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If we accept that the scientists are right and climate change is a thing, then carbon neutral becomes the priority and is non-negotiable.
I know this will be a can of worms, but climate change is a bad thing and should be top of our agenda. We can’t afford to be wrong and short term issues shouldn’t get in the way.
IMO carbon neutral will not happen this century. There’s no point our tiny low emissions country becoming carbon neutral when China, India and USA continue to pollute the skies.
 
How long before loose cannon Johnson signs up with this lot and becomes their leader?

Thanks for that - I never read the Grauniad, so it had passed me by.

According to the article, "Make no mistake, the UK government’s current stance on the climate falls gravely short of what’s needed."

Er ... no.
 
Why does this subject always have to be portrayed in the most negative way possible. How about celebrating what we have already achieved.

UK carbon emissions both as a total and per capita are less than half of the peak figure in 1971. There are 37 countries that have higher per capita emissions, the worst case being Qatar at over 6 times higher, the US and Canada at 3 times higher. If we had used some common sense about nuclear power we would be close to leading the developed world on the lowest emissions per capita. I have no time for arguments that don't put things in perspective by acknowledging the above improvements and the fact that we contribute only 1% of the world total carbon emissions. Yes we can do better and we will but I welcome the new Tory faction that will provide some balance to the net zero debate.

Much of the rest of the world is where the real problem lies, perhaps the eco warriors that want to damage our economy should take themselves off to Qatar or North America where the scope for improvement is very much greater.
 
IMO carbon neutral will not happen this century. There’s no point our tiny low emissions country becoming carbon neutral when China, India and USA continue to pollute the skies.
I'd still like to know the effects of the earth's relationship with the sun on changes in the earth's climate.

According to the "the science is settled and no further debate is allowed" crowd, the relationship between our planet and it's star contributes not a jot to our climate change.

The sun is 1.3 million times the mass of the earth which in turn is known to wobble on it's axis in addition to not following the exact same distance throughout its perennial orbit.

That's not to also consider the effects of such a huge glowing sphere of hydrogen and helium just 92 million or so miles away.

No, apparently the problem is me emitting excess CO2 via the car's tailpipe and eating meat and dairy.

But, the big problem is no debate is allowed, as "the science is settled" and any such debate would be "climate change denial".
 
Remember also that "cash" and "profit" are not one and the same.
Agreed, but businesses should also do annual profit/loss and cash flow forecasts and usually do so for 5 years hence adjusting them as necessary. We have a situation with the gas and oil companies where they admit they are making record profits. In order for them to know this, it must be compared to forecasts. I see no reason why we should not tax the above forecast profit, after all the forecast profit was/is acceptable to its shareholders and it is not as though HMRC would be taking all the excess profits. Back in the 60's the Beatles had a song called The Taxman, words were just 1 for me 19 for you i.e 95% tax rate for the extremely well off and the Kinks, the taxman has taken all my dough...etc. I would hate to go back to those levels of taxation for the rich, but Shell/Centrica making £11billion even at 60% taxation the net figure would not even bring them down to last years gross. I think my maths are correct :D
 
I am surprised one of the many climate scientists has not yet pointed out that war is detrimental to global temperatures. World War 2 can plainly be seen on global temperature graphs so the anthropogenic influence of war on the climate is plain to see. Net zero war as a target would be a much more popular than net zero Co2 especially as we all exhale the stuff.
 
I agree that media hysteria is damaging, but HMG could quash much of it were it to publish believable inflation targets and be seen to take action to achieve them. If they were to do that then the public would also have a target to aim at with respect to pay rise demands instead of the fog we have today.

Instead, they maintain the fiction that their inflation target is 2% and do a "nothing to do with me guv" shrug when it is missed by a country mile. The reality is that they could do things to bear down on inflation (such as limiting the money supply and raising interest rates) but choose not to.
But the Bank of England (why not the UK, as it sets rates for evryone?) is allegedly independent of the government.
 
According to the "the science is settled and no further debate is allowed" crowd, the relationship between our planet and it's star contributes not a jot to our climate change.

The science is reasonably settled.

And on the whole the underlying understanding is reasonable.


But, the big problem is no debate is allowed, as "the science is settled" and any such debate would be "climate change denial".

I thnk the problem is lack of proper debate - it's very difficult to question any aspect - so all aspects have to be accepted as a given.

This makes it very difficult to argue staegic pragmatic policy. It all becomes about dogma.
 
Not the UK, but here is the French Govt's attitude to "everyone must do their bit and every little helps to save CO2".

In case the page isn't translated (I tried), the line of cars is sat with motors running and the aircon on .... so the bigwigs at a meeting can get into the back of a nice, cool car.

One rule etc.

 
I'd still like to know the effects of the earth's relationship with the sun on changes in the earth's climate.

According to the "the science is settled and no further debate is allowed" crowd, the relationship between our planet and it's star contributes not a jot to our climate change.

The sun is 1.3 million times the mass of the earth which in turn is known to wobble on it's axis in addition to not following the exact same distance throughout its perennial orbit.

That's not to also consider the effects of such a huge glowing sphere of hydrogen and helium just 92 million or so miles away.

No, apparently the problem is me emitting excess CO2 via the car's tailpipe and eating meat and dairy.

