Not As Environmentally Friendly As Promised

Ah but are the 'vexatious complaints' coming from honest, but deluded, folk or those who might - just might - have a financial interest to have the plans blocked or wrecked?
Yep, the NIMBY is alive but, frankly, isn't such objections open to abuse? Combined with the recent 'malleable' planning applications (i.e. local councils are *ahem* encouraged to approve big money developments) the system is obviously not only open to corruption but actually going against the raison d'etre?
I mean, you should have to get planning permission to balance your eyesore faux castle you've had your eye on since you were paid gazillions as a senior Cabinet Minister/Premiership Football Player. But the same rules should be applied when you have ownership of land, in the middle of nowhere and you want to build a bloody bungalow on it.
 
RaM said:
It may be so environmentally friendly it runs on the tears of squirrels but in the end
for every action there's a equal and opposite reaction.
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But will they poke the squirrels to obtain those tears in an environmentally friendly way?

People tend to forget that it's not just the end use that ought to be environmentally aware, but all the steps in the process to produce.
 
catseye said:
But will they poke the squirrels to obtain those tears in an environmentally friendly way?

People tend to forget that it's not just the end use that ought to be environmentally aware, but all the steps in the process to produce.
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Like electric cars, where does the electricity come from? (Clue: its not the electricity fairies) and how much does it cost the enviroment to produce all the batteries?
 
I see it as a pay-off.
Yeah, nothing is really eco-friendly.
But you do what you can. It doesn't hurt, all makes a difference etc.
I may not live to see the death of Earth's parasites, I may not live to see a recovery ... but if I can do any little thing to stop the process, I will. I aint perfect, I can always do more. But at least I am concerned and I tried.
I can live with myself; at least I tried.
 
This article on the BBC news site gives an idea of the scale of the problem with the batteries from electric cars.
It looks like we are heading towards a new environmental crisis in ......ooh.....I would say about 15 years, once all the car companies are being prevented from selling cars with combustion engines.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56574779
 
Trevp666 said:
I always wonder when cycle lanes get installed and the local council says it is done to 'encourage cycling'.
No it isn't though, is it? It's done to 'discourage driving' really.
I don't know of anybody, ever, who has said "Ooh, they've spent millions putting in 12 miles of cycle lanes between here and where I work so I'm going to stop driving to work and cycle instead".
And if anyone has said that then they must live somewhere really rather flat, with not a lot of heavy traffic anyway, and then only when the weather is kind enough to allow it.
I really don't think installing special cycle lanes is as environmentally sound as it appears to be - it can cost millions for not much usage ultimately. The ones which are just a bit of painted lines on an existing road are going to be much more sound than specially built ones next to a road, except for in areas where there is a significant amount of cyclists already (like Cambridge).
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Exeter can go one better - they made a number of roads into the city one-way or cycle-only during the first lockdown, and I swear the notice on one of them refers to social distancing!
In fairness, there are more cycles around town these days, and the cycle racks outside our building are generally full. But I still wonder why they took those decisions on road usage "because of Covid-19"; the traffic is beginning to build up again as things are opening up.
 
Souleater said:
Like electric cars, where does the electricity come from? (Clue: its not the electricity fairies) and how much does it cost the enviroment to produce all the batteries?
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Yeah, although a big advantage of electric vehicles is the consequent improvement in urban air quality.

Also, solar energy is reducing in cost way quicker than experts predicted.

Also, fossil fuel extraction is hardly environmentally friendly. It's just been the norm for the past couple of centuries or so.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Yeah, although a big advantage of electric vehicles is the consequent improvement in urban air quality.

Also, solar energy is reducing in cost way quicker than experts predicted.

Also, fossil fuel extraction is hardly environmentally friendly. It's just been the norm for the past couple of centuries or so.
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Renewable energy only make up around 30% of the UKs electricity output.

https://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/renewable-generation.html

And under 20% of the US electricity.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=92&t=4

Howeve4 i do agree that electric cars msy improve urban emissions.
 
This has been in the news before, but maybe people will listen this time:
News story

Turkey is becoming the plastic waste dumping ground of Europe. The UK has seen 40% of its supposedly recyclable plastic waste dumped and even burned there. Makes you wonder why we bother with those wheelie bins at all.
 
