Gobal Warming

I see on the news today that we are far from reaching our goal of reducing warming, at the rate we are going it'll an increase of 3 degrees.
I do wonder though exactly what can ordinary people do to contribute. I doubt many people on a budget use the heating and lighting as if there's no tomorrow.
Here's the boring bit: My parents grew up at the time of the depression and working people had very little extra anyway, I was born a few years after the war (WW2 that is by the way)I still have my milk ration card, so all in all we've always been a family of waste not want not, everything that could be re used was, everything that could be repaired was, until it could no longer be repaired only then was something new, well, usually new to us anyway, was bought. Lights were not left on without good cause. We did keep the fire in, banked down overnight in the winter. Now its an extra jumper before putting the heating on until it is actually cold, we recycle, we have energy saving bulbs. We do have a number of tv's and pc's which we completely shut down overnight, yet I've been told start up uses more energy than standby (not sure about this) and wears out the equipment quicker. Shouldn't we go back to repairing things again instead of getting new replacements, how about decent affordable convenient public transport again outside of cities and is there really anything we do, even collectively, that is going to make any difference with India and China expanding their industries and power stations not to mention the USA's output.

Don't worry , Vintage. It won't happen, according to Tommy Monkey brain.

Vintage wrote:I see on the news today that we are far from reaching our goal of reducing warming, at the rate we are going it'll an increase of 3 degrees.
I do wonder though exactly what can ordinary people do to contribute. I doubt many people on a budget use the heating and lighting as if there's no tomorrow.
Here's the boring bit: My parents grew up at the time of the depression and working people had very little extra anyway, I was born a few years after the war (WW2 that is by the way)I still have my milk ration card, so all in all we've always been a family of waste not want not, everything that could be re used was, everything that could be repaired was, until it could no longer be repaired only then was something new, well, usually new to us anyway, was bought. Lights were not left on without good cause. We did keep the fire in, banked down overnight in the winter. Now its an extra jumper before putting the heating on until it is actually cold, we recycle, we have energy saving bulbs. We do have a number of tv's and pc's which we completely shut down overnight, yet I've been told start up uses more energy than standby (not sure about this) and wears out the equipment quicker. Shouldn't we go back to repairing things again instead of getting new replacements, how about decent affordable convenient public transport again outside of cities and is there really anything we do, even collectively, that is going to make any difference with India and China expanding their industries and power stations not to mention the USA's output.

The sad truth is that there's not much an individual can do. Everything you cited is great and people should try to live that way, I do myself, but not enough people do, or ever will, without laws in place, and that's what's going to destroy the planet for humanity (cockroaches will be fine).

As Obama put it:

"Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective."

Global warming is one thing we need big government, and I mean big as in jelly rolls and a triple chin and man-boobs big, if we're ever going to solve it.

The only other way that I can see working is to somehow make it pay more to fight global warming than it does to contribute to it, but not enough has been done on that front.

Never stop it Ben, too many people want their cars, you can't stop Cows Farting, Volcano's erupting, Forest Fires, Methane by the thousand tons coming from the Sea floor, and a hundred and one other things. [Not counting those Buggers smoking outside].

Well, we can do what we can: invent a 'cow fart converter' and make lots of money, minimize the forest fires, pass laws against smoking and equip automobiles with catalytic converters.

Volcanoes and sea floors have always been around, and never caused problems before. Maybe we can live with those.

Doing our bit by changing all lighting to LED. Sold my diesel car for a hybrid.
Insulated loft and wall cavities.
Recycling everything possible.
Not much, but every little helps.

nicko wrote:
Never stop it Ben, too many people want their cars, you can't stop Cows Farting, Volcano's erupting, Forest Fires, Methane by the thousand tons coming from the Sea floor,   and a hundred and one other things. [Not counting those Buggers smoking outside].

Cows farting, volcanoes, natural fires --  they're all part of the natural world, and the environment has evolved in their presence over millions of years...

Man made pollution, though, has increased greatly since the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, and exponentially so along with the human population and the increasing burning of non-renewable fossil fuels since the end of the 19th century..

Greatly exacerbated by the added factor that mankind has collectively cleared 25 per cent of the world's forests over that same period, while Japanese harvesting ships are currently stealing large amounts of plankton from our oceans --  the two largest living "carbon sinks" on Earth (natures way of tempering all of that gaseous carbon being released as "greenhouse gases" like methane, ethane, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide).

