record will confirm. Over the last 500 years human (at least Western)civilisation has thrived in a relatively benign climate, but that doesn't mean that this particular climate is any kind of stasis.

Human development is inextricably linked to climate and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that the downturn in West Northern hemisphere economic activity is in some way linked to the deterioration in climate over the last few years.

My view is this; Climate is a dynamic system which is constantly changing. I notice changes over the last 30-40 years, but not overly dramatic ones - in fact over the last couple of years the conditions I experience resemble those I remember as a child.

Humans might be affecting the climate. There again they might not. I'm not convinced they are as some of what is said about the matter smacks of humanist hubris in my opinion.

I don't accept the word of the scientific community as gospel since they themselves are mere humans and fallible with it.

I'm sceptical of anything that is repeated like a mantra, especially when it is adopted as a mantra by those of certain political persuasions and that particular persuasion is also excessively dominant in the academic and scientific community.

 

But all that said, I do believe that we live on a small planet and we should absolutely be using our resources in a much more intelligent manner that we currently are.

 

Dave.

[Arthur]

Couldn't agree more Dave, I'm all for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, for making the most efficient use of resources and minimising pollution but simply because it's common sense to do so.

[The Stationmaster]

I'm all for the intelligent and efficient use of resources and energy. Only a fool would reason otherwise.

One thing I do ponder about is the high price/long payback equation linked to micro-generation equipment. Surely if there is more uptake of the equipment, economies of scale will come into play driving the unit cost down to hopefully more affordable levels. It's anticipated that there is a requirement for much more new housing.

While I realise that there are other fiscal elements involved, wouldn't equipping all new houses with a micro-generation capability help to bring that cost down?

 

Dave.

 

I think the 'intelligent and efficient use' bit is the truly important element in all of this. We can only use oil as a fuel once in most vehicles so it is sensible for the future to be economical in its automotive etc use; but we can use it more than once in (some) plastlcs so we need to recover it for subsequent use; we can use paper more than once so we avoid chopping down too many trees which is handy as their part in generating oxygen from waste gas is very useful to us ... and so on. So recycling, properly managed, has an important role to play but equally prudent use of exhaustible natural resources has a critical role. Simple as that in my view.

[Baby Deltic]

It is my unserstanding, having watched a lot of video's on the subject from different sources, that CO2 does infact rise when there is warming, but the cart is being placed firmly before the horse. The global warming hypothesis suggests that a rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature, however, the evidence put forward in several videos suggests that the rise in temperature occurs first, causing the oceans to warm and release dissolved CO2 into the atmosphere. The temperature rise could be caused by any number of factors, not just CO2.

[Revolution Mike]

It is my unserstanding, having watched a lot of video's on the subject from different sources, that CO2 does infact rise when there is warming, but the cart is being placed firmly before the horse. The global warming hypothesis suggests that a rise in CO2 causes a rise in temperature, however, the evidence put forward in several videos suggests that the rise in temperature occurs first, causing the oceans to warm and release dissolved CO2 into the atmosphere. The temperature rise could be caused by any number of factors, not just CO2.

 

I think you have it a bit back to front. I referred to Arrhenius earlier, who demonstrated that CO2 causes warming. The question is not whether CO2 causes warming, but whether anthropogenic CO2 (ie the additional CO2 released by man's activities) causes climate change.

 

To complicate matters you are right that warming can cause the release of CO2 (and much more worringly methane). Plus you are right that temperature rises could be influenced by a whole host of factors, but then the task (that the IPCC has been working on) is to try and work out which is the main driver.

[Horsetan]

I'm all for the intelligent and efficient use of resources and energy. ....

 

You're probably not going to get that if government is involved.....

[skipepsi]

You're probably not going to get that if government is involved.....

 

 

'Probably' since when were you such an optimist!

[Horsetan]

'Probably' since when were you such an optimist!

 

Since I became a P4 modeller.

[Ozexpatriate]

Yes, "Greenwashing" is bad. Slapping greenwash on a product is morally very questionable, but in the spirit of P.T.Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute" it's only going to get worse.

 

The problem with Global Warming (which the Bush administration consistently refered to as "Climate Change") is the maxim that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics".

 

It is impossible for the average person, even a well educated one, to have a truly objective position. To hold an opinion, you have to believe someone else's interpretation. This is an act of faith.

 

The earth is a pecarious place for organic life. The earth has existed for only 4.5 billion (US) years. (Humans only about 120,000 years). It is staggering to look at the number of mass extinctions over the last 500 million years. Every one of these extinctions was caused by some sort of climate change - usually from some sort of gas introduction into the atmosphere.

 

Our present happy and harmonious climate has lasted for about 10,000 years (since glaciation ended) and glaciation will almost certainly return (some day).

