Filled up with diesel today

[Steve Maskery]

Burning wood does not contribute to to CO2 levels in the same way that fossil fuels do. Wood is carbon neutral, overall, and inthe very short term. Fossil fuels are only carbon neutral over geological spans. The problem is that FFs were created over a period of millennia, during which time they were locking up carbon into the ground, but we are releasing that same CO2 into the atmosphere over a period of just a couple of centuries.
The problem with burning wood is not the CO2 issue, it's one of sustainable production. Replacing FF with wood would mean we would very soon run out of forests. We simply use more energy than we can grow. We need to learn how to live using less energy, something few of us really want to embrace in reality.
S

 

[Phil Pascoe]

This is worth a thought while we're on roads and fuel - two respected professors brought out a report a few years ago that said that use of road fuel in the UK would fall by an estimated 10% if all pointless obstructions such as pinch points and speed humps were removed and every road was maintained in perfect condition. That is one hell of a lot of fuel.

 

[Jacob]

Only 2 or 3 hundred years ago and the world used virtually zero fossil fuel.

What did they use? Wood? Burn all the trees and increase atmospheric CO2 levels. No wood, no woodwork, no UK Workshop forum. No Jacob.

Carry on using fossil fuels.

Transport was by wind and animal power. Where wood was used for fuel (e.g. early iron industry) it tended to be conserved (coppicing, planting etc). The big timber users (navy) did the same and owned big areas of forest. As a rule people who find valuable uses for wood tend to conserve it.
Most forest clearance (then and now) is for farming - which brings you to one of the big boring issues - vegetarian diet requires about a tenth of the farmland. We should all go veggie :roll: .

 

[AndyT]

So as oil becomes harder to get, we will have to start to do without plastics, won't we? No plastics = no insulators = no electronics! Potentially a far more disruptive change than making transport expensive.

I think we'll get even better at recycling plastic and other things so we'll not do without it. In addition we will almost certainly create substitutes for plastic if we have to - IMO

Do you have any suggestions on what raw material the subsitutes for plastic will be made out of? I wish I shared your optimism.

 

[markturner]

It's too cheap by far. We are living in cloud cuckoo land with climate change well on the way - to which the only solution is to stop using fossil fuels altogether, though it is probably too late.
Boring though!
NB in real terms compared to the cost of other stuff running a vehicle is historically very cheap.

That is such a simplistic and naive view...there are currently little or no Practical alternatives to diesel and petrol engines. Putting up the price to levels where ordinary people cant afford it will have a seriously detrimental affect on the economy and normal peoples lives - think of the knock on effect on food prices and everything else that depends on fuel. It's like cigarette duty - has the massive price hikes stopped those who want to smoke buying and using? Of course not. Smoking is still a massive problem with the young and a sizeable segment of the population. It's not us in this country that are the problem with climate change , we at least are doing something about it - the problem is the huge swath of emerging economies like Brazil, India, and China that pay little or no regard to any attempts at limiting output or pollution or consumption. Sometime, pretty soon, the fossil fuels will run out and hopefully by then, we will have got some alternatives in place. Currently we don't.

And your idea of us all reverting to some kind of medieval subsistence existence is just laughable....maybe practical for a few people in the country, what about the 26 million people in London? :roll: #-o

I know, lets plant over the roads and turn all the rich people out of their houses, and give them to the homeless while we are at it......

Plus, 200 years ago, there was a tiny fraction of the number of people in the world there is now and only us as a industrial nation - situation now simply cannot be compared to then.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

That is such a simplistic and naive view...there are currently little or no Practical alternatives to diesel and petrol engines. Putting up the price to levels where ordinary people cant afford it will have a seriously detrimental affect on the economy and normal peoples lives

I would say it is not so much simplistic as fundamental. That peoples' lives might be worse without fossil fuels, and that the economy would suffer is of course right, but that does not change either the finite amount of reserves, or the impact on the environment of using them.

It's not us in this country that are the problem with climate change , we at least are doing something about it - the problem is the huge swath of emerging economies like Brazil, India, and China that pay little or no regard to any attempts at limiting output or pollution or consumption

I disagree most vigorously. I am sure Chinese, Brazilians and Indians consume less per capita than we do. They do create a lot of pollution making the goods that WE consume though. We have contracted out our pollution to China along with the manufacturing.

