Plastic on the way out

[Cheshirechappie]

Chopping them down and replanting, of course.
As is done in many parts of the world concerned with sustainable timber production.
Can have less than zero carbon footprint as timber made products are a form of carbon sequestration.

A less than zero carbon footprint would make the problem worse. Plants need carbon dioxide to grow. Less carbon dioxide, slower growth rates.

There speaks a man who has zero understanding of climate change basics!

....or maybe one with some understanding of basic science....

 

[Jacob]

Nope. Little understanding of basic science. Google "carbon cycle" for starters, then have a look at the masses of climate change stuff. https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-gu ... ate-change

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I didn't mention climate change - that's a different question. I just said that plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and they grow faster when there's more carbon dioxide available to them. That's basic science.

 

[Jacob]

I didn't mention climate change - that's a different question. I just said that plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and they grow faster when there's more carbon dioxide available to them. That's basic science.

This is true.
But you've missed the basic climate change cause, which is excess CO2 (and other green house gasses). Plants aren't growing fast enough!
The two solutions being looked at are basically how to generate less CO2 and/or how to sequester carbon (carbon storage etc).
Wood itself is "sequestered" carbon, until it is burnt or decays.

 

[Cheshirechappie]

I didn't mention climate change - that's a different question. I just said that plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and they grow faster when there's more carbon dioxide available to them. That's basic science.

This is true.

Thank you.

However, there's a conundrum, here. Less carbon dioxide available to plants means slower growth rates, which won't help if we end up trying to harvest wood at a greater rate. If we do that, we presumably want re-growth rates as fast as we can get them - which will be helped by more available carbon dioxide.

 

[heimlaga]

Cheschirechappie.
Reality is that the climate is going mad because of too much carbon dioxide in the air. Up here we see it all the time. The climate is really out of whack.
Hence it is uf utmost importance to lowerthe content of carbon dioxide in the athmosphere.

To that end we need to grow more trees. Basickly we need to plant trees on all unused land where trees can grow. Everywhere. Even your back garden may be big enough for a tree or two.
Most of Europe was wooded in the past before mankind came with axes and fire so essentially nature would only recover what it once was.
Those trees would produce lot of timber in the long term even with the more moderate growth rates you get with a healthy content of carbon dioxide.

I have often toyed with the idea of keeping as much carbon as possible out of cirkulation by keeping it tied up in trees and timber:
In England and Wales and the Scottish lowlands you have a very suitable climate for growing oaks. An oak tree may stand for 500 or 1000 years and during all that time the consumed carbon dioxide is tied up in it. Or the oaks could be harvested and replanted when they are old enough and the timber could be used to build timberframed buildings that stand for several more centuries and tie up the carbon dioxide for all that time.
Further north we can plant pine and spruce and birch. Birches grow fast and rot even faster so the best way to tie up carbon dioxide in them is to harvest and replant and make furniture out of them. Birch is technically an excellent timber for furniture it is just not trendy and has no posh associations. Spruce and pine can be used to build log houses which are proven to last for many centuries and during all that time all that timber with it's carbon content is out of circulation.

Just an idea.....

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Perhaps; but we're actually quite good at recycling in the UK compared to some nations. How many UK rivers do you see choked with plastic waste? ?

Every time I open the dry dock gate at work to let a boat in I have to fish out the plastic bags and plastic bottles that float in. The bottles make a hell of a racket if they get to the pump impeller and the pump needs emptying and clearing. Also ALL our rivers are infected with micro plastics, including our drinking water, the effects of this are unknown but it doesn't go anywhere, it just accumulates.

 

[Jacob]

I didn't mention climate change - that's a different question. I just said that plants need carbon dioxide to grow, and they grow faster when there's more carbon dioxide available to them. That's basic science.

This is true. edited!!!!

Thank you.

However, there's a conundrum, here. Less carbon dioxide available to plants means slower growth rates, which won't help if we end up trying to harvest wood at a greater rate. If we do that, we presumably want re-growth rates as fast as we can get them - which will be helped by more available carbon dioxide.

But you've missed the basic climate change cause. If more carbon dioxide was the solution there wouldn't be a problem.
But it isn't and there is.
It's not that difficult to understand .

And you can't just blame it all on Johnny Foreigner either! :lol: :lol:

 

[El Barto]

Agreed! For instance, London hitting its air pollution threshold for 2018... in February. Granted this isn’t plastic related but it’s certainly part of the same problem... and we are part of that problem.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/london-p ... evels-2018

 

[AndyT]

Just picking up on the question of microplastics pollution in UK rivers - this article says that the River Tame, near Manchester, has the highest microplastic pollution yet discovered anywhere in the world.

Maybe further checks will find even higher levels elsewhere, but this bit of evidence is worrying.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... scientists

 

[Cheshirechappie]

The original subject of this thread was the replacing of plastic use by the use of wood. I've tried to stick to that subject.

However, those wanting to debate climate change instead may like to consider the following.

1) Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased significantly in recent years, particularly so since about WW2. However, atmospheric temperature has not followed the same path - it has increased (from a minimum in the 18th century) but in the last two decades, has levelled; it has barely increased at all.

2) There are quite a few computer models of climate, all of which have predicted atmospheric temperature increases, some of them fairly severe. As noted above, the actual measured data has shown slow increase in temperature until about the 1990s, then a levelling. If the climate models are wrong in their short term predictions, how much confidence should we have in their long term predictive accuracy?

3) We know from ice core data and analysis of the archaeological and historical records that climate since the last ice age has warmed and cooled several times; indeed, it is possible to construct a graph of temperature against time. It shows a fairly regular cycle of warming and cooling, warm periods occurring most lately during the late Iron Age and Roman period, then cooling during the Dark Ages, warming in the early Medieval, cooling again to the Little Ice Age during the 17th and 18th centuries (last Ice Fair on the Thames held in 1805), then warming to the present. If that pattern is followed, we are at the peak of a warm, and are due to begin the slide towards another minimum, which will happen in about 200 years or so. There is some evidence to suggest that may have begun; sunspot activity has almost ceased, signalling a reduction in the energy radiated by the sun, which will have a cooling effect on the earth's climate, for example.

4) We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but we also know that it's potency is low compared to many other greenhouse gasses. One of the most potent is water vapour - clouds.

There is a very great deal we don't know about how the climate works - it hasn't done what our computer models predicted it would, so the science is very far from being 'settled', despite claims in some parts of the media (I'm looking at you, Roger Harrabin). It is unfortunate that so much of the reporting is somewhat less than accurate and considered, but there we are.

PS. Has the Artic melted yet? Al Gore predicted that it would be free of ice by 2014. What actually happened?

Sorry for this diversion into the thorny thickets of 'Climate Change'. I know it's more a religion to some than a science - and that in itself is something of a problem. No amount of quiet statement of facts will dislodge some of the shibboleths, it seems.

Can we get back to the possible merits and demerits and replacing plastic with wood, now?

 

[AndyT]

On a more optimistic note and picking up Jacob's original point, this episode of BBC Radio 4 programme 'Costing the Earth' reports on research in Norway on replacements for plastic in all sorts of applications, using the raw material that Norway is famous for.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09w0g0b

 

[Paddy Roxburgh]

Cheshirechappie, you may find this video interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBF6F4Bi6Sg&t=42s . It discusses all your climate change "sceptic" talking points and other popular ones.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

.....using the raw material that Norway is famous for....

When I read that I knew you meant trees but I couldn't help thinking oil and gas...

I read once that when the UK Forestry Commission was set up nearly 100 years ago after the huge resource-consumption-binge of war (WWI) - they wanted conifers planted, and the two products they envisaged being most in demand were: pit-props and newsprint. The largest customer for UK-produced coal at that time was the Royal Navy. How times have changed.

Needless to say, nobody needs (wooden) pit-props any more and physical newspapers are going out of fashion fast.

I calculated that in the UK, we have about one acre per person - including the bits given over to roads/houses/offices/factories etc. If we are to live sustainably, I reckon that everything each of us needs ought to come from one acre or thereabouts - I think that traditional timber is not really a viable option - maybe industrially-grown biomass of some sort which can be used as fuel and building material?

Cheers, W2S

 

[Rhyolith]

The original subject of this thread was the replacing of plastic use by the use of wood. I've tried to stick to that subject.

However, those wanting to debate climate change instead may like to consider the following.

1) Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased significantly in recent years, particularly so since about WW2. However, atmospheric temperature has not followed the same path - it has increased (from a minimum in the 18th century) but in the last two decades, has levelled; it has barely increased at all.

2) There are quite a few computer models of climate, all of which have predicted atmospheric temperature increases, some of them fairly severe. As noted above, the actual measured data has shown slow increase in temperature until about the 1990s, then a levelling. If the climate models are wrong in their short term predictions, how much confidence should we have in their long term predictive accuracy?

3) We know from ice core data and analysis of the archaeological and historical records that climate since the last ice age has warmed and cooled several times; indeed, it is possible to construct a graph of temperature against time. It shows a fairly regular cycle of warming and cooling, warm periods occurring most lately during the late Iron Age and Roman period, then cooling during the Dark Ages, warming in the early Medieval, cooling again to the Little Ice Age during the 17th and 18th centuries (last Ice Fair on the Thames held in 1805), then warming to the present. If that pattern is followed, we are at the peak of a warm, and are due to begin the slide towards another minimum, which will happen in about 200 years or so. There is some evidence to suggest that may have begun; sunspot activity has almost ceased, signalling a reduction in the energy radiated by the sun, which will have a cooling effect on the earth's climate, for example.

4) We know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but we also know that it's potency is low compared to many other greenhouse gasses. One of the most potent is water vapour - clouds.

There is a very great deal we don't know about how the climate works - it hasn't done what our computer models predicted it would, so the science is very far from being 'settled', despite claims in some parts of the media (I'm looking at you, Roger Harrabin). It is unfortunate that so much of the reporting is somewhat less than accurate and considered, but there we are.