 

The single material issue at stake with "global warming" is coal-fired power. The frustrating thing about the "eco" discussion is that so much energy is focused on picayune issues like replacing incandescent light bulbs. Light bulbs are a percentage of domestic power consumption which is a percentage of consumer power consumption which is a percentage of the power actually generated etc. I'm not sure of the data here, but suspect that all the cars, trucks and ships in the world combined, don't create a fraction of the CO2 as coal-fired power stations. (I'd love to see a good reference.)

 

I'd like to suggest a "thought experiment". Think of the big pile of coal at a coal-fired power station. They are huge - tens of metres high. What is the mass of this pile? All of this coal is burnt to drive a colossal steam engine. C + O2 -> CO2 and pretty much all of the pile goes into the atmosphere as gas. Think of how many trains per day replenish the pile to get an idea of how many tonnes of atmospheric CO2 is created for every coal-fired power station in the world every day. It is a lot.

 

Whether you think this is enough to upset the natural balance of the atmosphere is up to what you choose to believe.

 

With the exception of nuclear power (which is not without unpleasant side effects of it's own) alternative "large" renewable sources of power (wind, wave, solar farms etc) are not the answer. They create comparatively small amounts of power. The only technically feasible solution I see would be a massive distributed network of small solar arrays on virtually every building and car park, working in concert to reduce the number of power stations required. It would be hideously expensive and would probably never be cheaper than coal-fired power.

 

Ultimately the question comes back to whether you believe it is important and just how much the atmosphere can self regulate the increasing number of big piles of coal burned into CO2 every day.

[Baby Deltic]

One decent volcano can probably chuck out more CO2, SO2, etc than all the coal fired stations combined.

[Oldddudders]

Here in France, most packaging has a recycling emblem on it - good. Not so good is that the recycling contractors make it quite clear that they are only interested in certain sorts of packaging, because for other types of packaging, e.g. most plastics, the costs of recycling exceed the value of the resulting material. And that's where I become cynical - recycling today is not about saving the planet, but about enabling someone to make money doing the bits that turn a profit.

[lapford34102]

One decent volcano can probably chuck out more CO2, SO2, etc than all the coal fired stations combined.

Hi,

 

Volcanoes tend to actually have a cooling effect on the climate. This is because of the sulphur and particulates that are put into the upper atmosphere and increase it's ability to reflect solar radiation. There's quite a reasonable explanation here

 

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php

 

also

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

 

 

We had a rather poor summer here a few years back that was caused by a South American Volcano.

 

 

Stu

[Revolution Mike]

The problem with Global Warming (which the Bush administration consistently refered to as "Climate Change") is the maxim that there are "lies, damned lies and statistics".

 

It was nothing to do with Bush that there was a change from global warming to climate change - it was recognition that global warming is not the whole picture and could be seen as misleading. Some parts of the earth will warm and others will cool.

 

It is impossible for the average person, even a well educated one, to have a truly objective position. To hold an opinion, you have to believe someone else's interpretation. This is an act of faith.

 

I disagree that it is impossible to have an objective position, but I agree that it comes down to an act of trust/faith. That is true for much/all of science - I am not expected to go to first principles to understand gravity/evolution etc etc, I have to take on trust certain things.

 

The single material issue at stake with "global warming" is coal-fired power. The frustrating thing about the "eco" discussion is that so much energy is focused on picayune issues like replacing incandescent light bulbs. Light bulbs are a percentage of domestic power consumption which is a percentage of consumer power consumption which is a percentage of the power actually generated etc. I'm not sure of the data here, but suspect that all the cars, trucks and ships in the world combined, don't create a fraction of the CO2 as coal-fired power stations. (I'd love to see a good reference.)

 

Sorry, but that is just plain wrong. For the UK, total energy supply (ie coal and gas) accounts for about 39% of total CO2 emissions. Transport accounted for 24%.

 

Source: http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Statistics/climate_change/1214-stat-rel-uk-ghg-emissions-2009-final.pdf (see page 5 for a summary table of CO2 emissions by sector)

 

To complicate matters coal fired power can emit serious amounts of SO2 (if there is no flue gas desulphurisation) which can cause cooling...!

 

Whether you think this is enough to upset the natural balance of the atmosphere is up to what you choose to believe.

 

I can choose to believe in creationism - it does not make it right!

[Horsetan]

One decent volcano can probably chuck out more CO2, SO2, etc than all the coal fired stations combined.

 

I dunno. I'd say an internet forum runs it close.....

[Re6/6]

Now now Ivan, surely you couldn't possibly mean on here!

[Baby Deltic]

Now now Ivan, surely you couldn't possibly mean on here!

 

 

There is a lot of hot air, which means there's more nitrogen than CO2.

[Ozexpatriate]

The single material issue at stake with "global warming" is coal-fired power. The frustrating thing about the "eco" discussion is that so much energy is focused on picayune issues like replacing incandescent light bulbs. Light bulbs are a percentage of domestic power consumption which is a percentage of consumer power consumption which is a percentage of the power actually generated etc. I'm not sure of the data here, but suspect that all the cars, trucks and ships in the world combined, don't create a fraction of the CO2 as coal-fired power stations. (I'd love to see a good reference.)

