Big Business and Climate Change

[matt_xyz]

Did anybody see this the other day? A fascinating but very depressing article outlining how big business has been supporting those who deny climate change. And not just oil companies either, even Philip Morris tobacco. They've probably set back the fight against climate change by years....

Environment Unlimited | Climate change | The denial industry

Matt

[speckled wood]

Sadly I think that this denial will get worse and like so many inconvenient truths people will simply switch off when people do suggest that we have to break this love affair with the motor car and with cheap air travel. Anything that attempts to limits car use will be a vote loser, on the issue of cheap air travel taxing avaviation fuel is achievable but as to whether it will limit travel is doubtful so we have to target areas where we can do something.

1) is to heavily tax short distance air travel. Within the UK there is little real benefit i internal air travel and most of it can be viably be replaced by train.

2) Another area is to clamp down on gaz guzzling cars and to return the emphasis on fuel economy, by this means I believe that we could reduce fuel comsumption by 50%, and this can be achieved without reducing car numbers or any really significant effect on actual "neccessary" car use.

Truthfully a 1.3cc engine can (petrol or diesel) can deliver perfectly adequate performance and is enough to propel a comfortable family car and achieves speeds well in excess of the legal maximum, certainly there is no real justification for cars with engines above 2 Litres.

Targetting the car and air travel issue in this way is not likely to have all that much effect on votes. It might might not be enough but it will be better than the present situation.

3 We also need to look at other energy waste and the most graring example are all these street lamps left in the early illuminating empy roads and streets. If we only switched every other light out it would be a considerable saving.

Another forgotten issue is looking at what encourages people to buy gaz guzzling cars, and how they are marketed. As I said previously we need to return the emphasis to fuel economy, back in the 1970s and 1980s this was the big selling point for most cars, of course the fact that we had a system that most people could understand ie consumption figures in Miles per Gallon rather than as now Litres per 100 Kilometres was a help. Another area that influences and encourages waste are the "Lifestyle" Programmes on Television, where the designers encourage people install enegy wasting spotlighting, feature people with large cars. That the commercial channels do this is not surprising, but should the BBC be doing it?

[honeybee]

See the news about richard branson today?

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by honeybee

See the news about richard branson today?

hes finally relised that beards and mullets aint a good look and hes cutting it all off for charity ?

[honeybee]

3 billion over ten years... profit from his transport going toward climate change issues etc/ renewable power. I've suffered enough over the years on those blinkin virgin trains. Must be feeling guilty from all the pollution his planes cause.

[Mr Mag00]

unfortunatley his billions will be going in to finding bio fuels to continue his flights over the atlantic, i believe they will offer no benefit to the wider world. the bio fules will need to be grown somewhere typically the tropics! his money could be better spent being a little more altruistic and installing all uk houses with a form of microgeneration!


on the point above about cars and taxes. A friend of mine is starting a new business and its better finacially for him to get a nissan novara? huge tank of a machine as a business expense with 5 seats than a family car. he will not use the mahoosive truck like capabilities of the vehicle but he will save somewhere in the order of 5grand a year. no wonder there are so many mahoosive suv vehicles on our roads these days. its crackers!

[honeybee]

[quote=Mr Mag00]unfortunatley his billions will be going in to finding bio fules to continue his flights over the atlantic, i believe they will offer no benefit to the wider world. the bio fules will need to be grown somewhere typically the tropics! his money could be better spent being a little more altruistic and installing all uk houses with a form of microgeneration!


True...why can't he buy us all a couple of solar panels

[Mr Mag00]

i only speak the truth!

[matt_xyz]

Unfortunately, the uncomfortable truth is that we could cut the UK's greenhouse emissions to zero and it would have little impact on climate change (other than by perhaps encouraging other countries to also tackle it). The big problem areas are the US, India and China, although the latter 2 are unlikely to take the problem seriously unless countries such as the US and UK are seen to tackle emissions.

The good news is that Bush finally seems to have accepted the existence of climate change and will shortly be proposing plans to cut emissions. Too little too late, but better than nothing.

Matt

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

Unfortunately, the uncomfortable truth is that we could cut the UK's greenhouse emissions to zero and it would have little impact on climate change (other than by perhaps encouraging other countries to also tackle it). The big problem areas are the US, India and China, although the latter 2 are unlikely to take the problem seriously unless countries such as the US and UK are seen to tackle emissions.

The good news is that Bush finally seems to have accepted the existence of climate change and will shortly be proposing plans to cut emissions. Too little too late, but better than nothing.

Matt

The Terminator in California is also sueing several car companies (including Ford, GM, Honda, Chrysler and Nissan) for the environmental damage that their car cause. Someone also needs to deal with the Hummers (big fat SUV not Hawk Moth) used in CSI Miami.

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by speckled wood

The Terminator in California is also sueing several car companies (including Ford, GM, Honda< Chrysel and Nissan) for the environmental damage theirs car cause.

California is really taking the bull by the horns, it appears this is one of the reasons for Bush's U turn (Al Gore's film may have helped as well).

Matt

[Alan]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

California is really taking the bull by the horns, it appears this is one of the reasons for Bush's U turn (Al Gore's film may have helped as well).

Matt

Yes but I believe most of the proposed measures wont come in until 2020!

Alan

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by Alan

Yes but I believe most of the proposed measures wont come in until 2020!

Alan

I think the measures are intended to reduce industrial carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent by 2020 rather than actually coming into force in 2020.

Matt

[speckled wood]

Originally Posted by Mr Mag00

on the point above about cars and taxes. A friend of mine is starting a new business and its better finacially for him to get a nissan novara? huge tank of a machine as a business expense with 5 seats than a family car. he will not use the mahoosive truck like capabilities of the vehicle but he will save somewhere in the order of 5grand a year. no wonder there are so many mahoosive suv vehicles on our roads these days. its crackers!

