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Climate Change

With the pace of ice melt at both of the poles, it is meant to be coming all the faster Roy.
And I thought every other coastal garden was falling into the sea in East Angular?
 
The bottom line is, what ever happens to our climate, life will continue to evolve to survive, it's what has been happening for millions of years.
The problem is the changes are happening so quickly now they are outpacing the ability for things to evolve to them. Additionally there is vast amounts of carbon dioxide trapped in the polar ice caps. If we allow that to melt then we'll have an even bigger problem.

You seem to be suggesting the change is something that's always happened and is perfectly normal. This timeline of how the climate temperatures have changed since the last Ice Age will show you why you're mistaken. Have a look: Timeline
 
My personal view on climate change ...

There is no point the U.K. trying to make a stand unless bigger countries like USA, China, India also reduce their emissions considerably

Population growth has to stop. There are far too many people on the planet.

Electric cars are not the answer.


I also think we have far pressing concerns in the world at the moment than climate change, for example the situation in Ukraine and Russia posed to attack which could drag in NATO and the west. Or China expanding its scope over Taiwan and the islands it’s building in the South China Sea.

I think we are far more likely to see a world war than considerable climate change in our life time and the damage caused by this would far exceed climate change. Mind you, it would depopulate the earth a bit!

edit: I suppose what I’m saying is that there are more pressing issues at the moment than climate change and maybe focus needs to be on ensuring peace and stability in the world first?
 
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Dieselgate...Large companies lied about the performance of their vehicles for profit.
Should they not be punished for gaining an unfair advantage over the competition?
We stopped building motorways on demand because there was a realisation that every new motorway would end up congested, regardless of how many were built, because people had preferences for personal transport.
Electrification of railways can only be done on main lines, it will never be cost/carbon effective to electrify all rail lines...and give me one diesel train instead of fifty cars any day.
Climate change is here and real...I know from my lifetimes experience as a gardener...never saw a snail in my youth except on holiday, now I see literally thousands a day...warmer climate.
We need to take real steps to stop carbon emissions, starting with air leisure flights...our biggest non essential act of pollution that could be rectified overnight with taxation at realistic levels...travelling a thousand miles in the air for fifty quid is killing the planet, quickly.

Deiselgate is exactly as you suggested, large companies lied about the performance of their vehicles for profit. But the point, as I've already made is that a populist frenzy then occurred against Diesel technology full stop. This has led to more petrols being sold, British jobs lost.

I'm a member of a road enthusiast forum and the point of motorways is hotly debated, especially around your point of more motorways = more cars which is the view the DFT took but is actually inconclusive. What is known though is that motorways are safer, less damaging to the environment and that 10 miles of minor roads need to be built to carry the same amount of traffic as 1 mile of motorway. We've either carried on building lower quality roads anyway or congested our existing ones and caused more pollution.

I'm not making the case that climate change isn't here and isn't real, it is.

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I saw this following story posted on Facebook today. With the youngsters blame us oldies for leaving them with a negative legacy impact on the environment, think again!

"Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment,.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
The older lady said that she was right our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain: Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.
But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then. We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.
Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.
We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
Back then, people took the street car or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing."
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smart ass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much."
 
Obviously the youngsters on here are too young to remember what life was like back in my days and I can tell you that single use plastic was no where near as much as it is now.

I remember back in the 1970's/80's returning glass bottles to the shop/milkman in exchange for small change. Never really had plastic bottles back then, mainly glass.

Was never allowed to use ball point pens at school, had to be either pencil or fountain pen, I had both type of pens, the refillable ink (non cartridge type) and the cartage type.

All unwanted plastic shopping bags would get used as binbags to bag and throw our rubbish out.

Just think yourself lucky that you are too young to even have the pleasure of changing and washing Terry's Nappies, I can tell you that I've change and washed a few in my time.

Single use plastic/nappies/wipes etc.. is todays problem. Today we live in a throw away society. Everything now runs off electric and it it breaks, it is cheaper to replace than to repair it. Nothing is made to last now-a-days.

As a kid, I used to walk to school and most kids did back then unlike today where everyone now uses a car for the school run. My high school was a good 30min walk and I use to walk that to and from my school daily.

Another thing that we did back in the 1970's, we used to collect and save up tin foil milk bottle tops and other tin foil to give to the guide dog charity that would use the tin foil to fund guide dogs for the blind.

So before you dish my post, remember I was actually there back in the 1970's/80's and I have experience all the above as mentioned in my previous post first hand and I can tell you that it is the way life was back then. We couldn't afford to throw things away back then, we just mend and make do. Today generation are creating more waste, using more electricity and using cars to make journeys that can easily be walked.

Like I said, I was there back in the day, was you? :p
 
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I’d forgotten completely about the foil milk tops and saving them, the bottles I can remember returning them clearly, was it 2p or 5p for every bottle returned? We used to keep them locked in the porch so nobody stole them as that was our pocket money.
Hardly anything was wrapped in plastic in those days, fruit you packed yourself in paper bags, bread was delivered in a paper bag by an electric float and my mother had one of those trolley bags on wheels to bring the food home from the shops not plastic bags.
 
Things weren't built to last for ever in the 80s either. The throw away society was already in the making. Maybe my parents and neighbours were really unlucky, but they went through television sets like nobodies business. Probably every other year you would need a new one, and certainly much less efficient than today’s TVs, of which their last one saw out 15 years.
Other electrical household goods really weren’t much better, and the only reason that there was any attempt at repair as replacing them was pretty expensive, and nothing to do with wanting to protect the environment.