 

Sorry, but that is just plain wrong. For the UK, total energy supply (ie coal and gas) accounts for about 39% of total CO2 emissions. Transport accounted for 24%.

 

Source: http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Statistics/climate_change/1214-stat-rel-uk-ghg-emissions-2009-final.pdf (see page 5 for a summary table of CO2 emissions by sector)

 

To complicate matters coal fired power can emit serious amounts of SO2 (if there is no flue gas desulphurisation) which can cause cooling...!

Fair enough. (I was keen to see some data - thank you.) I'll restate.

 

Single largest contributor to CO2 emissions is coal-fired power stations. It is greater than all the cars, trucks, ships and trains put togther, by almost 50%. This is particularly true of the growth of CO2 emissions in China.

 

Here's some US data that correlates pretty well with your UK data:

US Energy Information Agency (2008 CO2 emissions by enduser in Mt)

Residential 1.220 - 21%

Commercial 1.075 - 18%

Industrial 1.589 - 27%

Transportation 1.930 - 33%

Total 5.814 - 100%

 

Electricity Generation 2.359 - 41%

 

The SO2 problem is one that has been significantly addressed in the US. Being the biggest contributor to acid rain in the 1970s there has been a big effort in this space. The coal industry lobby in the US runs ads extolling the virtues of what they call "clean coal" (meaning a coal burning process that produces significantly less SO2.) This is the most monstrously misleading euphemism imaginable.

 

"Clean coal" is eco-friendly, because it's "clean", you see! QED.

[Revolution Mike]

Haha - yes, I agree with you about that as a notion of "clean" coal. The EU is pushing for carbon capture and storage (CCS) to clean up coal emissions of CO2, but the problem seen with some of the demonstrator plants is that installing CCS reduces the efficiency of the plant as a fair proportion of the energy is used to separate the CO2 - basic thermodynamics ie nothing comes for free, there is always a trade off somewhere!

 

If people are interested in the subject, but confused as to what to believe then I do little more than suggest reading the summary for policy makers by the IPCC: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html (it is a relatively short document that sets out the main issues). The IPCC is far from perfect and like any scientific process the work is subject to continuous refinement and improvement. There has been significant criticism of the IPCC - some of it justified but much of it not.

 

Sure there are dissenters, but that doesn't make the scientific consensus (that we are having an effect) any less so. Again I come back to the parallel with creationism vs evolution - it is pretty clear where the majority of the scientific community lies. One thing to remember is that despite claims to the contrary the IPCC does not claim to be 100% accurate, but to give our best work (with a corresponding estimate of accuracy) on a very complex problem.

 

Cheers, Mike

[Kenton]

The IPCC is far from perfect and like any scientific process the work is subject to continuous refinement and improvement. There has been significant criticism of the IPCC - some of it justified but much of it not.

The trouble is with all these so called "independent" bodies is that they all have their own a agenda to follow and it all comes down to a presentation propaganda. Whether that agenda is continued financial support, political beliefs, or representation.

 

I still have seen nothing to convince me that the world is going to end any more that some guy with a placard proclaiming such an event in the High Street. Whereas I do believe that this world is a constantly evolving environment subject to more things outside the control of an individual human or any insignificant group. I don't believe any serious change will take place in my lifetime or those of my children/grand-children or their children by which time I believe that the "green" lobby will be long consigned to history. There are more important things to worry about than CO2 emissions.

[Revolution Mike]

The trouble is with all these so called "independent" bodies is that they all have their own a agenda to follow and it all comes down to a presentation propaganda. Whether that agenda is continued financial support, political beliefs, or representation.

 

That is true of everyone in life - it is called human nature. The point about the IPCC is that it is trying to present science, not beliefs. If you are then going to contest the scientific work what basis are you doing it on?

 

I still have seen nothing to convince me that the world is going to end any more that some guy with a placard proclaiming such an event in the High Street. Whereas I do believe that this world is a constantly evolving environment subject to more things outside the control of an individual human or any insignificant group. I don't believe any serious change will take place in my lifetime or those of my children/grand-children or their children by which time I believe that the "green" lobby will be long consigned to history. There are more important things to worry about than CO2 emissions.

 

That is a straw man - no one is claiming the earth will end, and you are right that the earth is a constantly changing environment.

 

On whether serious change will happen in your or your descendent's lifetime(s) - what are you basing that on?

[DavidH]

On whether serious change will happen in your or your descendent's lifetime(s) - what are you basing that on?

 

I have long found that it's pointless having a debate with someone who says global warming is not happening. I say it is, I point to the scientific evidence; they say it isn't, and point to other scientific evidence.

 

It's like arguing about religion: fine if you want a good debate and don't mind getting heated, but you both end up being far happier if you talk about something else