GNC said:
This has been in the news before, but maybe people will listen this time:
News story

Turkey is becoming the plastic waste dumping ground of Europe. The UK has seen 40% of its supposedly recyclable plastic waste dumped and even burned there. Makes you wonder why we bother with those wheelie bins at all.
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I think the problem is not at our end, i remember a similar story a couple of years ago about our 'recyclable waste turning up in a county somewhere in the far east. I think it is being shipped in good faith but someone somewhere along the line is not holding up their end of the deal, so it ends up being dumped or burned because it a cheaper way of disposing with it that what they are being paid to do, recycle it. Someone somewhere is making a lot of money.
 
GNC said:
Makes you wonder why we bother with those wheelie bins at all.
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It's because the local councils were obliged to send less stuff to landfill, and so in order to do that, encouraged 'recycling' and provided their townsfolk with all sorts of various ways of separating stuff out into different containers. The general public believe that this is a good thing (well, it is, 'on paper'), but are not knowledgeable enough to realise it's basically all a scam.
So okay, less stuff goes to landfill (at least landfill here in the UK) but only a small percentage of the stuff 'we' think gets recycled actually does.
But like with most things, when Mr and Mrs Jones are washing out their yoghurt cartons, or putting all their cardboard and paper into a separate bin, they think they're doing the right thing. And in essence, they are, but unfortunately mostly the plastics either can't or won't be recycled, usually getting compressed into bales to fill otherwise empty shipping containers and sent back to China (eg).
And the card and paper, some gets actually pulped and reused but that would only be the stuff that is of a good enough 'clean' quality to begin with - the rest is compressed into 'bio-fuel pellets' for burning industrially.
 
Min Bannister said:
Yes, they contain mercury of course which is a horrible poison unless it is in your lightbulbs or your teeth wherein it is nothing to worry our little heads about. There are quite a lot of things like that. One of the biggies recently is a weedkiller called Roundup. When I was at uni it was touted as the perfect culmination of all our wonderous genetic knowledge as it specifically targeted a pathway in plants which does not exist in insects or animals. Therefore you could kill weeds with impunity as it harmed only plants. Guess what? Causes cancer.
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What's weird is I have shitty teeth.. tons of mercury fillings as a kid and young adult in my permanent teeth...also used to eat canned tuna every day got mercury levels tested i was so worried. "Undetectable ." Lead levels were higher but still within normal. Have no clue where lead came from.
 
Get Kraken said:
What's weird is I have shitty teeth.. tons of mercury fillings as a kid and young adult in my permanent teeth...also used to eat canned tuna every day got mercury levels tested i was so worried. "Undetectable ." Lead levels were higher but still within normal. Have no clue where lead came from.
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You didnt lick walls as a child did you? :p
 
Get Kraken said:
What's weird is I have shitty teeth.. tons of mercury fillings as a kid and young adult in my permanent teeth...also used to eat canned tuna every day got mercury levels tested i was so worried. "Undetectable ." Lead levels were higher but still within normal. Have no clue where lead came from.
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Do you live in an old house with lead pipes?
 
Trevp666 said:
It's because the local councils were obliged to send less stuff to landfill, and so in order to do that, encouraged 'recycling' and provided their townsfolk with all sorts of various ways of separating stuff out into different containers. The general public believe that this is a good thing (well, it is, 'on paper'), but are not knowledgeable enough to realise it's basically all a scam.
So okay, less stuff goes to landfill (at least landfill here in the UK) but only a small percentage of the stuff 'we' think gets recycled actually does.
But like with most things, when Mr and Mrs Jones are washing out their yoghurt cartons, or putting all their cardboard and paper into a separate bin, they think they're doing the right thing. And in essence, they are, but unfortunately mostly the plastics either can't or won't be recycled, usually getting compressed into bales to fill otherwise empty shipping containers and sent back to China (eg).
And the card and paper, some gets actually pulped and reused but that would only be the stuff that is of a good enough 'clean' quality to begin with - the rest is compressed into 'bio-fuel pellets' for burning industrially.
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I do know the Scottish Government have ordered a bunch of big incinerators to be built to deal with tons of waste they're not going to recycle. Wind farms seem to be a scandal in the making, too (not sure what I'm allowed to say on that count).
 
