Schools

[Digit]

I own a car Laura because I have little choice. I actually live on a bus route with a bus shelter immediately opposite my home.
Bus into town every hour on the hour with a return on the half hour, so I either have half an hour to accomplish what I need to do or one and half hours.
I like public transport but with osteo arthritis of the spine, being bounced up and down in a bus is murder!
The government pays lip service to cleaner/greener living only, I'm afraid.
I am not knocking you when I point out that Vegan living is not a sustainable life form in a truly 'green' world. Animal bye products are pretty well the only alternative to artificial fertilisers.
In addition animal bye products are again the only alternative to certain other oil based products.
The first essential to a truly 'Green' existence would be to take all necessary steps to reduce our population, on our own land we can only support about one third of our present population with something approaching our present standard of living.
Can you see our governments doing that?
Teaching in schools about climate change without a sense of responsibility won't make much difference, and I doubt that it will aid many into employment either.

Roy.

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

The first essential to a truly 'Green' existence would be to take all necessary steps to reduce our population

Now your talking my language! I'm a believer in the need for a minimum 25% (but preferably 80%) reduction in world population across the board - no national/ethnic/religious or socio-economic preferences or exceptions.

But back to the the CC debate. I'm as cynical as (perhaps more than) the next man. But I don't believe it's governments jumping on a bandwagon to raise taxes. Quite the opposite, I said earlier that I thought people who believe in it may deny to serve other purposes. Leaving aside my personal feelings regarding George Bush (to avoid political conflict), it's clear that he is an intelligent man. I believe he sees and understands the issues of CC but knows the importance of the string-pullers in big oil; he wouldn't do anything to upset them too badly.

Phil

PS: Landfill sites ARE running out. I used to work for geological consultancy in Usk. One of our branches was environmental geology - an important aspect of finding sites to dispose of waste without icrap leaching into our valuable water resources.

 

[Digit]

Granted about water course Phil, but not the rest.
If you have recently purchased some glass, sand, cement, bricks, tiles, lead, putty, coal, clay, terra cotta, Aluminium, copper, tin, porcelain, steel etc, somewhere in this country you have contributed to a hole in the ground.
Currently extraction of all kinds is running at slightly more than 100000 cubic metres/annum.
That's a big hole!
Prior to the EU directive this would have been back filled, topped off with soil and returned to farming, now we are producing a lot of angling sites.

Roy.

 

[Dave S]

This is probably a really bad idea as it’s my first post on this forum and I’m probably going to alienate a bunch of people. I was planning to introduce myself with a piece about the nice little Record No. 4 with the Stay Set backer that I got off E Bay, but I simply couldn’t let this pass, so here goes.

Climate change is a CON. There I’ve said it.

It’s a myth that’s perpetrated by pseudo-scientists, greedy for huge grants to continue their research, and by politicians ever eager to find new ways to raise taxes.

The Earth’s climate has been changing since the Earth came into existence, and will continue to do so, regardless on human intervention.

Peter.

PS. Great forum, by the way.

Most people tend to get a few posts under their belts before they start slagging off other members. Perhaps you would like to enlighten us as to your own vocation - maybe someone would like to question your own professional integrity.

Dave

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Currently extraction of all kinds is running at slightly more than 100000 cubic metres/annum.
That's a big hole!
Roy.

Agreed that's a big hole. I trust your statistics but would ask if you know the equivalent volume of household and industrial waste that currently goes to landfill. I don't and truthfully I can't be bothered to find out.

On the other hand, to me, it's intuitive that you can't just keep chucking stuff (particularly in the unregulated way it happened in the past) in holes in the ground. Remember 15 years ago when the government suggested mapping all the old brown-field sites and landfills for hazardous waste - it was stopped by the vested interest for fear of land-blight!

 

[Dave S]

Good evening Peter, I don't think you'll alienate anyone just for stating a point of view, good for you, wether or not we agree or disagree at least members will know where they stand with you, there's a lot to be said for that.

Happy posting and good luck with your No 4.

Regards,

Rich.

Yes, but he hasn't just stated a point of view - he has made a fallacious and highly insulting comment about the professional integrity of a very large number of people, a small percentage of whom may belong to this forum.

Dave

 

[Dave S]

So how come is it that the governments and leaders all jump on the CC band wagon maybe i'm being a little cynical but the word easy chance to tax comes to mind.

Whatever it may be, 40 odd years hardly seems like jumping on the bandwagon.