PS. Has the Artic melted yet? Al Gore predicted that it would be free of ice by 2014. What actually happened?

Sorry for this diversion into the thorny thickets of 'Climate Change'. I know it's more a religion to some than a science - and that in itself is something of a problem. No amount of quiet statement of facts will dislodge some of the shibboleths, it seems.

Can we get back to the possible merits and demerits and replacing plastic with wood, now?

I’ll try keep this to the point:

1) What source are you using? And on what scale (refional, continential, global) It has not leveled in the past few decades to my knowledge, but has continued to rise.

2) Slow relative to the past few decades of very rapid warming maybe. Compare the warming trend of the 20th century to other periods in history and the only eras that are half as fast are global extinctions like the permian (excuse spelling).

3) Yes your right there have been several periods of warming and cooling before. Again though its no where near as fast as the 20th century, this is why so many animals are going extinct as a result (and didn’t in previous cases).

4) I think the one thing that is uncertain is exactly how much CO2 contributes to the warming, just because the relationship of the greenhouse effect, other greenhouse gases and other activity (oceans, water vapour creations, trees, etc) is very complex. However its is not in question with the current evidence that these emissions are causing ‘risky’ levels of warming globally.

On a side note, the increase in tempturature also causing more evapouration, thus more water vapour and even more greenhouse effect. Its also worth noting that the natural level lf greenhouse effect is quite high for earth (otherwise would all freeze), its not a bad phenomenon in itself. Its the excessive and rapid change from its current natural state that is dangerous.

Science is a religion.

—————————————————

I would love to see more wood less plastic, for a lot reasons! Not least the litter problem. Wood also has more soul than the genericness of plastic, something we need in our modern lives I think

Also wooden products are something that can be more easily made locally. Who knows a resurgence in wood might help bring more people into the practical arts again.

 

[Jacob]

.......
PS. Has the Artic melted yet? Al Gore predicted that it would be free of ice by 2014. What actually happened?
.....

Interesting to hear from a climate change sceptic - I thought they were extinct!
But no need to ask rhetorical questions - the answers are all out there, though Gore's prediction was slightly, but probably only slightly, premature:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/201 ... ecord-spd/

And no, science is not a religion. Could you achieve moon landings with a religion? (Bring on the moon landing sceptics! )

 

[PAC1]

I have always taken the view that if those of us that believe that climate change is real and man made and we need to act, we may save the human race. If we are wrong then society has arguably spent time and effort dealing with something unnecessarily but they survive albeit arguably a little poorer.
If on the other hand the climate sceptics are wrong then the human race is doomed.
When you carry out the Risk/reward or probability analysis it is a no brainer.
When you look at it like that whether a green or a climate sceptic there is only one logical answer = change our ways or take a massive risk with the planet. Alright those current climate sceptics will not be around to see their folly but presumably many of them have kids.
Oops I got it wrong does not quite cover the explanation to our kids.

 

[El Barto]

.......
PS. Has the Artic melted yet? Al Gore predicted that it would be free of ice by 2014. What actually happened?
.....

Interesting to hear from a climate change sceptic - I thought they were extinct!

I thought they only lived in America :shock: (hammer)

 

[Rhyolith]

I have always taken the view that if those of us that believe that climate change is real and man made and we need to act, we may save the human race. If we are wrong then society has arguably spent time and effort dealing with something unnecessarily but they survive albeit arguably a little poorer.
If on the other hand the climate sceptics are wrong then the human race is doomed.
When you carry out the Risk/reward or probability analysis it is a no brainer.
When you look at it like that whether a green or a climate sceptic there is only one logical answer = change our ways or take a massive risk with the planet. Alright those current climate sceptics will not be around to see their folly but presumably many of them have kids.
Oops I got it wrong does not quite cover the explanation to our kids.

Yes, why take the risk indeed!

You also have to consider what actaully needs to happen to change things, e.g: make things in this country instead shipping things in from china , use solar instead of coal, plant more trees, protect existing woodland, use public transport, etc... the list goes on.

I don’t really agree with any argument I have heard that these sort of things will have a negative effect on the economy. Making things locally would help a great deal with needless CO2 emissions and its something I think most people here would want to happen anyway. Trees are a useful resource and have know health benefits to a population (reducing health care costs etc). Burning coal has known negative health reprocussions which again, will cost in health care and people less able to work.

Further most fossil fuel sources are not in the UK, so we have to ship them in which just sends money out of the country constantly. Sustianable power by its nature (if implemented correctly...) is local and gives the possibily of keeping more money in the country.

Where are the reasons to even think about taking the risk?

 

[MatthewRedStars]

What is that climate change skeptics are so scared of?

Because being in denial about robust science is just bizarre to me. Swearing day is night, left is right, and up is down, and not listening to the deafening roar of the facts.

Why? What is it in peoples brains that make them deny blatant reality?