GNC said:
I do know the Scottish Government have ordered a bunch of big incinerators to be built to deal with tons of waste they're not going to recycle. Wind farms seem to be a scandal in the making, too (not sure what I'm allowed to say on that count).
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IMO you're just staying this side of the line for 'political comment', so you should be okay.

On a different point though, there is a bigger and bigger push towards electric cars and the ending of the uses of fossil fuels, along with the recently announced ban on new gas boilers (I think from 2025 so some companies will already know they're going bust if they haven't already designed alternatives), but that all ignores the facts that we don't only travel by cars.
What about all the other transport? Lorries/Trucks, buses, trains, ships, aircraft......they all use various types of fossil fuel engines which would be difficult (if not impossible) to replace with alternatives.
And for 100% electric cars everywhere, that would beg the question "Why aren't governments ensuring that every car parking space has an electric charger?" because that is what will be needed - not just 2 or 3 chargers over in the far corner of a supermarket car park which, lets be honest, are anecdotally usually not working either through 'user damage', malfunction, or vandalization.
Plus as mentioned before, the electric cars have to be made in the first place, which not only necessitates the use of fossil fuels to do so, but additionally needs vast quantities of fairly rare materials for the batteries.
And then the electricity has to be created somewhere in large enough continuous amounts to satisfy the demands of a massive charging network. So in order to be reliable that would need to be power stations relying on burning stuff, or nuclear. Wind and Solar is only any good when the wind blows or the sun shines.
 
Electric cars are unsustainable, not practical and not even enviromentally that friendly, ive said this for many years, as soon as the car companies/energy businesses stop supressing hydrogen fuel cell power technology the better, but nobody can make vast amounts of money from a car that you can power by filling up with water.
 
We are being sold a lie - that we can save the world or at least live "ecologically friendly" lives without fundamentally changing the entire way we live.

This is not true. But it makes money for people. And it also means nobody has to make any drastic changes in their lives. We can just tinker around the edges and everything will be fine. Wrong.

Without total and massive changes in the way humans live, the way they travel, the way they work, they way they organise, the way they govern themselves, what their expectations for their lives are - then we will do nothing to improve the planet's ability to host us.

It's not difficult to see how we could make Britain the most ecologically-friendly country in the entire world. It's basically called the 1600s.


But you're not prepared to do it, I'm not prepared to do it - nobody will be brave enough.


So we just tinker. And people/companies get rich through our tinkering. And we all warm and fuzzy that we're "saving" the environment...which was a nonsense.




I gave up eating all seafood two months ago after reading about the environmental disaster that seafood industry causes - not because I care about oceans and ocean life (I do) but because killing our oceans will kill us. Do stuff. If we don't change there is no chance of anything changing.

And yeah - giving up seafood is tinkering. Which ruins my point. But I know what I mean. Do stuff. Enact fundamental lifestyle changes. And be ashamed to consume, to burn, to use fuel. Try and stop it if you care. And if you don't then crack on - all good. Don't smoke cigarettes if you care about the environment, don't buy melons from Brazil in Tesco. Don't drive a car. Don't travel much anywhere. Except on foot or bike. Nothing changes unless you change.

Here's one - if you care then don't use the internet, don't use a smart phone, don't use systems that use the internet - https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200305-why-your-internet-habits-are-not-as-clean-as-you-think Big greenhouse emissions.

Nothing changes unless you change.

I can absolutely guarantee you that my carbon footprint is lower than Greta Thunberg's. Guarantee you. And I don't even make much of an effort.
 
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Unless the worlds big polluters like China,U.S.A and India (those three countries combined create about 50%of the total CO2 emissions) get on board then it seems utterly pointless,it’s like pissing in the ocean. The U.K create about 1% of the worlds CO2 emissions.
 
Stillill said:
Unless the worlds big polluters like China,U.S.A and India (those three countries combined create about 50%of the total CO2 emissions) get on board then it seems utterly pointless,it’s like pissing in the ocean. The U.K create about 1% of the worlds CO2 emissions.
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Totally agree.