Dave

 

[Digit]

The answer to that question Phil is what do we want to dump?
The amount of energy required to recycle many materials, glass, metals, plastics etc is often much less than to process them from the base materials. If we really meant what we say and recycled the economic ones we would apparently still end up with plenty of boating ponds!
Without any great effort we could change over to heavy paper bags from the supermarkets, there would be an energy profit there as against the plastic bag, we could easily go back to waxed cartons or glass bottles for milk, with again an energy profit
I could run a considerable list.
Let me give you just one example of the present lunacy. My wife and I recycle all that we can and have done so since before the present bandwagon. To do so we have to take the stuff to the local recycling centre.
Why?
Simple.
If we put our domestic waste into separate plastic sacks, as supplied by our council, it is collected on a Friday morning, when the dustmen tip all the bags into the back of the same crusher!
You tell me. Do you honestly think that the sacks survive that intact?
And again, does nobody else see the irony of recycling waste into plastic bags that will still be around after I'm gone?
And yet again, how many millions of tonnes of rubbish are we currently shipping abroad?
Save the planet my foot!

Roy.

 

[Rich]

Roy, I could have thought of a better part of ones anatomy to describe your displeasure.

However, no one seems to have addressed your OP? concerning CC being part of the national curriculum.

Regards,

Rich.

 

[Rich]

Good evening Peter, I don't think you'll alienate anyone just for stating a point of view, good for you, wether or not we agree or disagree at least members will know where they stand with you, there's a lot to be said for that.

Happy posting and good luck with your No 4.

Regards,

Rich.

Yes, but he hasn't just stated a point of view - he has made a fallacious and highly insulting comment about the professional integrity of a very large number of people, a small percentage of whom may belong to this forum.

Dave

Then prove him wrong, Dave, That's what the forums for.

Regards,

Rich.

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Roy,

I agree we have too much, wasteful packaging and that the implementation of recycling is patchy at best. But that doesn't mean dumping iour waste in the ground is right. Perhaps incineration will get a boost.

What we need is a good recession with the associated drop in consumption!
Phil

 

[Digit]

You mean we're supposed to stay on topic Rich? Blast! :lol:
All that's missing here is a few pints.

Roy.

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

Rich,

Ok I'll respond to the OP.

I read on the Sky net today that as part of a new curriculum climate change is to be taught in schools from the new term.
Anyone know anything about it?

Roy.

If this is right, it's wrong! The 3 R's, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography, French and Latin. that's all we need in a National Curriculum. :lol:

 

[Digit]

Based on the complaints down south of me Phil I think I would prefer a landfill site to an incinerator.
Unless rubbish is burnt at high temperatures dioxins, amongst other undesirables, are produced.
And again Phil, it takes a lot of energy to run a high temp incinerator!
Energy equates to pollution.

Roy.

 

[Rich]

Hi, Phil, a good reply to the OP, however I would add English lit.

Rich.

 

[Good Surname or what ?]

It's a tough problem, Roy. Let's hope at least some of our leaders are far-sighted and have something other than their own interests at heart.

When Kennedy set his moon-landing goal in the '60s he challenged the best engineers in the world to solve incredible problems. In another job I knew some of them. One commented to me in 1994 that nothing had seemed so exciting since 1969. He was then, in 1994, number 2 in a $4billion enterprise.

If Bush/Obama/McCain were to set the appropriate goals for the 20teens who knows what problems we might solve.

Night - I'm back to watching the news and thinking about router templates :?
Phil

 

[Digit]

Absolutely! I had a very small part in the race but there will never be another time like it. But as you say, it shows what we can do.
I was particularly impressed when JFK commented that we should do this, not because it is easy, but because it is difficult.
Mars here we come! I hope!

Roy.

 

[Rich]

Absolutely! I had a very small part in the race but there will never be another time like it. But as you say, it shows what we can do.
I was particularly impressed when JFK commented that we should do this, not because it is easy, but because it is difficult.
Mars here we come! I hope!

Roy.

No fear, I reckon Mars is where our politicians originate from.

Rich. :lol:

 

[Peter T]

Good evening Peter, I don't think you'll alienate anyone just for stating a point of view, good for you, wether or not we agree or disagree at least members will know where they stand with you, there's a lot to be said for that.

Happy posting and good luck with your No 4.

Regards,

Rich.

Yes, but he hasn't just stated a point of view - he has made a fallacious and highly insulting comment about the professional integrity of a very large number of people, a small percentage of whom may belong to this forum.

Dave

But this is my strongly held belief; should I not be allowed to express it? And why is it a fallacy? It could well be true.

Are we so politically correct that we must temper our beliefs and opinions so as to avoid causing offence to anyone?

If that's the case, maybe the advocates of man-made CC should do the same!

 

[Smudger]

Roy, I could have thought of a better part of ones anatomy to describe your displeasure.

However, no one seems to have addressed your OP? concerning CC being part of the national curriculum.

Regards,

Rich.

Well, if I may - it has been included in the Geography national curriculum for some time. Geography teachers are the people who can teach it. And do.

I'm not sure what the story is actually about - perhaps some new angle. But as a topic, it has been there for years and has been enthusiastically taught (along with a range of 'eco-issues') by geographers for some time.

But now I expect that we will be told that teachers are, like 'scientists' a bunch of useless tossers who ought to be drawing the dole...