What has greatly slowed down international responses to ongoing manmade accelerating climate change in recent years, is the sad fact that most of the world's governments have been bought by big business concerns involved in mining, oil and forestry;  while their lobbyists (both the paid hacks like Christopher Monckton and Nathan Vass --  and their unpaid gullible stooges, such as Tommy and his ilk..) --  have flooded the media and the internet with all of their denialist propaganda and greedy lies...

We have far too many people in the world but there's not much we can do about that. We have to preserve the rainforest even if it needs to be bought by governments and patrolled to safe guard it, the forests in Europe are expanding again apparently but we still need more trees now. Maybe the old and new worlds could offer security in old age to third world populations so there aren't quite so many children born, then perhaps we can help to educate properly those children that are born and develop the countries instead of spending the millions on military hardware, if everyone is trading comfortably it reduces the risks of war greatly, if the population continues to rise and with it peoples expectations there's more chance of conflict for resources made worse by the effects of climate change. We need to do what we can but we aren't going to stop it, its happened before we were around.

Instead of sending food and water to some African Nations, how about boxes and boxes of contraceptives. I see pictures of poor little children whose limbs look like sticks, and swollen Bellies sticking out ! Wars in these Countries have been going on for years, and the Babies keep being born to people who know they can't feed them !

nicko wrote:Never stop it Ben, too many people want their cars, you can't stop Cows Farting, Volcano's erupting, Forest Fires, Methane by the thousand tons coming from the Sea floor,   and a hundred and one other things. [Not counting those Buggers smoking outside].

We're poised to be able to run most vehicles on electricity, though. The faster we stop burning petroleum products, the better.

Electricity can be generated several ways from solar, along with wind, tides, river currents, etc. We should already be to the point where we don't need oil and gas, or at least not nearly as much as we use.

Gas engines are the main culprit and they're totally replaceable. We just need something or someone to come along and say "stop using gas engines."

I have no science waffle or links to post up but I can see how the planet is changing regarding global warming so my input isn’t probably rather boring.
But.

This is how I think people should behave and how they could help:

Stop wasting water. I never let my taps run without good reason. I even turn them off whilst brushing my teeth.

Recycle all plastics and paper. No brainer.

Reuse plastic tubs and bags etc.

Don’t fucking litter. Don’t know if that’s going to help with climate change but it sure helps with sea life and it’s also a bugbear of mine. So just don’t litter, full stop.

Turn lights off and TV’s.

Don’t overuse the air conditioning units and heating units - this is a big one that most people don’t or won’t change.

Stop using aerosols. I hate them. They make me cough and I have never really used them.

*THE Ben Reilly* wrote:

nicko wrote:Never stop it Ben, too many people want their cars, you can't stop Cows Farting, Volcano's erupting, Forest Fires, Methane by the thousand tons coming from the Sea floor,   and a hundred and one other things. [Not counting those Buggers smoking outside].

We're poised to be able to run most vehicles on electricity, though. The faster we stop burning petroleum products, the better.

Electricity can be generated several ways from solar, along with wind, tides, river currents, etc. We should already be to the point where we don't need oil and gas, or at least not nearly as much as we use.

Gas engines are the main culprit and they're totally replaceable. We just need something or someone to come along and say "stop using gas engines."

Many modes of production isn't the problem. Electricity does not travel very far...so, use has to be near the source. Las Vegas, with all it's lights, sprung up because Hoover Dam is right down yonder.

Improved batteries might help.

There are two alternative "battery" sources on the horizon, that should greatly facilitate and accelerate the changeover to electric vehicles over the next 2 or 3 decades :

Hydrogen cells : the "missing link" that is still necessary to provide sufficient power storage as to enable long distance transport --  i.e.  trucks, buses, 4WDs and SUVs, and even trains, eventually..   The technology is already here --  what is still needed is to get the costs down, and productions levels up, to meet the market..

Organically 'grown' battery technology :  some promising current research is pointing to producing batteries from algae/fungi that will be more reliable and longer lasting than lithium cells;  while other research is centred on using algae-based photovoltaic panels to actually produce electricity through photosynthesis.

Another limiting factor at the moment is the actual availabity and accessibilty  of recharging stations in public carparks and office buildings --  no matter how quickly governments may want to push the rollout of electric vehicles, people still need to be able to recharge them..