And they won't. Because they want to generate money. So they have power. Why would they stop?

Humans are the exploiters and the dominators.

Unless we change that then nothing changes.
 
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I would have thought working from home sends a very clear signal that putting resources into a decent internet and grants for excellent PCs would remove much of the need for flashy big new cars and travelling to work every day.
 
Analogue Boy said:
I would have thought working from home sends a very clear signal that putting resources into a decent internet and grants for excellent PCs would remove much of the need for flashy big new cars and travelling to work every day.
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But that's kind of my point. You're exchanging an apple for, er...an apple.

You're making a change. But it's tiny. You're still playing exactly the same game and expecting a different result. Which you won't get.
 
Stillill said:
Unless the worlds big polluters like China,U.S.A and India (those three countries combined create about 50%of the total CO2 emissions) get on board then it seems utterly pointless,it’s like pissing in the ocean. The U.K create about 1% of the worlds CO2 emissions.
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Presupposes that CO2 is a problem, let alone the problem.

maximus otter
 
Meanwhile, like I’ve said many times before, we’re all filing our rubbish only to see it all sent off and jumbled up again in a landfill in another country.

As for electric cars, a lot of homes are two car families. That’s a lot of battery charging right there. Even if there’s enough lithium or whatever to make the batteries for these cars in the first place. Then there’s scrappage on your old car to consider. All the while, mum, dad and the kids all have phones and tablets that need charging continuously. It’s already a bit late to start setting up the infrastructure for the energy needs for this bright, green future.
 
Stillill said:
Unless the worlds big polluters like China,U.S.A and India (those three countries combined create about 50%of the total CO2 emissions) get on board then it seems utterly pointless,it’s like pissing in the ocean. The U.K create about 1% of the worlds CO2 emissions.
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I posted this report about Chinas greenhouse emissions a month or so ago

Souleater said:
A report out states that Chinas greenhouse emissions top all other developed nations combined.

"China emits more greenhouse gas than the entire developed world combined, a new report has claimed.

The research by Rhodium Group says China emitted 27% of the world's greenhouse gases in 2019.

The US was the second-largest emitter at 11% while India was third with 6.6% of emissions, the think tank said.

Scientists warn that without an agreement between the US and China it will be hard to avert dangerous climate change."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57018837
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Analogue Boy said:
Meanwhile, like I’ve said many times before, we’re all filing our rubbish only to see it all sent off and jumbled up again in a landfill in another country.

As for electric cars, a lot of homes are two car families. That’s a lot of battery charging right there. Even if there’s enough lithium or whatever to make the batteries for these cars in the first place. Then there’s scrappage on your old car to consider. All the while, mum, dad and the kids all have phones and tablets that need charging continuously. It’s already a bit late to start setting up the infrastructure for the energy needs for this bright, green future.
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Excellent post, thank you!

You made the points I was trying to make but they actually made sense.


Electric cars
Smart phones
Tablets

You want these things but you want to save the world? Make a choice then. Can't have both...but, of course, you're told you can.


Landfill point is a great one. You know that when you recycle a plastic bottle in England then 9 times out of 10 it has to be then flown or shipped to another country to be recycled. Madness. Plastic that can be recycled is bought and sold on the international market. More of the same stuff killing the planet disguised as saving it.

We know what to do to save the planet but we won't do it. Give it all up. The whole thing.
 
Coastaljames said:
Excellent post, thank you!

You made the points I was trying to make but they actually made sense.


Electric cars
Smart phones
Tablets

You want these things but you want to save the world? Make a choice then. Can't have both...but, of course, you're told you can.


Landfill point is a great one. You know that when you recycle a plastic bottle in England then 9 times out of 10 it has to be then flown or shipped to another country to be recycled. Madness. Plastic that can be recycled is bought and sold on the international market. More of the same stuff killing the planet disguised as saving it.

We know what to do to save the planet but we won't do it. Give it all up. The whole thing.
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The problem is, everyone is living in the hope that technology will save the planet, that someone will invent some magical 'thing' which will make everything ok again
 
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