Just been looking at an anti SUV site in USA. Over there because the Hummer weighs more than 8,500 lbs it does not have to comply with fuel efficiency messures and also qualifies for a huge tax discount

[mickoking]

The attitude towards global warming is a lot more enlightened in the UK than it is in Australia. Our PM, John Howard refuses to sign the Kyoto protocol because he thinks it may harm the economy (and because Bush has also refused to sign it). Recently we have had Al Gore and Sir Richard critisizing our governments recalcitrant attitude toward global warming. It is actually quite embarrasing and very sad that our government is so narrow minded.

We have lots of sunlight in this country and many areas have lots of wind, for energy. but our government only talks about nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel. The only time they seem to acknowledge global warming seriously in when they try to justify nuclear energy (the uranium lobby is at it again).

We can see the effects of global warming here and now, but the sad fact that short term economic gain, to some, is more important than the future of our planet. I will let you ponder how crazy this all is.

Cheers, Mick

[Paul mabbott]

And over here it is calculated that all the people buying energy efficient cars have seen their carbon savings wiped out by the smaller number of people buying bigger four-wheeled drives ....

Originally Posted by speckled wood

Just been looking at an anti SUV site in USA. Over there because the Hummer weighs more than 8,500 lbs it does not have to comply with fuel efficiency messures and also qualifies for a huge tax discount

[Earth Hart]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

And over here it is calculated that all the people buying energy efficient cars have seen their carbon savings wiped out by the smaller number of people buying bigger four-wheeled drives ....

As has been said before on another thread, the emissions we shuck out at ground level take between 20-30yrs to reach the upper atmosphere though I've been told that methane is lighter than CO2 & gets up there in 10-20yrs.

Aviation is by far the worst polluter as the emissions are almost there.

And when people talk of Bio-fuels they forget that when burnt, it too gives off CO2. To make enough fuel for major use, we'd need to cover Southern England in the crop, where would we get our food stuffs, ah yes, we'll fly them over. Also remember Palm oil & the Orang Utan, after all, it's Bio-fuel that is distroying the rainforests of Indonesia now.

The gas-guzzling 4x4s & other large cars need taxing more but that will be of little help if the oil, gas & coal companies are not taxed more for getting the stuff out of the earth.

The Polluter pays, yes, but start at the top not the bottom.

I wonder when Arnie will take on Exonn, BP & Shell and the other oil companies?

[matt_xyz]

Originally Posted by Earth Hart

As has been said before on another thread, the emissions we shuck out at ground level take between 20-30yrs to reach the upper atmosphere though I've been told that methane is lighter than CO2 & gets up there in 10-20yrs.

Aviation is by far the worst polluter as the emissions are almost there.

This latter quote mirrors a quote made by the spokesperson for the climate change protestors at East Midlands Airport the other day. He claimed that aviation was the biggest contributor to climate change.

I'm afraid that simply isn't true. I'm not playing down the environmental problems caused by aviation, but we have to keep the problem in perspective.

As I indicated on another thread, aviation is estimated to currently contribute 3-4% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. As suggested above, however, aviation emissions do contribute disproportionately to actual warming. However, even taking this into account the IPPC estimates that, by 2050, aviation will contribute 6% to total warming (radiative forcing as it's called). [the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which represents the scientific consensus on climate change]

so aviation is a problem when it comes to climate change but it's misleading to think that it's the biggest problem.

Matt

[Earth Hart]

Originally Posted by matt_xyz

This latter quote mirrors a quote made by the spokesperson for the climate change protestors at East Midlands Airport the other day. He claimed that aviation was the biggest contributor to climate change.

I'm afraid that simply isn't true. I'm not playing down the environmental problems caused by aviation, but we have to keep the problem in perspective.

As I indicated on another thread, aviation is estimated to currently contribute 3-4% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. As suggested above, however, aviation emissions do contribute disproportionately to actual warming. However, even taking this into account the IPPC estimates that, by 2050, aviation will contribute 6% to total warming (radiative forcing as it's called). [the IPCC is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which represents the scientific consensus on climate change]

so aviation is a problem when it comes to climate change but it's misleading to think that it's the biggest problem.

Matt

Matt, I didn't say biggest but worst, because the planes take it up there quicker than we do down here & hence, speeding up the process. If we cap emissions down here now, it would be 25yrs say, before we would see the effects. So the emissions that were being shucked out when my daughter was born, she's 32, have only just reached the level where they can do serious damage.

IPCC, Hadley, Tyndall and other CC research centres need to look at the Whole Picture as well as what they see directly in front of them now. Back in the early '80s, I wrote about the Gulf Stream for a local mag, Sussex Nature, and I got laughed out of court. Now, I'm the one who's laughing, well actually I'm not, I'm serious. Most scientists forgot that salt water holds heat longer than fresh water and it wasn't until recently that research has been done on the THC (Thermohaline Circulation) & the effect of all that fresh water coming into the northern latitudes. It took them over twenty years to see what I saw in 1982, & I'm no scientist I just have my schoolboy physics & my cookery.

There are so many possitive & negative feedbacks that we have to look at it as a Whole, if we don't, well...

[matt_xyz]

I agree EH, although it's fair to say that the IPCC incorporates the world's leading climate scientists and they do take into account the multitude of known feedback effects, both positive and negative.

Matt

[Earth Hart]

Yes; but it has taken a long time to get here. Having 2 grandchildren, I often wonder what our Earth will be like when they are my age & I'm not very optiministic. Sadly, there has to be a Major shift, not only in human awareness but also in economics. The shareholders' profits will be no good if life takes a turn for the worst. They can't take their wealth with them & I don't think they're even aware of their own grandchildren.
Cheer me up someone.

EH