But, the big problem is no debate is allowed, as "the science is settled" and any such debate would be "climate change denial".
I think a lot of people agree (including myself) believe that yes climate change is a natural phenomenon, but recently it has been influenced by human activity. The two thoughts I have are firstly how do we really know the magnitude of the influence given our understanding is really quite poor (and it seems we have very few scientists without some kind of agenda). And secondly, how much should we be concerned, given the planet has already seen extremes beyond those predicted. As a species it is up to us to adapt. I guess the real debate is should we adapt, or should we try to adapt the global climate (given there is a background fluctuation in climate anyway). My personal view is we should try both In a way. But as far as the modifying our environment goes I think yes we should try to limit our energy use and reduce pollution but disconnect these strategies from climate. At the same time we should also put resources into how to cope with a changing environment, seeing as geological/climate history shows us change will come regardless.

An analogy of our current approach might be our ancestors during the last ice age trying to burn everything to raise temperatures rather than developing warm clothes and better insulated shelters.
 
1% contribution i believe, the UK would be a happier place at 2%. Just my view 😇
Man produced 8 gigatons of co2 out of a global total of 210 gigatons in 2013.

Around 4%. The rest is from natural sources, much of it released by the oceans.

So the UK emits 1% of 4%, in other words 0.04% of all global co2.

China alone emits 28% of all man-made co2 and commissions a new, coal-fired power station every 10 weeks. India is not far behind.

What say we send Greta and the UK ecoloons to explain to them the errors of their folly and why they need to give up cars, affordable heating, meat, dairy etc?

The earth has been gradually greening at current levels of co2.

Antarctic ice is thickening and Arctic ice is thinning ...... perhaps the earth has tilted just a tad, perhaps?

The polar regions have been free of ice at several times in the Earth's recent history. Equally, ice has extended to the tropics at other times..

1659262023884.png
 
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The polar regions have been free of ice at several times in the Earth's recent history. Equally, ice has extended to the tropics at other times
We could walk to France at one time, now we have to get a ferry. Get them miners back to work i say. 😇
 
Man produced 8 gigatons of co2 out of a global total of 210 gigatons in 2013.

Around 4%. The rest is from natural sources, much of it released by the oceans.

So the UK emits 1% of 4%, in other words 0.04% of all global co2.

China alone emits 28% of all man-made co2 and commissions a new, coal-fired power station every 10 weeks. India is not far behind.

What say we send Greta and the UK ecoloons to explain to them the errors of their folly and why they need to give up cars, affordable heating, meat, dairy etc?

The earth has been gradually greening at current levels of co2.

Antarctic ice is thickening and Arctic ice is thinning ...... perhaps the earth has tilted just a tad, perhaps?

The polar regions have been free of ice at several times in the Earth's recent history. Equally, ice has extended to the tropics at other times..

View attachment 130295
The save the planet from the human agenda is costing those less able to afford a greater proportion of their available monies.
So much so that increased taxation is becoming a norm to fund this.
The lives of that majority will be harder.
I still question where this money goes to, or more relevantly who.

I bleat again that saving the planet from the human would be less of a problem if we didn't populate it so fast.

Who are we supposedly saving the planet for?
The answer apparently is for more of us stupid, selfish buggers to abuse the place in the future.
To me the contradiction is glaring,
aside from the wealth creation for those pushing this that is.
 
^^^An interesting view on the whole thing.
Maybe our time is up. Something is going to get us, either nuclear war, pandemic or climate change. “<insert religious deity of choice > moves in mysterious ways. “
 
I bleat again that saving the planet from the human would be less of a problem if we didn't populate it so fast.
A view popular with those who advocate spending less on international aid. When they got their way and the international aid budget was cut, the first casualty was birth control centres in the developing world.
No mattter, they'll get what they didn't pay for when those preventable babies wash up on our shores when their own habitat is flooded, on fire or drought stricken because of their unshakeable belief that as there is overpopulation then changing habits to reduce CO2 emissions is pointless.
 
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In terms of getting the economy and inflation under control a big problem for the government is hysterical media reporting, The only chance of taming inflation is if the public can foresee inflation coming down so that they will settle for moderate pay rises. If they think its's going to continue at a high level or even rise further then it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy as they demand higher pay rises which then stokes the inflationary cycle and causes prices to rise.
Try relocating to China. It's press media is what you appear to want.
In one breath the public are lambasted for their lack of budgetary skills, in the next, a proposal to deprive of them of the relevant facts.
The media act very irresponsibly when they exaggerate the extent of people in real poverty. It's a good story whether it's true or not. I must live a protected existence because I see no evidence of poverty in my local town. People still fill their shopping baskets and race around at high speed in their cars regardless of fuel costs.
What do you expect? Poverty lit up in neon?
The most impoverished will be at home unable to afford the transportation or supermarket costs. Find them at food banks - arriving and leaving on foot. As I've said before, poverty slides out of the view of the wealthy. Just because it isn't visible doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've never seen electricity (and neither have you) but I don't dispute its existence.
An interesting statistic is that the 10P charge on disposable plastic bags has only reduced the usage by 20 %. It's reduced my usage to zero so I'm puzzled why all the "poverty stricken" people are not availing themselves of the same savings.

Going to a lot of 10pences to pay the next gas and electricity bill....
 

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