 

[Peter T]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/oil/9867659/Why-the-world-isnt-running-out-of-oil.html

 

[Jacob]

It's too cheap by far. We are living in cloud cuckoo land with climate change well on the way - to which the only solution is to stop using fossil fuels altogether, though it is probably too late.
Boring though!
NB in real terms compared to the cost of other stuff running a vehicle is historically very cheap.

That is such a simplistic and naive view...there are currently little or no Practical alternatives to diesel and petrol engines. Putting up the price to levels where ordinary people cant afford it will have a seriously detrimental affect on the economy and normal peoples lives

Not as much as the detrimental effects of climate change where life as we know it is likely to be radically changed

.....not us in this country that are the problem with climate change , we at least are doing something about it - the problem is the huge swath of emerging economies like Brazil, India, and China that pay little or no regard to any attempts at limiting output or pollution or consumption.

Per capita its USA first, Europe (us) second, who are the worst consumers by far so anything we do is significant

...
And your idea of us all reverting to some kind of medieval subsistence existence is just laughable.........

Not my idea. Where did you get that from? Read what I wrote. :roll:
The point is - things are changing and it's up to us to decide whether to simply ignore it or attempt to do something.
Personally I don't think anything is likely to be done - we will find ourselves back in the middle ages whether we like it or not.

 

[Jacob]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/oil/9867659/Why-the-world-isnt-running-out-of-oil.html

Running out of oil isn't the issue. It's be a good thing if we did but it seems unlikely.

 

[Peter T]

So if the oil and gas is not going to run out, and man made climate change is discredited, what's the problem?

 

[RogerS]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/oil/9867659/Why-the-world-isnt-running-out-of-oil.html

Running out of oil isn't the issue. It's be a good thing if we did but it seems unlikely.

Jeez....I take you off Ignore to see what you're on about and what do I find...

It's be a good thing if we did but it seems unlikely

Christ, Jacob, you talk some bollo x from time to time but this statement? It is way off the end of the scale on the Bollockometer.....even for you.

And you have the nerve to tell Markturner that you never said or implied "And your idea of us all reverting to some kind of medieval subsistence existence".

 

[Jacob]

IPCC report: Scientists are 95% certain humans are responsible for climate change, is today's news, unless you read the Mail, Telegraph etc.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

IPCC report: Scientists are 95% certain humans are responsible for climate change, is today's news, unless you read the Mail, Telegraph etc.

Question - how does the climate work? What drives it's natural changes?

 

[Jacob]

IPCC report: Scientists are 95% certain humans are responsible for climate change, is today's news, unless you read the Mail, Telegraph etc.

Question - how does the climate work? What drives it's natural changes?

Good question. I suggest you start googling as the answer is long and complicated. The interesting bit is the physics of water and biosphere where life itself is part of the equation - it is both cause and effect.

 

[kreed]

Going back to the original point.....
I used to roam around three counties in my pursuit of wildlife to photograph. I pride myself that 99.9% of my printed work is local, something that everyone can see if they open their eyes.
However, as the cost of fuel went up so my mileage came down by creating a 'mountain to Mohammed' situation in my garden. I now do a quarter of the mileage I used to.
My point being, if you make it more restrictive, be more ingenius in your desire to achieve the end result.
I've listened to all the arguments but I'm convinced Joe Public is shafted one way or the other regardless.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

IPCC report: Scientists are 95% certain humans are responsible for climate change, is today's news, unless you read the Mail, Telegraph etc.

Question - how does the climate work? What drives it's natural changes?

Good question. I suggest you start googling as the answer is long and complicated. The interesting bit is the physics of water and biosphere where life itself is part of the equation - it is both cause and effect.

Actually, the correct answer is, "I don't know".

There's a very simple reason for that - nobody knows. Not even the 'climate scientists'.

How any governmental or scientific body can come up with statements like those of the IPCC, when they don't know how the climate works, is somewhat baffling. Every piece of 'evidence' they put forward has been (scientifically) demonstrated to be flawed. The computer models on which they place so much emphasis are highly complex, and contain so many assumptions and 'fiddle factors' (as they are known in engineering circles) that they can be made to reach any conclusion those running them care to reach. They predicted accelerated warming - we've had a decade and a half of global cooling.