Cars: If you had a car that managed to get to double figures in age you would be doing well. Most would of rusted away by then, after a number of years of pumping out fumes from leaded petrol or dirty Diesel engines that were never maintained properly. Buses were equally as dirty, and to top it all you had poorly maintained 30+ year old diesel trains joining in the fun.

Lots of kids did walk to school then, I did myself too, from a young age, as the school was only a few minutes away. Many primary school children will be driven to school now, but these days children could be placed in schools many miles from where they live, whereas back in the day where everything was perfect and smelling of roses they tended to be local to the council ward you were in and easily walkable, and also not forgetting both parents will most likely work now too so less time to walk.
Certainly now many secondary school children walk or use public transport if coming from further a field.

We've come along way in terms of cleaning things up and improving efficiency in many of our products but there is a long way to go. We as a species simply generate far too much waste and the planet is becoming too overpopulated. Some experts think that the earth could sustain 10 billion people but I’m not sure I’d like to be around to see that.

We need to move away from the notion that population growth is good. It’s only good because thats what economic models of present rely on. It’s unsustainable and shows our lack of long term thinking. But it will have to be a gradual process to change this model as any quick change in itself would not be sustainable straight away.

There are a multitude of issues that need solving now, some quickly, some not so, which have been building since the industrial revolution of not before. Let’s not kid ourselves in to thinking that the 70s and 80s and before that too were the bastion of environmental awareness and everything was wonderful in the garden of Eden because we collected milk bottles to be recycled because it wasn’t.

But rather than doing the usual blame game and blame each other and hark back to when everything was perfect, maybe people need to start to work together to find solutions to a very serious issue because one day it will be too late. Sadly, despite being an intelligent species, we will no doubt learn nothing and slowly drive ourselves to extinction rather create a world with a stable and manageable population which will find ways of harnessing new technologies and be able to protect the environment at the same time.
 
Talking about cars, back in the 1970's/80's, not every household owned a car, and if they did, it was usually just the one car shared amongst the house hold. Unlike today where everyone in the house hold seems to now own one or more car, one or more for each member of the household. There are 3 people currently living next door to me and they have 4 cars parked on their driveway. Back in 2019, I visited an attraction near where I used to go to school and I took Jess to show her where I used to live. It used to be a quiet cul-de-sac consisting of only 10 houses, each house had a drive and garage which could park a car. I was amazed on how many cars were now parked down there, there was so many cars, you just couldn't turn around or even park down there, as all the driveways and road was jam packed with cars
 
Talking about cars, back in the 1970's/80's, not every household owned a car, and if they did, it was usually just the one car shared amongst the house hold. Unlike today where everyone in the house hold seems to now own one or more car, one or more for each member of the household. There are 3 people currently living next door to me and they have 4 cars parked on their driveway. Back in 2019, I visited an attraction near where I used to go to school and I took Jess to show her where I used to live. It used to be a quiet cul-de-sac consisting of only 10 houses, each house had a drive and garage which could park a car. I was amazed on how many cars were now parked down there, there was so many cars, you just couldn't turn around or even park down there, as all the driveways and road was jam packed with cars

This is a byproduct of changing lifestyles. With both parents working and eventually their children going out to work, and living at home for much longer than they would of done a couple of generations ago. To add to that you have the poor public transport options. At one time you could get the (not particularly clean or efficient) bus to the rail station to catch the train to work. Likelihood now is that bus no longer exists, or if it does it now encompasses so many other extinct routes it would take so long to get their it’s much quicker to drive to a rail head instead. Sadly this means that everyone in the household would need their own car. At least they are generally more efficient and cleaner now (albeit far far from perfect and we should be encouraging people to make more use of their legs and public transport for local journeys) than the dirty polluting 25mpg rust buckets we were graced with in the 70s and 80s.

I feel however the trials and tribulations and ways of improving the U.K.s transport system is for another thread.
 
Less than a mile from here, the old Mullards valve factory.
Fifty busses a day, and about thirty bike sheds.
Each bike shed held about a hundred bikes, all full on three levels.
Now we all have cars and most of the site is a car park!
Old git me.
I'm not allowed in this topic with what I'm driving.
 
I don't consider the blame game helpful. What's gone before is done and can't be changed. What we should do is collectively see what we can do to stop the climate emergency from this point onwards.
 
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Stop buying all our products from China to reduce their manufacturing output would be a great start. And not just the U.K. - the world needs to bring manufacturing back to their home countries. I actually think it should be a legal requirement for online companies to have to state where a product is made now. I actively try and buy items from the U.K. wherever possible.

However you try and buy anything from the likes of Argos which isn’t made in China you’d be very hard pressed.
 
Stop buying all our products from China to reduce their manufacturing output would be a great start. And not just the U.K. - the world needs to bring manufacturing back to their home countries. I actually think it should be a legal requirement for online companies to have to state where a product is made now. I actively try and buy items from the U.K. wherever possible.

However you try and buy anything from the likes of Argos which isn’t made in China you’d be very hard pressed.

Even when things are 'made in the UK' you can bet that all the bits used to make them were shipped from all over the world anyway!
 
Even when things are 'made in the UK' you can bet that all the bits used to make them were shipped from all over the world anyway!
They should say 'assembled in the uk'

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Oh I know and agree, but I think we could be making a heck of lot closer to home. For example I was looking for a kids paddling pool last summer, everything was made in China. Can we not even make these in the U.K.?!
 
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