The problem is the word 'belief' is used too much in the climate debate. 'Belief' should not enter into it. By all means formulate theory - such as the theory that carbon dioxide atmospheric concentration increase will accelerate warming - but then test the theories objectively (that particular theory doesn't hold up - Antarctic ice core analysis has shown that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration increases lag warming events, and have never immediately preceded them). That isn't happening - at least, not by the 'official' bodies. Their scientific credibility has not only been questioned, it's been fairly comprehensively demolished. However, careers, reputations and fortunes are at stake, so there's no backing down. Government funding of much climate science is dependent on proving 'man-made global warming' - so the scientists will please their paymasters, won't they? It's also very handy for some in several governments to have a useful tax-raising excuse - again, down to belief rather than demonstrable, unshakeable fact.

By the way - there's another theory. The planet's population is increasing, and they'll all have to eat. The increase in carbon dioxide concentration may even be a good thing - plants need it to grow. A commercial technique used in large glass-houses to vastly accelerate plant growth is to slightly increase the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in the glasshouse (not so much as to be noticable to humans working in them); the same might help to increase plant growth globally. Is the theory correct? Haven't a clue - but it has been put forward as a serious scientific proposition.

Until we have worked out how the climate works (which may take some time as it's clearly a very complex interaction of many factors), we can't say for sure what the climate will or won't do in the future. However, we know that it has changed constantly for several billion years, and will in all probability continue to do so. It's by no means proven that mankind's activities have a substantial modifying effect on natural climate change, despite what the IPCC might like us to 'believe'.

 

[markturner]

No one is denying we are responsible to a greater ( or lesser ) degree ( depending on your interpretation & undertstanding of the facts and figures ) for part of the climate changes on earth, which is cyclical and natural in itself. Of course we are, and we do need to do something about it, which as one of the worlds leading economies we are - witness the rafts of legislation on car manufacturers, industry, our housing stock, congestion charge etc etc......its a massive political hot potato.

But countries like I mentioned DO NOT have any of these measures in place and are polluters on a massive scale. And we have not exported our problem - they imported themselves by undercutting our industries with cheap labour and unregulated industrial expansion, that incidentally was a big part of the decline of manufacturing industry in Britain, with all the attendant social issues that came with it. They are sucking up the worlds resources at a far higher rate than us, to fuel their own economic booms. We have played our part for sure, but when it became apparent what was happening, we at least did the right thing. People will argue that we have done enough of the right thing, but like everything else, that's a matter of opinion, not fact.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

IPCC report: Scientists are 95% certain humans are responsible for climate change, is today's news, unless you read the Mail, Telegraph etc.

Jacob, you do not occupy the moral high ground just because you read left wing press. It was reported in the Mail, The Times, The Telegraph and probably everywhere else. Anyway, "Scientists are 95% certain" and "Scientist have proved" as any competent scientist will tell you, are not the same thing, whatever any of us do or don't believe.

 

[graduate_owner]

To come back to the original thread - the cost of road fuel:-
In 1968 I worked as a labourer while on holiday from college, and was paid 6/8 an hour. That's 3 hours work for £1. During that time 3 gallons of petrol cost £1.
So 1 gallon was roughly equivalent to 1 hour's basic wages, today about £6.30
And today's cost per gallon of petrol at about £1.39 per litre - £6.25

So I reckon road fuel is about the same as it was 45 years ago. I think the comparative price must have dropped in the 90's and has now caught up. Of course it may outstrip the wage comparison once the recession is over and the world demand for crude increases, but at the moment it seems to be about on par with late 60's prices. BUT it does seem very expensive when you fill up - I can't argue with that.

I read a while ago that a number of car manufacturers are now diverting their research away from battery power - seems a shame, and a backward step.

K

 

[Peter T]

IPCC report: Scientists are 95% certain humans are responsible for climate change, is today's news, unless you read the Mail, Telegraph etc.

More half truth and obfuscation from the IPCC.

Hardly news!!